Chapter 1 — Fatherless

The nurse had barely settled Finn onto Adele Rutherford’s chest when the door to the hospital room swung open without a knock.

Her mother came in first.

Ingrid Rutherford carried a designer handbag and wore the same rigid, cold expression she used when firing people at the family’s corporate headquarters in Dallas.

Behind her came Leopold Rutherford, chief executive of Rutherford Packaging, in a tailored charcoal suit, as though he had come to a shareholder meeting rather than to meet his first grandson.

Ingrid looked at the newborn for barely two seconds.

“We will never acknowledge a fatherless child.”

Leopold crossed his arms, his jaw set.

“And we will never hold him.

Make that crystal clear.”

The air in the room turned to ice.

Finn was seven hours old.

His tiny fingers were curled around Adele’s index finger, entirely oblivious to the cruelty being thrown across his sleeping head.

Adele leaned down and kissed her son’s forehead.