That you were inconsolable, that you had a psychological break, packed your bags in the middle of the night and left because you couldn’t bear to look at me.”

“Dr. Evans?” I let out a bitter, hollow laugh that made several executives flinch.

“Your father’s private concierge physician? I never saw him. Not once.

I went to a free county clinic — because every credit card, every bank account, everything with the Waverly name on it went dead the same week I tried to tell you we were having a girl.”

Preston stopped three feet from me.

His familiar cedarwood cologne mixed with the sterile smell of the boardroom, a jarring echo of the life I used to live.