Chapter Three

"That's not possible." Ivy was on her feet before anyone else had finished processing the sentence, her chair scraping loud against the stone. "You ran that test wrong."

"Ivy." Dr. Wexler's voice stayed level, the practiced calm of a man who'd delivered bad news before and knew exactly how badly it could go. "I ran it twice."

"Then you ran it wrong twice."

"Ivy, sit down." Desmond's voice had lost its easy warmth entirely, gone flat and hard in a way I'd never heard from him. "Let's discuss this calmly."

"There's nothing to discuss, it's wrong." She turned on my mother next, something wild and cornered in her face that I'd never once seen on her before. "Tell them, Mom. Tell them this doesn't sound right."

My mother's mouth opened and closed without producing anything useful.

"Mother." Ivy's voice climbed a register. "Say something."

"I'm sure there's an explanation," my mother finally managed, which satisfied absolutely no one at that table, least of all Ivy.

In that silence, Ivy turned on Desmond instead.

"You've never liked the difficult version of anything," she said, low and furious. "The second something isn't clean, you find a way to make it someone else's problem. Well, I'm not a problem, Desmond. I'm still exactly the woman your son is betrothed to."

"Nobody's saying otherwise." Helena's hand had gone white-knuckled around her wine glass. "James, are you certain?"

"I wish I weren't."

Callum hadn't said a single word since the sentence landed. He was staring at Ivy like he was trying to work out which version of this dinner he was actually sitting in, and when he finally spoke, his voice came out quiet, almost gentle, which somehow made it worse.

"Ivy. It's okay. We can figure out other options, adoption, surrogacy, there are-"

"I don't want other options." Her voice cracked down the middle, and for one raw second I almost felt sorry for her, before she straightened her spine and aimed the next words at the whole table like a blade. "I want the wedding I've spent a year planning. I want the life I was promised. I am not going to be replaced over a lab result."

"No one said replaced," Desmond said.

"You didn't have to." She looked around the table, at Preston's carefully blank face, at my mother's frozen one, at Helena gripping her glass like it was the only solid thing left in the room, and something in her expression finally cracked all the way through. "This is exactly what happens. The second I'm not perfect anymore, I stop being useful."

I sat there watching my sister come apart in front of a dinner table full of people who'd spent a year telling her how perfect she was, and I felt something ugly and complicated twist in my chest that I didn't have time to examine properly, not quite sympathy, not quite anything else I wanted to name out loud.

Nobody had an answer for her. Nobody tried. She grabbed her clutch off the table and walked out through the terrace doors without looking at any of us, heels sharp against the stone, and the silence she left behind lasted so long I could hear my own pulse in my ears.

"I should go after her," my mother finally said, and did, leaving my father and me alone at a table full of half-eaten food and a seating chart that no longer meant anything.

Callum still hadn't moved. He was staring at the space where Ivy had been standing, jaw tight, hands flat on the table like he needed something solid to hold onto.

"Callum." Desmond's voice was gentler now, the voice of a father rather than a chairman. "Go find her. Give her a few minutes, then go find her."

He nodded once, mechanical, and left without saying a word to anyone, and I watched him go and told myself the tightness in my own chest had nothing to do with it.

Desmond exhaled slowly, rubbing a hand across his face like a man aging in real time. "James. What are our options here, medically."

"There are paths. IVF with donor considerations, surrogacy. None of them fast, and given the timeline of the trust-"

"The trust doesn't care about timelines, James, it cares about bloodlines." Desmond's voice had gone quiet and strategic, the voice, I imagined, that had built an empire out of rooms exactly like this one. "I'll need to speak with counsel tonight. Helena, cancel tomorrow's vendor calls. All of them."

My father squeezed my shoulder once, the signal that it was time to leave, and I didn't argue. Neither of us said much on the drive home. There wasn't anything to say yet that wouldn't have sounded like guessing.

I was back at my studio by nine the next morning, mid-meeting with a client who wanted his entire pool deck reoriented for better sunset views, three renderings spread across my desk and a second cup of coffee going cold beside them.

"You seem distracted," the client said, not unkindly, somewhere around the second time I lost the thread of my own sentence.

"Long week."

"Weddings'll do that. My daughter's getting married in the spring, I already know I'm going to lose my mind by March." He laughed, easy, oblivious, tapping the rendering in front of him. "Anyway, this angle here, can we shift it another few degrees toward the water?"

"We can shift it." I made the note, grateful for something small and solvable to focus on, and that was exactly when my phone buzzed with a number I didn't recognize.

"Sorry, I need to take this," I told him, and stepped into the hallway before he could object.

"Ms. Bellamy?" A man's voice, clipped, professional. "My name is Arthur Voss, I'm counsel for the Ashford family trust. I'm calling regarding an urgent matter concerning the Meridian succession agreement."

"I think you have the wrong sister."

"I assure you I don't." A pause, the sound of papers shifting. "Are you aware of the terms of the Ashford-Bellamy founding trust?"

"Vaguely. It's not really my area."

"It's about to become your area, Ms. Bellamy." Another pause, longer this time, like he was choosing his next words with real care. "The trust contains a clause naming the nearest unmarried blood relative as an eligible party should the original bride become unable to fulfill the marriage obligation. Given the circumstances that arose last night, that clause has been formally invoked."

I stood very still in a hallway that suddenly felt too narrow, my client's laughter still faintly audible through the door behind me, completely unaware his designer's entire life had just tilted sideways. "That's not- I'm sorry, invoked how? By who?"

"By the trust's own language, Ms. Bellamy. It's not a request anyone is making. It's a mechanism that's already in motion."

"There has to be someone else. A cousin, anyone."

"There isn't." He said it plainly, without cruelty, which somehow made it land harder. "I understand this is a great deal to process quickly. I'll be honest with you, Ms. Bellamy, the family is under real time pressure here, and Mr. Ashford asked me to reach you directly rather than let this come through your sister or your mother first."

"Why would it come through them at all?"

"I don't understand what you're telling me."

"I think you understand exactly what I'm telling you," he said, not unkindly. "Mr. Ashford would like to meet with you this afternoon, at the estate, at three o'clock. The wedding is still scheduled for two days from now."

I looked back through the glass door at my client, still smiling over his renderings, still living in a version of my morning that no longer existed, and I had absolutely no idea what I was supposed to say when I walked back in.