“The child is yours to raise, Margaret. Do not come back to Greenwich.”

My hand began to shake, the glass of the phone slipping against my palm.

My biological father had abandoned my mother.

He had cast her out into the cold, leaving her to starve in a drafty West Virginia house while he kept his millions.

He had chosen this estate, these gold-leaf ceilings, and his family name over his own daughter.

“Emily?”

Nathan’s voice broke through the silence.

He stepped closer, his boots clicking softly on the dark hardwood floor.

I quickly turned the phone face down against my thigh.

“Is everything alright?” he asked, his brow furrowing as he reached for my hand.

His fingers were warm, a stark contrast to my own freezing skin.

“It’s nothing,” I lied, my voice cracking slightly.

I looked up at his face, tracing the sharp line of his jaw and the dark circles under his eyes.

He had worked eighteen-hour days for five years to keep Carter Global at the top of the market.

He had earned every bit of his success, even if the blood in his veins wasn’t the blood of the founders.