"I didn't know," Declan breathed, his hands beginning to shake. "Cassidy, I swear on my life... I never knew she did that."

"It doesn't matter what you knew," Cassidy said cold-bloodedly. "What matters is what you did. You had divorce papers drawn up within forty-eight hours. You had Julian offer me a measly two-million-dollar settlement with an airtight non-disclosure agreement. You treated me like a broken appliance you were trading in for a newer model."

Her jaw tightened as unshed tears shimmered in her eyes, though she refused to let them fall.

"Two weeks after I signed your papers and walked out of Manhattan with nothing but my personal clothes, I collapsed in a diner in Savannah," she whispered. "I was hemorrhaging. I was rushed to the emergency room, terrified that I was dying. That was the night the ER doctor told me I wasn't dying—I was carrying triplets. And because of the severe stress and malnutrition I was under, I had an eighty percent chance of losing all three."

Declan felt a sharp, suffocating pain in the center of his chest. He took an involuntary step forward, but Cassidy immediately raised her hand, freezing him in place.

"Don't you dare come near me," she hissed. "You weren't there when I spent four months strapped to a hospital bed on strict pelvic rest, praying every second that their tiny hearts wouldn't stop beating. You weren't there when they were born six weeks premature, weighing barely three pounds each, covered in wires in the neonatal intensive care unit."

"Cassidy..." Declan choked out, tears finally breaking past his defenses, spilling hot down his cheeks. "Please."

"I built my company from a hospital room, Declan," she continued, her voice trembling with the sheer magnitude of her fury. "I used the patent my father left me—the one your mother called 'worthless scrap metal'—and turned it into Vance Logistics. I paid every medical bill myself. I bought this house myself. I rocked them through fevers, kissed their scrapes, and wiped their tears. You contributed nothing but biological material, and you surrendered that the moment you signed your name on the divorce decree."

"I am their father," he pleaded, his voice breaking completely. "You can hate me. You can despise me until the day I die, and God knows I deserve it. But please... don't punish them for my sins. Don't deny them a father who loves them."

"You don't love them," Cassidy said ruthlessly. "You don't even know them."

***