"Tell me you have a name," I said, skipping the greeting.

"I have better than a name, Camille. I have a paper trail," Hayes's gravelly voice came through the speaker. He sounded slightly out of breath, a rare thing for a man who made a living in the shadows. "The watch in that screenshot isn't just expensive. It's a custom Vacheron Constantin. One of one. Commissioned in Geneva."

"Who bought it?"

"That's the thing," Hayes paused. "It was registered to a private buyer, but the insurance policy attached to the serial number is public record if you know which backdoor to kick in. The policy is held by the Caelum Group."

The floor beneath my feet felt like it was tilting. "Hayes..."

"The registered owner is Nathaniel Caelum, Camille. The man in the video is your husband."

I hung up the phone.

For a moment, I couldn't breathe. My mind, usually a fortress of logic and blueprints, scrambled to build a timeline that made sense.

I unlocked my door and practically ran down the sprawling, silent corridors of the Caelum estate. I didn't stop until I reached the heavy oak doors of the East Wing—Nathaniel’s medical suite.

I pushed past the private nurse in the antechamber, ignoring her startled protest, and walked into the freezing room.

Nathaniel lay exactly as he had yesterday. Still. Beautiful.

Broken.

I didn't look at his face. I went straight for the mahogany dresser in the corner of the room. When Mara had given me the tour of the estate, she had mentioned this was where they kept his personal effects from the night of the crash.

The things the paramedics had handed over in a plastic bag.

I pulled open the top drawer. Inside sat a black velvet evidence box.

My hands were shaking as I unlatched it.

Inside was a charred leather wallet, a set of bent car keys, and a heavy, silver watch.

The glass face was shattered from the impact of the crash, but the custom band and the intricate, diamond-cut bezel were unmistakable. It was the exact watch from the video.

The timeline clicked into place with the violent force of a falling beam.

The rehearsal dinner had been months ago. Nathaniel’s near-fatal accident on the coastal highway had happened exactly three days later.

The man who had caught me in the hallway. The man whose voice had asked, “Are you alright?” The man who had taken me into Suite 402 and given me the child currently growing in my womb... was the comatose man I had just married for convenience.

"What are you doing in here?"

The voice cracked like a whip.

I turned around. Mara stood in the doorway, her posture rigid, her icy blue eyes blazing with a fury I had never seen before. In her hand, she gripped a silver tablet.

The screen was lit up with the leaked security footage and the glaring headline calling me a runaway, cheating bride.

"I brought you into this family to save us from embarrassment, Camille," Mara said, her voice dangerously low as she stepped into the room. "I gave you proxy. I gave you power. And less than twenty-four hours later, you drag the Caelum name through the mud with a leaked sex scandal?"

She threw the tablet onto the foot of Nathaniel's bed.

"Ridge Ashford is already calling my board," Mara hissed. "He is using this video to argue for an annulment. Explain yourself. Right now. Or I will strip you of everything."

I didn't flinch. I didn't apologize.

I walked over to the bed, picked up the tablet, and turned it off. Then, I reached into my blazer pocket.

I walked right up to Mara. I took her hand, turned her palm upward, and placed the shattered silver Vacheron Constantin watch into it.

Mara frowned, looking down at her son's ruined watch.

"What is this?"

"Look closer at the video, Mara," I said softly.

I reached into my pocket one more time. I pulled out the plastic stick with the two glaring pink lines and placed it directly on top of the watch in her hand.

Mara went completely still.

She looked at the pregnancy test. Then at the watch. Then, slowly, her eyes drifted to the man lying in the bed.

I watched the exact moment the matriarch of the Caelum empire put the pieces together. The outrage in her eyes vanished, replaced by a shock so profound it seemed to knock the breath out of her.

Her hand, holding the test and the watch, began to tremble.

"The rehearsal dinner was three days before his crash," I said, my voice steady. "I was drugged. He found me. He saved me." I placed a hand over my flat stomach. "Ridge thinks he leaked a scandal to destroy me. He doesn't realize he just gave me the exact timeline I needed."

Mara looked up at me. The ice in her eyes hadn't just shattered; it had melted into something entirely new.

Something terrifyingly protective.

She looked at my stomach, a single tear escaping her iron-clad control, before she quickly wiped it away. When she looked back at my face, she wasn't a furious CEO anymore.

She was a grandmother looking at the future of her bloodline.

Mara closed her fist around the watch and the test. She stood up straighter, her presence suddenly filling the entire room.

"Ridge Ashford thinks he can use my son's child as a weapon against us," Mara said, her voice dropping to a lethal, absolute chill.

She turned toward the door, pulling her phone from her pocket.

"Mara?" I asked. "What are we doing?"

Mara paused in the doorway and looked back at me, a sharp, bloodthirsty smile curving her lips.

"They wanted a scandal, Camille," she said coldly. "We will give them an execution."

"It has been a difficult week for the Ashford firm," Ridge spoke into the microphone, his voice echoing with practiced sorrow.

"Integrity is the foundation of everything we build. When the video of Camille Calla’s... indiscretions... came to light, it broke my heart. But I cannot allow her moral failings to jeopardize the Vanguard Project."

Flashes from the press cameras lit up the room.

"Effective immediately, Ashford Firm is formally severing all ties with Camille Calla," Ridge announced, puffing his chest out.

"We are moving forward. With your continued investments, Lily and I will ensure Vanguard is a masterpiece."

The crowd began to politely applaud.

I looked at Mara. She gave me a single, sharp nod.

I stepped out of the shadows and began my descent down the grand velvet staircase. The ten-carat diamond on my left hand caught the chandelier light like a weapon.

Flanking me were six massive Caelum security contractors.

Lily spotted me before Ridge did. Her smug, demure smile instantly vanished, replaced by a flash of panic.

"What do you think you're doing?" Lily hissed, her voice a venomous whisper as she blocked my path. She reached out, her fingers digging painfully into my bare arm, trying to shove me back toward the stairs.

"You have a lot of nerve showing your face here, Camille. You are not on the guest list. Get out before I have you thrown out."

"Let go of me, Lily," I said, my voice dead calm.

"Security!" Lily snapped, ignoring me and turning to the hotel guards. "Remove this woman immediately. She's trespassing and trying to cause a scene!"

The hotel guards stepped forward, but before they could even raise their hands, Mara descended the final few steps, stepping into the light.

The hotel guards froze. Everyone in the city knew the matriarch of the Caelum Group.

Mara didn't even look at Lily. She just snapped her fingers. Instantly, her private security detail surged forward, forming an impenetrable wall between me and the hotel guards.

One of the Caelum men casually swatted Lily’s hand off my arm, sending her stumbling backward in shock.

"Don't ever touch my daughter-in-law again," Mara said, her voice dropping the temperature in the room by ten degrees.

Lily gasped, her eyes darting between me, Mara, and the massive diamond on my finger. "Daughter-in-law? What... what are you talking about?"

I didn't bother answering her. I looked past her terrified face and signaled the AV technician we had bought out ten minutes prior.

A deafening screech of microphone feedback ripped through the ballroom. The applause died instantly. Ridge winced, tapping his mic.

"Moral integrity is a fascinating topic, Ridge," my voice boomed through the surround-sound speakers as I took a secondary microphone from a stunned event coordinator.

Every head in the ballroom snapped toward us. The sea of investors parted instantly as I walked past a trembling Lily and marched right up to the stage.

"Camille," Ridge hissed, his face flushing with anger and panic. "What is the meaning of this? Get off my stage!"

"You spoke of my indiscretions, Ridge," I said smoothly, turning my back to him to face the crowd and the cameras.

"You leaked a video of me from the night of my rehearsal dinner, claiming I was having a sordid affair. Let's take a closer look at that, shall we?"

The massive projector screen behind Ridge suddenly flickered.

In its place, the grainy security footage from the hotel hallway began to play. The crowd gasped.

"I was intoxicated," I narrated calmly. "Or, more accurately, I was drugged by the woman currently cowering at the bottom of the stairs."

All the cameras pivoted to Lily, who let out a strangled cry, her face draining of color as she tried to hide behind a pillar.

"But I didn't stumble into the arms of a lover that night," I continued. "I stumbled into the arms of a man who saw a woman in distress and helped her to a safe room."

I snapped my fingers.

The video paused on the exact frame of the man's hand on my waist. The image zoomed in, enhancing the heavy, shattered silver watch on his wrist.

Beside it, a high-resolution, professional photograph flashed onto the screen. It was Nathaniel, wearing the exact same custom suit, the exact same custom Vacheron Constantin watch prominently displayed on his wrist.

The ballroom erupted into chaos. Reporters began shouting, cameras clicking furiously.

"There was no affair," I said, my voice cutting through the noise like glass. "The man who saved me that night was Nathaniel Caelum. My husband."

Ridge gripped the podium, his knuckles turning white. "This is a lie! It's a trick! You're just trying to save your proxy status!"

"Speaking of my proxy status," I smiled. It was a cold, merciless thing. "I reviewed the Vanguard Project's financials this afternoon. You were desperate for funding, Ridge. So desperate, you put your entire firm up as collateral to your investors."

Ridge froze. The panic in his eyes finally tipped over into absolute terror.

"At 4:00 PM today, the Caelum Group bought out every single one of your investors," I announced to the dead-silent room. "We bought your debt. We own the land. We own the Vanguard Project."

"You can't do that!" Ridge shouted, his voice cracking. "That's my project! I'm the lead architect!"

"You were the lead architect," I corrected. "But as the proxy head of the Caelum Group, I find your moral integrity lacking. You are a liability to my assets."

I looked him dead in the eye, letting the weight of my revenge crush him completely.

"You're fired, Ridge. Get off my stage."

We stepped into the back of the waiting Maybach in the crisp night air.

I let out a long, shaky breath, the adrenaline finally beginning to recede. I leaned my head against the cool leather seat. It was done.

Mara poured two glasses of scotch from the car's minibar, handing one to me. "Flawless," she murmured, a terrifyingly proud smile on her face.

Before I could take a sip, Mara’s private phone began to ring. It was a specific, sharp ringtone. The one reserved for the East Wing medical staff.

Mara set her glass down instantly and answered, putting it on speaker.

"Dr. Evans," Mara said, her voice tight. "Report."

There was a chaotic shuffling sound on the other end of the line. Beeping monitors. The sound of running footsteps.

"Mrs. Caelum," the doctor’s voice came through, breathless and frantic. "You need to return to the estate immediately."

My heart stopped. I sat up straight, my hand flying to my stomach. "Is he crashing? What's happening?"