While His Mistress Gave Birth Behind Forty Guards, His Silent Wife Sold Her Billion-Dollar Shares, Fled Overseas, and Left Him Holding a Newborn...

While Calloway Global was being torn apart in New York, the atmosphere inside Grant’s luxury estate in Coronado, San Diego, was turning toxic.

Brooke Mercer sat on the plush velvet sofa in the master living room, holding a crying two-week-old baby boy. She was wearing a silk robe, but her hair was unwashed, and her face was flushed with anger. Around her, cardboard boxes were piled high, filled with designer clothes and baby gifts that had arrived from wealthy acquaintances before the scandal broke.

Beside her stood her personal assistant, a young woman named Chloe, who was nervously checking her phone.

"Has Grant called back yet?!" Brooke snapped, bouncing the baby forcefully on her knee.

"No, Miss Mercer," Chloe whispered. "Noah said Mr. Calloway is in emergency meetings in New York all day."

"Emergency meetings!" Brooke shrieked, making the newborn cry louder. "He's been in New York for five days! I am stuck in this house with a screaming baby, five guards who won't let me leave the gates, and his horrible mother sending lawyers to check the inventory of the house!"

Brooke looked around the opulent mansion that she had dreamed of owning for three years. When she first started her affair with Grant, she had envisioned this moment perfectly: Avery cast out in disgrace, Grant crowning Brooke as his official wife, and their son being welcomed as the prince of the Calloway fortune.

Instead, she was trapped in a golden cage.

The press were parked outside the security gates twenty-four hours a day, aiming telephoto lenses through the iron bars. The public saw her not as a victorious new partner, but as a homewrecker who had triggered the collapse of a legendary American company.

The front doors banged open, and Grant walked into the foyer, tossing his coat onto a chair. He looked exhausted, his tie loosened, his eyes sunken and dark.

Brooke stood up immediately, handing the crying baby to Chloe. "Take him to the nursery!" she ordered, before turning on Grant like a lioness.

"Grant!" Brooke yelled, marching up to him. "Where have you been?! Do you know what I've been going through here?!"

Grant didn't look at her. He walked straight to the wet bar, poured three fingers of bourbon, and gulped it down in one draft.

"I asked you a question!" Brooke shouted, grabbing his arm.

Grant whirled around, shoving her hand off him with such cold fury that Brooke took a quick step back.

"Don't touch me," Grant growled, his voice dangerously low. "I just spent eighteen hours on a plane after being publicly humiliated by my own board of directors because of the forty-two million dollars you spent on your fake consulting firms!"

"That was your idea!" Brooke argued, her voice pitching high. "You told me you'd take care of me! You promised me that once Avery was gone, we would get married at the estate in Maui! You promised my son would have the Calloway name!"

"Your son is named Alexander Mercer because I haven't signed the paternity acknowledgment yet!" Grant yelled back. "And there will be no wedding in Maui! There will be no wedding anywhere until I find Avery and stop her from stripping me of every dollar I own!"

Brooke’s face went white. "Paternity acknowledgment? Grant... you haven't signed the birth certificate?"

"My legal team advised me not to sign anything until the corporate audit is complete," Grant said coldly, pouring another glass of bourbon. "If I acknowledge him legally right now, Avery's lawyers can use him as proof of marital misconduct to claim spousal support and liquid damages under California community property laws."

"So my son is a bastard to protect your money?!" Brooke screamed, tears of rage finally spilling over her cheeks. She grabbed a crystal decanter from the bar and smashed it against the marble floor. "I gave up my career for you! I carried your child! I endured your mother calling me a whore in front of the hospital staff!"

"You didn't give up your career, Brooke, you were fired for incompetence before I made you strategy officer!" Grant spat, his words sharp and merciless. "You wanted the money, the cars, and the clothes! Well, newsflash—the money is freezing! Meridian Crown has blocked my personal line of credit at the bank! I can't even buy a boat right now!"

Brooke stared at him, realizing for the first time that the powerful, invincible billionaire she had seduced was crumbling from the inside out.

"If you don't sign that birth certificate by Friday," Brooke said, her tone turning cold and calculated, "I am going to take Alexander, leave this house, and go straight to The Wall Street Journal. I have every text message, every email, and every wire receipt you ever sent me."

Grant stepped closer to her, his shadow towering over her. "Are you threatening me, Brooke?"

"I am protecting my child," Brooke said, holding her chin high despite her trembling body. "Just like your silent wife protected hers—by taking what belongs to her before you ruin everything."

Grant looked at her with pure disgust. The glamour, the attraction, the thrill of the illicit affair—all of it had evaporated, leaving behind a desperate, greedy woman who was trying to bleed him dry while he was already wounded.

"Get out of my sight," Grant whispered.

Brooke turned and stormed up the marble staircase, her heels clicking angrily against the stone.

Grant stood alone in the quiet, ruined foyer, surrounded by the smell of spilled bourbon and broken glass. He looked at the grand staircase where Avery used to stand every evening, waiting to greet him with a quiet smile and a hot towel after his long flights.