Chapter 1
Chapter 1: The Heartless Ultimatum
Lady Victoria did not look like a woman visiting a hospital room; she looked like an executioner surveying a fallen kingdom. Her silver hair was coiffed into a severe, immaculate twist, and her tailored emerald suit didn't have a single crease. She stopped at the foot of the bed, her sharp, diamond-hard eyes narrowing as they flicked down to the plastic tubing running beneath Chloe's nose, and then to the small, white plastic bassinet parked in the far corner of the room.
The baby—a fragile, beautiful boy born three weeks premature—was sleeping beneath a blue warming light.
"You look pathetic, Chloe," Victoria said, her voice a low, raspy purr that carried the weight of a multi-billion-dollar dynasty. She didn't offer a glass of water. She didn't ask about the pain. She simply pulled a sleek leather document folder from her Chanel handbag and tossed it onto the pristine white sheets near Chloe's trembling feet.
"What... what is this?" Chloe croaked, her voice dry and broken from the intubation tube that had saved her life during the emergency cesarean section.
"It is your exit strategy," Victoria replied, pulling a gold Montblanc pen from her pocket and placing it neatly on top of the folder. "You will sign those papers, surrendering all parental rights to the Sterling estate. You will pack the few cheap belongings you brought into my son’s life, and you will leave the state of New York by midnight. If you do this, five million dollars will be wired to an offshore account in your name. If you do not..."
Victoria paused, leaning over the bed rail until the choking scent of her expensive jasmine perfume filled Chloe's lungs.
"If you do not," Victoria hissed, her features contorting into something ancient and cruel, "I will have the hospital board declare you mentally incompetent due to postpartum psychosis. I will have the police arrest you for the corporate espionage documents Julian found in your apartment. You will go to a maximum-security prison, and my grandson will grow up believing his mother was a unstable thief who abandoned him."
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Chloe's heart monitor began to beep frantically, a wild, erratic rhythm that mirrored the terror exploding in her chest. "Julian... where is Julian? He knows I didn't steal those documents. He loves me, Victoria! He wouldn't let you do this!"
Victoria let out a cold, sharp laugh that sounded like glass breaking on marble. "Julian is downstairs, signing the press release for the child's birth. He knows exactly what I am doing, Chloe. In fact, it was his idea to frame you. He never loved a penniless orphan like you. You were nothing but a incubator to secure his inheritance clause. And now, your job is done."
