Chapter 4

### Chapter 4

The room erupted.

Lucian looked back, then turned on me, his expression darkening.

"You did this?"

"You took those photos. Why ask me?"

He didn't argue. He just reached for my phone.

Mitchell stepped in front of me.

"This has nothing to do with you," Lucian said coldly.

Several bodyguards closed in. One seized my arm. In the struggle, my calf struck a table leg.

Pain shot through the stitches, and blood seeped out from under the gauze.

I saw the Sinclair Group logo on the bodyguard's chest, and my heart sank.

After my mother died, I had handed the company's affairs to Lucian to manage for the time being.

Now my own family's bodyguards were helping him take my belongings.

Mitchell held off two of them, but Lucian still snatched the phone away.

"What are you looking for?" I asked.

He went through my photos first, then my messages, and didn't answer.

I watched his hands, my heart still racing.

The original recording was on that phone. I couldn't let him keep digging.

But my brother had safely stored the backup. Even destroying my phone wouldn't let Lucian put things back the way he wanted.

"Found anything, Mr. Hayes?"

I raised my voice. "You took my phone in front of all these people. Show them whatever you find."

The cameras swung back to him.

He stopped scrolling, his expression growing darker.

Just then, someone in the audience started clapping.

A man made his way through the crowd to the front of the stage.

"Stop looking. I put the photos up."

Lucian's head snapped up, and his expression changed.

"Simon Shaw?"

The man walked straight to Chloe and took her hand.

"I'm here to pick her up."

His eyes dropped to her belly.

"And my child."

For a moment, the room went silent. Then camera shutters clicked furiously.

"Mr. Hayes, the baby isn't yours?"

"Did you know about this morning's ceremony?"

Chloe kept her head down and didn't deny it.

Lucian stared at her, his lips slowly losing their color.

Yet when the reporters pushed forward, he still reached out on instinct to shield her.

"Whose child it is doesn't matter."

Simon laughed.

Looking at the three of them, I finally understood something.

Lucian had been using the Sinclair family's resources to arrange a future for himself and Chloe.

But Chloe seemed to have made her own plans for what would become of him.

Simon looked down at her. "We have what we came for. Let's go."

"What is it?" Lucian demanded.

Neither of them answered.

When he turned away, I took my phone back.

Mitchell stepped beside me. "The car is outside."

I nodded and got ready to leave.

But Chloe suddenly called out to me.

"Celeste, don't you want to know why your mom suddenly told you to call off the engagement?"

I stopped in my tracks.

Before she died, my mother had called to insist that I end the engagement.

When I asked why, she only said we'd talk when we saw each other.

By the time I reached the hospital, she was dead.

Lucian said she had changed her mind before she died.

The recording had already proven that was a lie.

I still didn't know what my mother had discovered.

"Chloe!" Lucian barked.

She looked at his face and smiled.

"Ask him."

"He saw your mom alone before I brought her the milk."