Chapter 2 - Twenty-Four Hours
The alarm belonged to Julian.
I knew it before anyone told me. A nurse rushed toward his incubator, then another, and suddenly three doctors were surrounding the tiny body I had touched only seconds earlier. My legs nearly collapsed beneath me. Graham caught my elbow instinctively, but I ripped myself away from him.
“Don’t.”
He froze.
Dr. Patel ordered us outside while the neonatal team worked. I stood behind the glass watching people move around my son, every second stretching into something unbearable. Graham stood several feet away with both hands pressed against his head.
Daniel came beside me.
“Claire—”
“My name is Lily,” I said automatically.
My brother blinked.
It was such a ridiculous thing to correct at that moment that I almost laughed. Instead, I started crying.
Daniel wrapped an arm around me. “He’s fighting.”
Across the hallway, Detective Elena Ruiz questioned Sabrina while another officer stood near the elevator. Sabrina kept glancing toward Graham as if expecting him to rescue her.
He did not.
Twenty minutes later, Dr. Patel emerged.
“Julian stabilized.”
The air left my lungs.
I leaned against Daniel.
“He had a significant desaturation episode, but he responded. We’re adjusting ventilation and medication. He is still extremely fragile.”
“Can I see him?”
“In a few minutes.”
Graham stepped forward. “Doctor, whatever he needs—specialists, equipment, anything—”
Dr. Patel’s expression remained professional. “What he needs right now is medicine and time.”
For a man accustomed to buying solutions, that answer seemed to terrify Graham.
Detective Ruiz approached me afterward and asked whether I felt strong enough to talk.
I told her everything.
I described returning to the apartment. Hearing Sabrina and Graham. The hallway confrontation. Sabrina grabbing my arm. My attempt to pull away.
“Did she push you?”
I closed my eyes.
Memory returned in broken flashes.
Her hand.
The staircase.
My heel slipping.
“I don’t know.”
Ruiz nodded. “Don’t guess.”
“She grabbed me. I pulled away. She was blocking me.”
“That matters.”
Sabrina’s voice suddenly rose behind us.
“She’s lying!”
Daniel moved immediately, stepping between us.
Sabrina pointed at me. “She wants to destroy Graham because he left her!”
Graham stared at her.
“Sabrina.”
“What?” She looked at him desperately. “Tell them. Tell them how unstable she’s been.”
The phrase struck me.
Unstable.
It was not concern. It was strategy.
Graham’s expression hardened. “Stop talking.”
Sabrina laughed nervously. “Excuse me?”
“I said stop.”
“You told me she was obsessive.”
“I never told you to put your hands on her.”
“I didn’t push her!”
Daniel lunged one step forward when Sabrina pointed toward me again. An officer immediately blocked him.
“Sir.”
Daniel stopped, but his voice was ice.
“My sister and her children almost died.”
Graham turned toward him. “You think I don’t understand that?”
Daniel shoved him.
Hard.
Graham staggered backward into the wall.
“Daniel!” I shouted.
Graham straightened instantly and stepped forward, anger flashing through him.
Daniel raised both hands. “Come on.”
A security officer rushed between them before Graham could retaliate.
“This is a neonatal unit. Both of you stop.”
For several seconds the two men stared at each other.
Then Graham’s fists slowly opened.
Daniel pointed toward the NICU.
“You had seven months to act like a husband. She had to bleed on a hospital floor before you remembered you were one.”
Graham said nothing.
That silence hurt more than an argument would have.
Later that afternoon, I was moved into a private recovery room. Maya Brooks, my divorce attorney and oldest friend from college, arrived carrying a laptop and the expression she normally wore before dismantling someone in court.
“We need to discuss the apartment.”
“I don’t care about the apartment.”
“You will.”
She opened her computer.
“The townhouse belongs to you separately through your grandmother. Good. But Donovan Capital’s attorneys filed revised separation documents yesterday.”
“Yesterday?”
“Yes.”
She rotated the screen.
My eyes moved across paragraphs of legal language until one clause caught my attention.
If the marriage produced no children, certain Donovan family trust interests would revert exclusively to Graham upon divorce.
I stared at Maya.
“He thought there were no children.”
“He apparently did.”
“What happens because there are?”
“That,” Maya said, “is where things become interesting.”
Under Graham’s grandfather’s trust, any biological descendants born during the marriage automatically became beneficiaries of a substantial block of Donovan Holdings shares.
“How substantial?”
“Together? Potentially fourteen percent.”
I stared at her.
Graham currently controlled Donovan Holdings with only fifty-four percent of the voting structure.
Fourteen percent could change everything.
“Does Graham know?”
“Probably not yet.”
The door opened.
Graham walked in.
Maya closed the laptop.
“I’d like to speak to my wife.”
“She has counsel.”
“Maya.”
“No.”
I looked at her. “Give us five minutes.”
She hesitated before leaving.
Graham remained near the door.
“I ended things with Sabrina.”
I almost smiled.
“Congratulations.”
“Lily—”
“You don’t get credit for breaking up with your mistress after she helped put your children in intensive care.”
His face tightened.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
He moved closer.
“I should have known about the babies.”
“You should have known your wife.”
That stopped him.
“I spent months trying to convince myself I hadn’t destroyed everything,” he said.
“And Sabrina helped?”
“No.”
“But you stayed with her.”
He looked down.
“Yes.”
I had never heard Graham Donovan sound ashamed before.
Then his phone rang.
He ignored it.
It rang again.
And again.
Finally he answered.
“What?”
His expression changed.
“When?”
Silence.
“Freeze everything. Nobody transfers a dollar.”
He ended the call.
“What happened?” I asked.
He stared at me.
“Someone attempted to move forty-two million dollars out of Donovan Capital this morning.”
Maya reentered.
“Who?”
Graham’s eyes shifted toward the hallway where Sabrina had been questioned.
“Through an authorization bearing my signature.”
My stomach went cold.
“Was it yours?”
“No.”
The room became silent.
Graham looked at me.
“Sabrina wasn’t just sleeping with me.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying someone has been using her access to my company.”
Then Maya’s laptop chimed.
She looked at the screen.
Her expression changed.
“What?”
She slowly turned it toward us.
A photograph filled the screen.
It showed me being wheeled through Mount Sinai, blood visible beneath the blanket.
The headline beneath it read:
BILLIONAIRE’S SECRET WIFE HID TWINS FOR MONTHS — QUESTIONS RAISED ABOUT HER MENTAL STATE.
Graham stared at the article.
I stared at him.
May you like
Only four people outside the hospital knew I had deliberately concealed my pregnancy.
And one of them had just tried to move forty-two million dollars.
