He ripped my baby from my arms. My stitches burned, my world went white. They thought I was alone. But they never asked who my father is… and they’re about to learn how fast a perfect life can collapse.
PART 1
The first thing my daughter heard after entering the world was her father saying she belonged to another woman. The second was my scream when he tore her from my arms.
I had delivered Sophia forty minutes earlier. My body was still shaking beneath the hospital blanket, my stitches burning, when the door burst open and Dominic strode in wearing a charcoal suit. His mistress, Chloe, clung to one arm in a cream designer dress. His mother, Eleanor, held the other, smiling as if they had arrived for champagne.
Vanessa looked at my baby and whispered, “She has Dominic’s eyes.”
Eleanor leaned over me. “Your surrogacy job is done.”
For one stunned second, I thought the medication had twisted their words. Then Dominic laughed.
“Did you really think I’d stay with a poor woman like you forever, Vivienne?”
He pulled Sophia against his chest. She began to wail. The sound cut through me more sharply than any pain.
“Give her back,” I said.
My voice was weak, but the room went strangely still.
Dominic produced a folder. “You signed an agreement. Chloe and I are the intended parents. You were compensated.”
“I signed hospital consent forms.”
“You signed what I gave you.”
Eleanor patted my cheek. “Be grateful. We let you live comfortably for three years.”
The nurse near the doorway frowned. “Mr. Vance, return the infant to her mother.”
Chloe snapped, “I am her mother.”
Dominic ordered the nurse out, but she stayed. That was his first mistake.
His second was tossing the folder onto my bed.
His third was believing I was too broken to read it.
The signature looked like mine, but the date was from a weekend I had spent in Boston. The notary seal belonged to Nevada. The payment listed—two hundred thousand dollars—had never reached any account I owned.
I stopped fighting.
Dominic mistook my silence for surrender. “Security will escort you out after discharge. The apartment lease is canceled. Your cards are already frozen.”
Eleanor smiled. “No husband. No child. No money.”
I looked at Sophia’s red, furious face and forced myself to breathe.
“May I hold her once more?” I asked.
Chloe laughed. “Absolutely not.”
So I reached toward the bedside phone instead.
Dominic slapped my hand away. “Who are you calling?”
“My father.” He smirked. In three years of marriage, I had told him only that my father and I were complicated. Dominic had never asked why.
I looked at the nurse. “Please call the number listed under my emergency contact. Tell him Vivienne Sterling needs him now.”
Eleanor’s smile vanished.
The nurse glanced at my chart, then at me. “Sterling?”
I nodded. “Yes,” I said. “That Sterling.”
