Ellena felt her heart hammer against her ribs like a trapped bird. She hadn’t heard that name in three years. Not since the clinic. Not since she signed the NDA that ruined her life. A memory flashed—cold fluorescent light, a paper shoved toward her, a pen in her hand that shook while a woman in heels smiled like she was buying a handbag.
Ellena forced the image down. Forced her face blank. Forced her shoulders not to tighten. “Go,” Greg hissed. Ellena took a slow breath, adjusted her apron, and walked toward the east wing.
The atmosphere changed the moment she crossed the threshold. The air smelled of expensive cologne, fresh lilies, and tension—the kind of tension money created when it expected the world to behave. The lighting was warmer here, softer, as if the restaurant knew how to flatter people who could afford to be flattered.
Dominic Sterling sat at the head of a long mahogany table. He looked older than the photos in magazines. His dark hair had gone gray at the temples, and his jaw was set in a permanent line of grief and exhaustion.
He wore a bespoke suit that probably cost more than Ellena would earn in a decade, but it didn’t make him look happy. It made him look armored. Around him sat three high chairs. The triplets.
Ellena felt a physical ache in her chest, a phantom pull so strong her knees threatened to buckle. She wasn’t supposed to look at them.
