Chapter 3

Suzan’s POV

Five years later.

The coastal winds of Spruce Harbor, Maine, were relentless, but they no longer cold-shouldered me. For five years, the salt air had been my sanctuary, a place where the noise of New York and the suffocating shadow of the Sterling name couldn't reach me.

In this quiet haven, I had shed the skin of the neglected, broken wife. To the scientific community and the global market, I was no longer Suzan Roland. I had legally taken my late mother’s maiden name.

I was Dr. Suzan Wells.

And right now, Dr. Suzan Wells was the most sought-after woman in the pharmaceutical world.

My breakthrough, the Wells Targeted Delivery Protocol, had done what no other research team in the world could achieve. It was a highly specialized cellular delivery system that could safely transport cancer-destroying agents directly to tumors without destroying healthy tissue.

It was a medical miracle, the very same research Draven had once dismissed as "clumsy" on the night of the gala.

"Mommy, you're staring at the white paper again. It's making your eyebrows do the angry triangle."

I blinked, a soft smile instantly warming my face as I looked down at the small oak table across from my desk.

My five-year-old daughter, Emerald, was sitting cross-legged, meticulously organizing a set of colorful anatomical model pieces. She wore a tiny green sweater, her dark, wavy hair falling in soft curls around her shoulders.

But it was her eyes that always stopped me in my tracks, a striking, intelligent, piercing shade of steel-gray. She was incredibly observant, far too smart for her age, and possessed a delightfully sharp little tongue.

"I'm not angry, sweetheart," I said gently, leaning forward. "Just thinking."

"You only look at that specific paper when you're thinking about the heavy place," Emerald noted, her grey eyes locked onto mine with a maturity that sometimes frightened me. She snapped a miniature plastic ribcage into place. "The paper has the big black letter 'S' on it. Like a snake."

My gaze drifted back down to the heavy, gold-embossed document resting on my desk. Emerald wasn't wrong.

It was an official, urgent invitation from the board of Sterling Pharmaceuticals.

For the last three weeks, that invitation had sat on my desk, untouched.

Every time my eyes brushed past it, my stomach would twist with a sickening combination of dread and bitter irony. According to the industry reports my business partner, Edward Vance, had compiled, the mighty Sterling empire was crumbling.

A major scandal involving a failed clinical trial, oversight by a highly placed executive, had decimated Sterling's stocks.

Their flagship oncology drug had been rejected by the FDA, and their investors were pulling out in droves. The billion-dollar empire Draven had prioritized over my very existence was on the verge of absolute bankruptcy.

They had only one hope of survival, acquiring the rights to my patented Wells Protocol. Without my technology to salvage their failing drug pipeline, Sterling Pharmaceuticals would be forced into liquidation within the year.

Draven Sterling was desperately begging for a savior.

But he had no idea that "Dr. Suzan Wells," the elusive, world-renowned molecular biochemist who held his survival in her hands, was the very same "worthless" wife he had discarded.

‘I have found the girl I actually love. I will not waste another day of my life bound to a cruel, manipulative bully.’ His words from the library five years ago still burned in my chest like hot ash.

He had believed Cassandra's venomous lies.

He had locked me in a golden cage, treated my intellect like an embarrassment, and whispered my stepsister's name in the dark.

And now, the universe had brought him to his knees, forcing him to crawl to me.

But when the invitation first arrived, I had frozen. My immediate instinct had been to tear it to shreds. I didn't want to go back to New York. I didn't want to risk him seeing Emerald. I didn't want to breathe the same air as the man who had shattered my soul.

For three agonizing weeks, I had hesitated, delaying my response, ignoring the increasingly frantic emails and calls from Sterling's executive board.

The memories of how I had built this life still felt raw.

I had liquidated the luxury bags and jewelry Draven had gifted me, turning his cold wealth into my daughter’s first crib, my tuition, and our security. I had named her Emerald. It was a constant, private irony, and a daily reminder of the emerald-cut diamond ring I had stripped from my finger and left on Draven's nightstand.

But while that ring had been a cold, heavy symbol of my captivity, my daughter was pure, untamed light.

When Emerald was born in that crowded county hospital during a freezing winter blizzard, and the nurse had whispered, "It's a girl, Suzan," I had looked at her steel-gray eyes and vowed she would never see her mother cower.

I had spent my nights staring through electron microscopes, a baby monitor resting next to my petri dishes, listening to the soft, rhythmic breathing of my daughter sleeping in a portable playpen in the corner of the lab. I had built my own kingdom, brick by brick, out of the ashes of my heartbreak.

"Suzan."

The door to my study creaked open, and Edward Vance walked in, holding a fresh cup of chamomile tea. He set it on my desk, looking down at the gold-embossed invitation.

"Their legal team called again this morning," Edward said quietly, pulling up a chair. "Draven Sterling himself has requested a seat at the table. He is personally offering fifty percent equity of his cornerstone research facility just for a preliminary meeting with Dr. Wells."

I stared at the tea, watching the steam rise. "He's desperate."

"He is drowning," Edward corrected. "And he knows you are the only life vest left in the ocean. But more importantly, Suzan... this is your research.

This is the protocol you built with your mother's legacy. If you partner with them, you will have absolute control over the Sterling labs. You can save thousands of pediatric patients who are currently locked out of treatment because of their financial crisis."

I looked over at Emerald, who had successfully assembled the miniature human heart model and was now looking at me, waiting for my cue.

If I stayed in Maine, I would be safe. But I would also be letting fear dictate my life. I had spent five years rebuilding my strength, raising my daughter, and proving my worth to the world. I was no longer the defenseless girl trapped on a freezing rooftop, waiting for a savior.

I am the savior now.

I reached out, my fingers wrapping around the heavy, black Montblanc pen on my desk, the sister to the pen I had left on Draven's nightstand five years ago.

"Edward," I said, my voice steady, cool, and filled with a quiet, lethal power. "Call Sterling's representatives back."

Edward smiled, a glint of satisfaction in his eyes. "And what shall I tell them?"

"Tell them Dr. Suzan Wells accepts the invitation to New York ," I replied, pulling the document toward me. "But make it clear. I will only negotiate with Draven Sterling directly. No proxies. No lawyers."

I signed the acceptance letter with a swift, elegant stroke of my pen.

Let Draven prepare his boardroom. Let him rehearse his pitch to save his dying empire. He was expecting a cold, clinical business transaction with a faceless.

He had no idea he was about to face the ghost who had walked out of his estate, carrying his legacy in her womb.