The mention of the baby—the child she claimed was the living proof of my inadequacy—sent a sharp, bitter iron taste into the back of my throat. But the bitterness vanished almost as quickly as it came, replaced by a cold, surgical clarity.
“You didn’t run into me, Madison,” I replied, stepping forward until the distance between us closed by half a stride. “You’ve been tracking my movements for weeks, haven’t you? Or did Ethan hire someone to make sure the woman living above the bakery wasn’t getting too close to the truth?”
Ethan flinched. It was a micro-expression, gone in a fraction of a second, but I caught it. The realization that I knew about my old apartment above the bakery—that I was no longer hiding in the shadows of self-doubt—shattered his remaining composure.
Adrian stepped forward, opening the sealed manila envelope he had carried from his private office on the top floor. He extracted a thick stack of heavy-stock medical papers, the pages crisp and official, bearing the embossed seal of St. Catherine’s diagnostic laboratory.
“Mr. Sterling,” Adrian began, his tone formal and detached, the voice of a man delivering clinical truth without malice or mercy. “When Mrs. Sterling—then Mrs. Claire Sterling—first came to our clinic three years ago for her initial fertility assessments, her baseline hormone panels, ovarian reserve metrics, and tubal patency tests were submitted directly by your primary physician, Dr. Marcus Vance. Do you remember that?”
Ethan’s jaw tightened. He didn’t answer, but his silence was confirmation enough.
“Of course you do,” Adrian continued, sliding the top document out and holding it so the harsh corridor light illuminated the black-and-white data charts. “Because those initial tests showed that Claire’s reproductive health was exceptional. In fact, her physiological markers indicated a high probability of successful conception, natural or assisted.”
The corridor seemed to drop ten degrees. Madison stopped breathing; I could see the sudden, sharp freeze in her chest beneath her silk blouse. The baby shifted, letting out a tiny, high-pitched whimper that echoed off the high ceiling like a warning bell.