Chapter 4

Alice’s POV: The Confrontation

Just as I felt like I was drowning in panic, the sharp, staccato click of stilettos echoed down the hallway.

“Well, if it isn’t our dear little Golden Girl? I thought the family cut you off from the trust fund years ago. Look at you — I’ve seen better-dressed people panhandling on the promenade.”

I’d know that voice anywhere. I turned to see Lily sashaying toward me in a fire-red Chanel Haute Couture gown, clutching a limited-edition crocodile Birkin. She was perched on four-inch Louboutin spikes, looking like she’d stepped off a runway and onto a battlefield. Two suits followed her, their bulk blocking the hallway like a human wall.

She was the McCutchen family’s presumed heiress. I was the social pariah she and her mother had framed and exiled, several years ago. I hadn’t seen her in a while, and I didn’t relish this chance encounter.

“Lily, get out of this medical center. Now!” I snarled, my voice snapping like a whip in the dead air. “You’re not welcome here.”

“Tsk, tsk. Still got that temper, I see.” Lily stopped in front of me, waving a hand in front of her nose as if the very air I breathed was contaminated.

“God, smell that cheap bleach. So, is it true? Is your little mixed-breed stray actually dying? I guess God has eyes after all. Genes that filthy don’t belong in the Southern California sun.”

“You shut your mouth!” I lunged forward, grabbing her by the collar, my vision blurring with a red-hot rage. “Lily, if you say one more word about her, I swear I’ll leave your plastic-surgery face scattered across Santa Monica beach.”

Lily flinched, her eyes wide with a flash of genuine fear before she regained her smirk. She gave a sharp nod, and her security guards shoved me back.

I hit the cold linoleum wall hard, a dull throb blooming across my spine.

“Alice, wake up,” Lily sneered, smoothing out her dress like I was nothing more than a speck of dust. “You think hiding out in this clinic playing urologist is going to save her? Newsflash: I’m here on behalf of the family to give you a final ultimatum. Get the hell out of SoCal.”

She saw the color drain from my face and laughed, her voice like a gust of freezing wind whistling through a graveyard. “I put you in that bed with some anonymous drifter four years ago, and I can just as easily have you blacklisted from every hospital in North America today. You want to save that low-life’s spawn? Get on your knees and beg. Maybe I’ll throw a few grand your way so you can buy her a decent plot in a cemetery.”

She reached into her bag and pulled out a thick stack of Wells Fargo hundreds, flicking them at my face. The sharp edges of the bills whipped against my cheek, leaving a thin, stinging line of red.

“Mommy…”

Camilla’s weak cry came from the room behind me. It was the sound of my soul being crushed under a hydraulic press.

“Lily,” I whispered, looking up through a curtain of hair, my voice vibrating with suppressed fury. “Karma is a bitch. And she’s going to find you.”

“Karma? I’ll take my chances with the family trust and the Beverly Hills real estate.” Lily laughed, turning to her security guards. “Leave the cash for my dear sister. After all, a decent plot in LA doesn't come cheap.”

As she stood there gloating, the bills scattered across the floor like confetti at a funeral. I reached down to pick them up — not out of surrender, but because Camilla’s insurance was maxed out and the pharmacy bills were piling up like a winter storm.

But then, the sound of heavy, rhythmic footsteps silenced the hallway.

Lily’s smirk vanished, replaced instantly by a mask of wide-eyed, girlish surprise. She practically threw herself at the man approaching, clinging to his arm.

“David! What are you doing in a dump like this? You should have called — I would have had my driver bring the Rolls to pick you up.”

I froze; a single hundred-dollar bill crumpled in my fist.

David Newcombe looked down at Lily’s hand on his arm and shucked it off with a cold, unmistakable shudder of disgust. Her security guards silently moved a step closer.

Lily’s face went stiff for a fraction of a second before she pivoted back to her ‘damsel in distress’ routine.

“David, don’t mind my security. Oh, and this is Alice — just a disgraced relative. She’s a total gold digger… I was just trying to help her out with some charity, and she tried to attack me. I was terrified…”

David didn’t look at her. His eyes were fixed on the bloody scratch on my cheek. I looked away, wanting nothing more than to disappear into the drywall.

“Mommy…”

A tiny, trembling voice broke the silence.

Camilla was standing in the doorway, clutching the frame for support. She looked fragile in her oversized hospital gown; her pale little arms still taped from the blood draws.

“Stop being mean to my Mommy!” The little girl could barely stand, but she stepped in front of me, her arms spread wide. She looked up at the towering man in front of her, her eyes blazing, then turned her gaze to Lily.

“Bad lady, go away! You’re being mean!” Camilla’s voice was hoarse, her chest heaving with the effort. She turned to me, tears welling in her eyes.

“Mommy, it doesn’t hurt anymore… please don’t let them be mean to you.”

My heart shattered into a million pieces. “Baby, go back to bed. I’m fine…”

David took a long stride forward, closing the distance between us. That familiar woody scent of his cologne wrapped around me, and I instinctively tried to pull Camilla behind my back.

He ignored me. His dark pupils were locked onto the tiny girl trembling in my shadow.

Camilla was terrified, but she didn't back down. She gripped my scrub top and stared back at him with those huge, ink-black eyes. Even pale and exhausted, her features were strikingly refined.

As David stared into her eyes, I saw it — a look like a high-voltage jolt had just shot up his spine.

“Her eyes…” he murmured, his voice so low it was almost a ghost. “They’re exactly like…”

“Like what?” Lily snapped, her voice pitching up in panic. She stepped forward to block his view. “David, come on. Kids this age all look the same. The Matriarch is waiting for us at the estate in Bel-Air, for the anniversary gala.”

The anniversary gala.

The words tasted like ash. Four years ago, when I was still the rightful McCutchen heiress, my grandfather had arranged a betrothal for me. To a man who spent his time dominating financial markets in New York and London — mysterious, powerful, untouchable.

But Lily’s trap hadn't just stolen my innocence; it had let her slide right into my place. Then she became the fiancée to the West Coast’s most powerful man.

Yes, David Newcombe. My former fiancé. Briefly.

David ignored Lily. He knelt down, bringing himself eye-level with the little girl who barely reached his knees.

“What’s your name?” he asked. His voice was gravelly, carrying a tremor I’d never heard in the clinic.

Camilla squinted at him, her little head tilting as she took in the sharp jawline and the eyes that mirrored her own. “Mommy says… my Daddy is a superhero saving the world,” she whispered. “You’re too mean to be my Daddy. Go away.”

David flinched as if he’d been hit by a sniper round.

He surged to his feet and turned to me. The clinical indifference from earlier was gone. Now, his gaze was so intense it felt like he was trying to devour me whole.

“Your daughter,” he rasped, his eyes boring into mine. “How old is she?”