Two hours after my ex-husband said “I do,” he walked into my hospital room with his bride still wearing her wedding dress. I had just given birth. He wasn’t there to meet our daughter. He was there to make me sign an NDA. But ten minutes later, his face went pale, his new bride looked terrified, and neither of them was prepared for what came next...

Ten minutes after security escorted Dominic and Celeste out of the building, the heavy wooden door of my suite opened again. This time, it was Simone Grant.

Simone was six feet tall, dressed in a sharp charcoal blazer, carrying a leather briefcase that contained enough legal firepower to level a fortune 500 company. She took one look at my tired eyes and immediately softened, setting a warm cup of herbal tea on my bedside table.

"I saw them in the lobby," Simone said, pulling a chair up to the bed. "The bride was crying near the fountain, and Dominic was screaming at his PR team on his cell phone."

"He wanted me to sign a non-disclosure agreement," I said, holding my daughter closer. "He offered me nothing. Just demands."

Simone pulled a stack of sealed documents from her briefcase and laid them across my blanket.

"He's panicking because he realized his mistake too late," Simone said smoothly. "When he filed the divorce paperwork six months ago, he listed Vale Hospitality's secondary holding company as an unencumbered asset. But he forgot one crucial detail."

"My grandfather's silent trust," I said, a thin smile touching my lips.

"Exactly," Simone replied, opening the top folder. "Your grandfather held thirty-five percent of the voting shares under a private family trust. When you turned thirty last month, those voting rights transferred directly to you. Dominic doesn't own Vale Hospitality, Evelyn. You and your daughter do."

I ran my fingers over the official seal on the court documents.

"Does Victor Vance know?" I asked.

Victor Vance was Celeste's father—the ruthless hotel mogul who was supposed to bail Dominic out with a fifty-million-dollar cash injection.

"Victor knows nothing yet," Simone smiled grimly. "He thinks his daughter just married a self-made prodigy. He has no idea Dominic is operating on three million dollars of undisclosed debt and a pending fraud investigation."