CHAPTER THREE

{Adrian’s POV}

Guilt gnawed at me during the entire drive to the hospital.

I’d been with Lily when it happened.

Together in her office working over a presentation she had to give the next day. f

My phone had been on silent—deliberately, shamefully on silent—because I hadn’t wanted anything to interrupt the few hours of peace I’d stolen away from her manipulations.

When I finally checked it, my stomach dropped.

Twenty-three missed calls from the house. Dozens of frantic text messages from Martha, our housekeeper.

Mrs. Cole is in labor.

We’re taking her to the hospital.

She’s asking for you.

Sir, please. She’s bleeding badly.

The doctors say it’s serious.

That last message had been sent three hours ago.

Three hours I’d been unreachable while my wife nearly bled to death bringing my child into the world.

My hands tightened on the steering wheel as I drove, Lily silent in the passenger seat beside me. She’d offered to stay behind, said it might be better if she wasn’t there, but I’d needed her.

I needed her presence to remind me why I was doing this, why I had every right to want out of this nightmare marriage.

But the guilt still sat heavy in my chest.

Whatever Ava had done to me—whatever trap she and her brother had set—she was still the mother of my child. She’d still almost died today.

And I hadn’t been there.

The hospital loomed ahead, sterile and imposing. I pulled into the parking garage, my mind already racing with what I’d say to her.

Maybe I’d been too harsh. Maybe there was more to the story than I’d assumed. Maybe—

I pushed open the door to Ava’s room and froze.

Voices carried from inside—raised, angry voices.

Daniel’s voice, sharp and calculating.

“You need to get pregnant again. Soon. And this time, you give him a son.”

Every muscle in my body went rigid.

I should have pushed the door open right then. Should have stormed in and confronted them immediately. But something kept me rooted to the spot, listening.

“A son would have secured your position in that family permanently,” Daniel continued. “But a girl? A girl means nothing to a man like Adrian Cole.”

My jaw clenched so hard my teeth ached.

“We drugged him once to get you pregnant. It clearly worked. We can do it again.”

And just like that, the guilt evaporated.

It burned away like morning fog under harsh sunlight, replaced by cold, crystalline fury.

Of course.

Of fucking course they were already plotting their next move.

Ava wasn’t even out of the hospital bed yet, barely recovered from nearly dying, and they were already scheming about how to trap me further.

How to manipulate me.

How to drug me again and force another pregnancy.

The rage that flooded through me was white-hot and cleansing. It burned away every soft feeling, every moment of weakness I’d experienced on the drive over.

I shoved the door open hard enough that it banged against the wall.

Daniel whirled around, his eyes widening for a split second before his expression smoothed into false innocence.

Ava was in the hospital bed, pale and exhausted, holding a small bundle against her chest. Her eyes were red-rimmed and wet with tears.

But I didn’t feel sympathy anymore.

I felt nothing but cold contempt.

Daniel recovered quickly, his face transforming into righteous outrage as he looked at me.

“How could you do this?” His voice was sharp, accusatory. “How could you not even be there for your wife on the day she gave birth? Do you have any idea what happened here? Ava nearly died from postpartum hemorrhage! She almost bled to death bringing your daughter into this world, and where were you?”

He gestured toward Lily, who stood elegant and composed beside me in the doorway.

“And now—now you show up hours late, and you bring another woman? Your mistress? Do you have any respect for Ava as your wife? Any respect at all?”

The sheer audacity of it—standing here lecturing me about respect after what I’d just overheard—made my blood boil.

“If I remember correctly,” I said, my voice cold and controlled as I stepped fully into the room, “it was you and your sister who plotted against me a year ago.”

Daniel’s expression flickered—just for a moment—but he recovered quickly.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about—”

“Don’t.” I cut him off, my voice dropping to a dangerous level. “I just heard everything.”

The color drained from Daniel’s face.

“So don’t stand here and lecture me about respect,” I continued, stepping closer, my hands clenched into fists at my sides. “Get fucking out of here and stop playing the victim in front of me.”

“Excuse me?”

“Get out of my sight. Now.” My voice was deadly quiet. “Or I will immediately terminate Cole Enterprises’ cooperation with Carter Group. Every contract, every deal, every dollar I’ve invested in your father’s company—gone. And we both know what that means for you.”

The threat hung in the air between us.

Carter Group was hemorrhaging money. Without my investment—without the Cole name backing them—they’d be bankrupt within months.

Daniel knew it. I knew it.

And he knew that I knew it.

“You can’t—”

“I can. And I will.” I pulled my phone from my pocket, my thumb hovering over my attorney’s contact. “Do you want to test me?”

For a long moment, Daniel just stared at me, his jaw working, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. I could see the calculation in his eyes, weighing his options.

I wasn’t bluffing.

“Fine,” he finally spat. “But this isn’t over, Cole. Not by a long shot.”

He shot one last look at Ava—something passed between them that looked almost like warning—before he turned and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him hard enough to rattle the frame.

The silence that followed was oppressive.

Lily cleared her throat delicately beside me.

“Adrian, darling, perhaps I should wait outside—”

“Yes,” I said without looking at her. “Give us a moment.”

I felt her hesitation, the slight stiffening of her posture. Lily Evans wasn’t used to being dismissed.

But she was smart enough to know when to push and when to retreat.

“Of course.” Her voice was carefully neutral.

She touched my arm briefly—a gesture of support—then her heels clicked across the floor.

The door closed softly behind her.

And then it was just me and Ava.

I turned to look at her properly for the first time since entering the room.

She was pale—too pale—against the white hospital sheets. Dark circles shadowed her eyes, and her hair hung limp around her face.

She looked exhausted.

Fragile.

She held our daughter against her chest with both arms, protective and possessive. Tears streamed silently down her cheeks as she stared at me with those wide, devastated eyes.

She looked broken.

Helpless.

Like a victim.

But I knew better now.

“Stop acting,” I said, my voice deliberately cold. “You and your brother have gone to so much trouble scheming against me. You are nothing but a manipulative, cunning brat, so fucking stop with the ‘woe is me, I am the victim’ act.”

Her eyes widened in shock, more tears spilling over. She shifted the baby carefully to one arm and reached for her phone on the bedside table with shaking fingers.

She typed frantically, then held the screen up to me.

I didn’t agree to anything he said. I told him no. I signed that I wouldn’t do it. Please, you have to believe me.

I barely glanced at the screen before waving her phone away impatiently.

“I’m not interested in your excuses, Ava.”

She typed again desperately, her fingers flying across the screen even as tears blurred her vision.

I didn’t know the drink was drugged a year ago. Daniel told me it would just make you more relaxed, more open to discussing business. I swear I didn’t know what it really was—

“Enough.” I cut her off with a sharp gesture.

“Do you honestly think I believe that you—his sister, his accomplice—had no idea what was happening? That you just innocently handed me a drugged drink without any clue what it would do?”

Her hands moved in frantic signs, but I deliberately looked away.

“Regardless of what you claim now, the facts remain,” I said, my voice cold and businesslike. “You married me. You got everything you wanted. I invested millions in Carter Group to save your father’s company. I’ve done more than enough.”

I pulled the envelope from my inner jacket pocket—the one I’d been carrying for weeks now.

The divorce papers.

“I’m done being manipulated by you and your brother,” I said, pulling out the documents and tossing them onto her lap.

Ava’s face went completely white.

She stared down at the papers, then back up at me, her eyes wide with shock and something that looked like genuine devastation.

But I wouldn’t fall for it.

Not again.

She started signing frantically.

No, Adrian, please do not do this to me.

I shook my head.

“Sign the papers,” I said quietly. “I am divorcing you.”