My Fiancée Hit the Nanny With a Hockey Stick—Then Her Little Girl Looked at Me and Said, “Daddy.”

The brass key opened a steel case hidden behind a false panel in Edward's study.

Inside were paper ledgers.

The story was worse than Nathan expected.

Six years earlier, Cole Meridian's expansion had not simply failed.

It had been sabotaged.

Supplier contracts were redirected through Vance shell companies. Insurance claims were delayed. A foreign regulator was bribed to freeze a major project.

The stock collapsed.

Then Martin Vance offered rescue financing.

He had created the fire and sold Edward the water.

"Why didn't Dad expose him?" Nathan asked.

Eleanor looked tired.

"Because by the time Edward learned the truth, he had already committed crimes to hide the losses."

"Martin owned him," Grace said.

"Yes."

"And the marriage?"

"To bind the families and keep both sides quiet."

Nathan turned page after page.

One carried Charles Mercer's signature.

Another carried Victoria's.

Dated three years earlier.

"Victoria knew."

Eleanor nodded.

Nathan felt something inside him become very calm.

He canceled the wedding before sunrise.

By nine the next morning, Cole Meridian stock was falling.

By noon, an anonymous source leaked that Nathan had fathered a secret child with a household employee.

Grace's photograph appeared online.

Then Lily's school.

Grace went pale.

"We move her."

Nathan stopped himself before giving an order.

"What do you want to do?"

She looked at him, surprised by the question.

"My aunt has a farm in Vermont."

"Then we go there, if you want me there."

Before she answered, the television switched to a live press conference.

Victoria stood before microphones in a dark suit.

"I loved Nathan," she said, "but I have learned that he concealed a child and maintained an inappropriate relationship with a member of our household staff."

Grace whispered, "She's doing it."

Victoria continued.

"I am deeply concerned for the welfare of that little girl."

Then she raised a folder.

Grace recognized it immediately.

Her old medical file.

The same one Edward had threatened to use five years earlier.

"Tomorrow," Victoria told the cameras, "I will provide evidence that Grace Bennett used multiple identities, fled legal supervision, and placed a child at risk."

Nathan stared at the screen.

The wedding was dead.