Mrs. Wynn’s practiced, perfumed smile fractured the moment I spoke the number.
“Ten million,” I repeated, voice even and cold.
Her eyes fluttered—once, twice—then a tiny tremor in her jaw gave her away. For a beat I watched the calculation happen behind her flawless mask: the wealthy matriarch who’d always assumed I could be bought with pity and plastic cards now confronted with a price she hadn’t expected.
She sniffed, annoyed, and waved at her assistant. “Fine. Draft it. Five million up front. The remainder once she’s out of the picture.”
No courtesy. No faux regret. Just businesslike cruelty.
I watched the assistant tap away as if placing a catering order, not authorizing someone’s erasure.
“And you will promise—” Mrs. Wynn faced me, eyes sharp as stilettos, “—that you never contact my son again. Never appear at any Wynn event. Ever.”
I held her gaze a second, then nodded. “I swear,” I said. “On whatever tiny scrap of respect I once had for this family.”
She allowed herself a smug smile, satisfied with the bargain. “Good. Be sensible. Pack up your fantasies and leave quietly.”
My pen slid across the page without hesitation. My signature came out immaculate beneath the Wynn seal, almost too tidy for the moment. My hands didn’t shake. Because I remembered everything.
I remembered the first time she’d tried to buy me—tossing a neat stack of bills on my lap like I was a charity case. “Buy yourself something that doesn’t scream funeral,” she’d sneered. I remembered her lounging in her bathtub while I scrubbed her marble, her friends parading past and laughing as if humiliating me were entertainment. I remembered the time she deliberately spilled mineral water in front of the press, handed me a mop, and said, “You missed a spot,” without ever looking up.
I hadn’t missed a single insult. Not the barbed remarks, not the tests, not the way every gala, every family supper became a reminder I didn’t belong.
Now, the script had flipped. I was the one setting terms.
She signed beside me with her diamond-tipped pen trembling a fraction. Let her call it a victory if it let her sleep.
This wasn’t the end. It was the opening gambit.
They had no clue I wasn’t truly a Winslock. The family that raised me had taken me in at five. My birth name—something the Wynns couldn’t touch—was out there. My real brother had found me three days prior and wanted me back.
Mrs. Wynn reclined, smug. “You’ll be on a plane within a week. One-way. We’ll prepare your new identity.”
“No need,” I said flatly, pushing away from the table. “I’m done hiding under someone else’s name.”
I turned to leave. The double doors burst open like a melodrama.
Nathan stormed in, wild and disheveled—coat half on, hair a mess, eyes rimmed red. “Mom, what are you doing? Amara just lost our baby!” He planted himself between us, chest heaving, posture all bravado. “She’s my wife. You can’t use her like this to save face.”
For a heartbeat I saw the man I once loved—the one who used to threaten to walk away from his inheritance for me, the one who swore I was everything to him. But the image dissolved fast. The performance leaked through: the practiced fury, the glance toward his mother to gauge her reaction, the theatrical clenching of his fists. Had I not heard him and Catrina last night, I might have been fooled.
Mrs. Leclair excused herself with the composed venom of an expert predator.
Alone, Nathan swept me up as if an embrace could mend what had been done. “Amara… why didn’t you wait? I thought you were dead. I lost my mind.”
His voice broke, but I stayed unmoved—no tears, no touch. If I had stayed, could I have pretended not to hear the bed? The laughter? The betrayal?
He looked desperate, then sank to his knees. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I should’ve caught you. I should’ve been there.”
Tears glittered on his cheeks like a scene from some glossy tragedy. He reached for my hand; I saw him now with perfect clarity: a man capable of convincing himself of sincerity on cue, of mourning when convenient, of smiling after he’d betrayed me.
“Even if the doctors are right,” he begged, clinging, “even if we can’t have children… we’ll adopt. We’ll find another way. I love you.”
His words hit me like rain on glass. So I met his eyes and delivered the last, coldest strike.
“Nathan,” I said, voice steady and hard, “go have your child with Catrina. The Wynn line needs an heir… I know—you took mine.”
Color drained from his face like water from a basin.
