Chapter 3: Cold Rejection & Father’s Anger

The boardroom plummeted into a suffocating, absolute silence.

Twelve senior board members stared in frozen horror, their eyes darting between the black-and-white ultrasound image on the mahogany table and the formidable man standing at the head of it.

Alexander didn't flinch. Not a single muscle in his carved jaw twitched, though the air around him turned dangerously frigid. He looked down at the paper, then lifted his storm-gray eyes to meet Sienna’s unwavering gaze. The heat that had burned between them three weeks ago was completely gone, replaced by an ocean of pure ice.

"Clear the room," Alexander commanded, his low voice carrying a tone that permitted no delay.

Within five seconds, the executives scrambled out of the double doors, gathering their folders in terrified silence. The heavy oak doors clicked shut, locking Sienna inside the massive office with the billionaire.

Alexander walked around the table, his long, deliberate strides bringing him right up to her. He didn't pick up the ultrasound. He didn't even look at it again.

"I gave you a signed check to ensure your discretion, Miss Vance," he said softly, his voice dripping with lethal disdain. "Not to invite an extortion scheme into my executive wing."

Sienna felt as though she had been slapped. "Extortion? I didn't ask you for a single cent of your money! I am six weeks pregnant with your child, Alexander. I came here to tell you face-to-face because"

"Because you realized a single payout wasn't enough," Alexander interrupted, stepping closer until his towering frame completely shadowed her. "You thought you could walk into my corporate headquarters, drop a fake medical report in front of my board, and leverage a permanent seat in my life."

"It isn't fake!" Sienna’s voice cracked, tears of humiliation burning the backs of her eyes, though she refused to let them fall. She reached for the full clinic dossier in her bag. "Look at the blood panel! Look at the campus hospital stamp!"

Alexander snatched the folder out of her hand. But instead of reading it, he gripped the crisp white pages in both hands and tore the entire dossier cleanly in half.

The sound of ripping paper echoed like a gunshot in the silent room.

He tossed the shredded medical records directly into the brass wastebasket beside his desk. "I don't care what forged papers you brought. Cross Global is four weeks away from finalizing the biggest merger in corporate history. I will not allow a gold-digging college student to ruin my reputation or trap me with a cheap scandal."

Sienna stood frozen, her blood running cold as she watched her dignity flutter into the trash. "You're a monster," she whispered, her voice trembling with raw betrayal. "I never wanted your empire. I just wanted the truth."

Alexander pressed a silver button on his desk console without taking his eyes off her pale face. "Security. Escort Miss Vance off the premises. If she sets foot in this building again, have her arrested for corporate harassment."

Two heavy-set security guards burst through the doors a second later. They grabbed Sienna roughly by her upper arms, pulling her backward out of the office. Sienna didn't fight them. She kept her chin up, staring into Alexander’s stone-cold eyes until the elevator doors slid shut, severing her connection to the man who had just destroyed her life.

They dragged her through the marble lobby and shoved her out the heavy glass doors into the street. The autumn sky had broken into a violent torrential downpour, soaking her clothes and hair within seconds. She stood on the wet sidewalk, shivering, bruised, and completely stripped of hope.

It was nearly eight in the evening when Sienna finally reached the small, cramped apartment she shared with her father.

She unlocked the front door quietly, stepping into the dim hallway. The smell of cheap instant soup hung in the air, but the apartment was unnaturally quiet.

Sienna took a breath, trying to smooth down her damp hair and compose her face before walking into the living room. "Dad? I'm sorry I'm late, I was at the library..."

She stopped dead in her tracks.

Her father, Thomas Vance, sat at the worn wooden kitchen table under a single overhead bulb. His hands calloused from thirty years of hard labor on the docks were trembling violently. Resting on the table directly in front of him were the duplicate hospital discharge papers and the extra pregnancy test Sienna had hidden inside her mattress.

Thomas lifted his head. His eyes were bloodshot, filled with a mix of utter shock and blistering rage.

"Dad..." Sienna gasped, her heart dropping into a bottomless pit. "I can explain"

"Explain what?" Thomas roared, slamming his heavy fist onto the wooden table so hard the soup bowl rattled. He stood up, towering over her with a face pale with fury. "Explain how my only daughter, the girl I worked sixteen-hour shifts for, the girl I gave up my life to put through college is carrying a bastard child?!"

"Dad, please listen to me!" Sienna cried, tears finally pouring down her cold cheeks as she took a step forward, reaching out her hands. "It was a mistake! I was targeted, I didn't mean for this to happen"

"A mistake?!" Thomas yelled, grabbing her university registration forms from the counter and tearing them to shreds, tossing the scraps into her face. "You disgraced this family! You disgraced my name! Everyone in the neighborhood will be laughing at us! You threw away your future as an accountant for some nameless street scum!"

"He's not I went to him, he threw me out!" Sienna sobbed, her knees trembling so badly she could barely stand.

Thomas stepped up to her, his trembling finger pointing directly at her chest, his voice dropping into a terrifying, unforgiving whisper.

"You will go back to that clinic tomorrow morning and get rid of it," Thomas spat, his eyes cold and dead. "Abort this bastard by sunrise, or you leave this house with nothing and you are no longer my daughter."