Declan dismissed his driver, choosing to walk the long gravel driveway on foot. The crushed stone crunched beneath his Italian leather loafers, each step echoing the rapid, irregular pounding of his heart.

As he approached the grand fountain in the center of the motor court, the heavy oak doors of the main house opened. Cassidy stepped out.

She had changed out of her travel attire. She wore a simple cream-colored linen dress, her hair pulled back into an effortless chignon, completely free of the elaborate diamonds and suffocating designer labels he used to insist she wear to Hawthorne galas. She looked ethereal, radiant, and impossibly powerful.

Beside her, standing just inside the covered portico, was an imposing man in a sharp navy suit with an earpiece—clearly private security. Cassidy raised a subtle hand, and the guard remained in the shadows.

She walked down the marble steps toward Declan, stopping ten feet away. The distance between them felt like an ocean.

"Five minutes," Cassidy said, crossing her arms. "The clock started when the gates opened."

Declan swallowed hard, searching her amber eyes for even a glimmer of the woman who used to fall asleep with her head on his chest. There was nothing. Only steel.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Declan’s voice was barely a whisper. "You knew what it meant to me. You knew how much I wanted a family. You left, and you took three of my children with you into hiding."

Cassidy let out a bitter, humorless laugh that cut straight to his ribs. "Your children? Declan, the day I found out I was pregnant was the morning your mother brought that high-priced fertility specialist into our breakfast nook to announce to your entire family that I was biologically incapable of carrying the Hawthorne bloodline."

Declan froze. "What?"

"Don't play dumb," Cassidy snapped, her eyes flashing with sudden fire. "You sat right beside Victoria. You didn't contradict her. When I went to you that night in tears, begging you to stand up to your mother, you told me that a Hawthorne marriage required results, not emotional outbursts. You told me you needed an heir, not an invalid."

"I thought you were crying about the failed IVF!" Declan stammered, blood rushing to his ears. "My mother told me the clinic confirmed the cycle had completely failed! She showed me the lab reports!"

"Your mother paid the clinic director two million dollars to falsify those records," Cassidy said, her voice dropping into a register of chilling clarity. "She wanted me out so you could marry Senator Montgomery’s daughter. And you—in all your brilliant, billionaire wisdom—believed every word she fed you without ever asking your own wife."

Declan felt the world tilt beneath his feet. The foundation of his entire past was splintering into dust.

***