Three days later, I was discharged from St. Catherine’s Medical Center.

We didn't leave through the main entrance where a small contingent of paparazzi had gathered. Arthur had arranged for our private SUV to pick us up directly from the secure underground ambulance bay.

Holding Beatrice securely in her leather-trimmed infant seat, wrapped in a blanket of pristine white wool, I felt the crisp autumn air hit my face for the first time as a mother. The city was moving, indifferent and chaotic, but inside the Bennett bubble, everything was moving with surgical precision.

We didn't return to the TriBeCa penthouse. Arthur and Eleanor had decided that Beatrice and I would spend the first two months at the family estate in Greenwich, Connecticut—forty acres of gated, heavily secured sanctuary away from the vultures and the noise.

Before the driver put the car in gear, Madison’s phone pinged with a notification.

"Well, well, well," Madison murmured, turning her screen toward me. "Look who just showed up in the lobby of St. Catherine's trying to get up to your old room."

The security feed still accessible on Madison’s administrative tablet showed Vanessa Sinclair.

She wasn't in her wheelchair anymore. She was walking, albeit slowly, clutching a worn leather handbag, dressed in an oversized beige trench coat. Her dark hair was pulled into an unkempt bun. Her face, devoid of high-end makeup, looked haggard, sharp, and desperate.

Beside her, leaning against the reception pillar, was Ryan.

"They missed you by ten minutes," Madison said. "Security intercepted them at the private elevator bank."

"Let me hear the audio," I said.

Madison plugged in her AirPods, connected one to the tablet, and handed the other to me.

The grainy audio from the security desk microphone came through clearly.

"...I just need five minutes with Claire!" Vanessa’s voice was high-pitched, vibrating with hysteria. "She is a mother now! She has to understand! You cannot throw a newborn baby onto the street in the middle of October!"

"Ms. Sinclair," the head of hospital security said calmly. "Mrs. Bennett has been discharged. She is no longer on the premises. And you have an active trespass warning from this facility."

"She’s lying!" Vanessa screamed, her voice cracking as several visitors turned to stare. "She’s hiding up there! Ryan, do something! Tell them she has to talk to us!"

Ryan stood two feet behind her, looking like a hollowed-out shell. His clothes were wrinkled, his eyes sunken, his posture entirely broken.

"Vanessa, stop," Ryan muttered, tugging weakly at her sleeve. "She’s gone. It’s over. Let’s just go back to the car."

Vanessa spun on him with a fury so sudden and vicious it made the security officers step forward.

"Shut up, Ryan! Shut your pathetic mouth!" she snarled, slapping his hand away. "You told me you had everything under control! You told me Claire was a doormat who would do whatever you said because she was desperate to keep you! You said she was terrified of being a single mother!"

Ryan recoiled as if he had been struck with an iron bar. "Vanessa... what are you saying? I gave up everything to help you! I ruined my life for you!"

"You gave up nothing!" Vanessa laughed, a wild, mocking sound that echoed through the marble lobby. "You gave me *her* money! You gave me *her* suite! You used her family's name to pretend you were some big Wall Street player, and you don't own a single thing! You're nothing! You're an unemployed fraud!"

"I loved you!" Ryan yelled, his voice cracking with the utter humiliation of having his romantic delusion shattered in front of fifty strangers. "I stood by you after Mark died! I held you every night when you cried!"

"Because you were convenient!" Vanessa shouted back, leaning into his face, her mask completely gone. "Because Mark left me with nothing, and you were the only idiot with access to an open checkbook! Do you think I actually wanted to sleep with you, Ryan? Do you think I wanted your pathetic, guilt-ridden excuses? I wanted the loft! I wanted the nanny! I wanted the thirty-thousand-dollar suite!"

She turned back to the security officers, tears of pure venom streaking her cheeks.

"Tell Claire Bennett that she hasn't won!" Vanessa shrieked toward the empty ceiling. "I am filing for child support against Ryan! I am naming him as the putative father of my child, and every cent she tries to claw back from him will go into court fees! Tell her I hope she chokes on her money!"

"Escort them off the property," the security sergeant ordered cleanly.

The guards took Vanessa by both arms, leading her toward the sliding glass doors while she kicked and screamed, cursing Ryan, cursing me, and cursing the world that had dared to hold her accountable.

Ryan remained standing in the center of the lobby for ten seconds, completely frozen, staring at the floor while the crowd watched him in disgusted silence. Then, slowly, with his shoulders hunched and his head bowed, he walked out alone into the rain.

I took the AirPod out of my ear and handed it back to Madison.

"Drive," I told the chauffeur.

The black SUV pulled out of the garage and accelerated into the afternoon traffic, leaving the wreckage of Ryan Whitmore’s life far behind in our rearview mirror.

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