My Husband Ignored 17 Calls While I Was Giving Birth. Five Days Later, I Returned Home With Our Newborn and Found Another Woman in Our Bedroom

By one-thirty the following afternoon, Derek was in high spirits.

He had taken Sienna out for an extravagant champagne brunch at the country club, proudly showing her off to his business acquaintances while casually mentioning that Audrey was "resting at home with the baby."

However, a slight annoyance had occurred when the bill arrived. Derek’s black card had been declined.

*System error,* the waiter had apologized discreetly. Derek had brushed it off with a laugh, tossing down a secondary corporate debit card, only for that to be declined as well. In the end, a deeply irritated Evelyn had been forced to put the five-hundred-dollar brunch on her personal card.

"The bank’s server must be down," Derek had grumbled as he steered his Porsche Cayenne toward River Road. "I’ll call Marcus Sterling’s office when we get back. Audrey’s family bank always has glitches at the end of the month."

"Make sure you get it sorted, Derek," Evelyn said from the passenger seat, touching her pearls. "It was thoroughly mortifying having the club staff stare at us."

"Don't worry, Mom. I run that firm. I’ll fire the branch manager if he doesn't fix it by three."

Sienna sat in the back, admiring the golden autumn leaves lining River Road. "Are we going to check out the tennis courts when we get back?"

"Anything you want, babe," Derek smirked in the rearview mirror. "The whole estate is ours."

Derek slowed down as he approached the grand wrought-iron gates of the River Road property. He reached up to press the built-in transponder on his visor.

Nothing happened.

The heavy iron gates remained shut.

Derek pressed it again, harder. "What the hell?"

He rolled down his window, leaning out into the crisp afternoon air, and punched his six-digit personal PIN into the stone pillar keypad.

A harsh, metallic beep sounded.

*ACCESS DENIED.*

"Derek, what is going on?" Evelyn demanded, leaning over the console. "Did Audrey change the gate code? That insolent little—"

"Get back in your seat, Mom," Derek snapped, his patience fraying. He hit the horn twice, the sound echoing down the quiet, tree-lined avenue. "Security! Hector, open the damn gate!"

Instead of Hector, the estate’s longtime groundskeeper, a man stepped out from the private security booth beside the entrance.

He wasn't wearing Hector’s work uniform. He was dressed in a razor-sharp charcoal suit, wearing an earpiece, with broad shoulders and an air of lethal professionalism.

Behind him, standing near the driveway turnaround, stood Marcus Sterling.

Marcus was in his late fifties, his silver hair impeccably combed, clutching a thick, leather-bound legal folio under his arm.

Derek’s eyes widened slightly. "Marcus? What the hell are you doing standing in my driveway? Tell your guard to open this gate right now. My mother is in the car and we have guests."

Marcus walked forward with measured, unhurried steps until he stood on the other side of the wrought-iron bars. He looked at Derek with the kind of cool, clinical detachment an entomologist might reserve for a bug pinned under glass.