Then his assistant, David Hale, appeared at the end of the hallway looking as if he had seen a body fall from a window.

“Sir,” David said, his voice cracking. “You need to look at your phone.”

Julian barely glanced up. “Not now.”

“Sir. It’s Mrs. Croft.”

The smile froze on Julian’s face.

He took the phone with one hand, still holding the baby awkwardly with the other. The screen was open to a news alert.

CROFT CORP CEO EXPOSED AT MISTRESS’S CHILDBIRTH AS WIFE ANNOUNCES DIVORCE.

He stared. His eyes moved faster and faster as he scrolled through the photos. The marriage certificate. The hotel footage. The hospital documents. The delivery room picture. The divorce agreement.

His face drained of color so completely that even the nurse stepped back.

“Where is she?” he demanded.

David swallowed. “JFK. Air France to Paris.”

Julian shoved the baby back toward the nurse so fast she gasped and clutched him to her chest.

“Mr. Croft!”

But Julian was already running.

Natalia, pale and exhausted on the bed inside the delivery room, heard the commotion through the half-open door.

“Julian?” she called weakly. “Where is he going?”

No one answered.

When she was wheeled out ten minutes later, she expected to find him waiting with flowers, pride, promises. Instead, she found David standing alone with a shattered expression and a phone buzzing endlessly in his hand.

The nurse placed the baby against Natalia’s chest.

“Where’s Julian?” Natalia whispered.

David looked at her, then away.

Natalia grabbed his wrist. “Where is he?”

“He went after his wife.”

For a moment, the whole hallway seemed to disappear.

Natalia looked down at the child she had carried for nine months, the child she had believed would finally put Evelyn Reed in her place. Her son’s tiny mouth opened in a cry. His fists trembled beneath the blanket.

“He left?” Natalia said. “He left us?”

David said nothing.

Natalia began to laugh. It was soft at first, then cracked open into something wild and ugly.

“I gave him a son,” she whispered. “And he ran after the woman who destroyed him.”

At that same moment, Julian’s black Maybach tore through Manhattan traffic as if the city had no laws left. Horns screamed around him. Red lights blurred into streaks. His phone was shattered on the hospital floor, but the dashboard kept flashing notifications.

Croft Corp stock plunges.

Board calls emergency meeting.

Harrison Croft hospitalized after scandal.

Natalia Voss exposed.

Evelyn Reed becomes America’s most-watched woman overnight.

Julian gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles looked bloodless.

He did not think of his newborn son.

He did not think of Natalia.

He thought of Evelyn in the kitchen that morning, standing in soft light, her hair pinned carelessly at her neck, her hands smelling of butter and lemon.

It’s our anniversary, Julian.

He had heard her.

God help him, he had heard her.

He had heard her and still left.

At JFK, he abandoned the Maybach at the curb and sprinted through Terminal 4 with his shirt wrinkled, his tie loosened, his eyes red. People recognized him immediately.

“That’s Julian Croft!”

“The guy from the scandal!”

“Is he chasing his wife?”

Phones rose around him like weapons.

He shoved through the crowd, ignoring security guards, ignoring cameras, ignoring the way strangers whispered cheater as he ran. By the time he reached Gate B23, his lungs burned and his heart pounded so violently he could feel it in his throat.

The gate was empty.

A single attendant was closing her computer.

“The Paris flight,” he said. “I need to board.”

She looked at him with professional regret. “I’m sorry, sir. The doors are closed.”

“No.” He stepped closer. “Open them.”

“I can’t.”

“I’ll pay whatever fine—”

“Sir, the aircraft has pushed back.”

Julian turned toward the glass.

Outside, under the cold runway lights, the Air France plane moved slowly away from the gate.

For the first time in his life, Julian Croft found himself on the wrong side of a closed door.

He pressed both hands to the glass.

“Evelyn,” he whispered.

Behind him, people filmed. Some laughed. Some muttered that he deserved it. Someone was live-streaming. Comments poured across screens across the country. There he is. Too late. She’s gone. Good for her. Look at him now.

David reached him twenty minutes later with a replacement phone.

“Sir,” he said carefully, “Ms. Sharma is on the line.”

Julian did not turn. “Who?”

“Mrs. Croft’s attorney.”

He snatched the phone.

A woman’s voice, calm and sharp, came through. “Mr. Croft, my name is Anya Sharma. I represent Evelyn Reed. She has granted me full authority over the divorce proceedings.”

Julian closed his eyes.

“She asked me to deliver one message,” Anya continued.

“What message?”

“For three years, she cooked for you. You never once sat down and truly ate with her. Tonight she threw your anniversary dinner away. From now on, you will never taste what she made for you again, even if you spend the rest of your life hungry for it.”