Chapter 2 - The Taste of Betrayal
The morning after my twins were born—Leo and Maya, small and fierce like their mother—the hospital room was quiet except for the rhythmic, steady beep of the infant monitors. Warren Cole was gone.
He hadn't left a card, a phone number, or even his last name with the nurses. All he had left behind was a small leather-bound notebook on the bedside table where he had jotted down a list of lullabies the pediatrician recommended, written in sharp, elegant cursive.
I held the notebook in my hands, feeling the phantom echo of his silver-blue eyes.
“Who was that?” my mother asked, walking in with a plastic bag full of clean clothes and dry toast. She had driven through the night from Macon as soon as I managed to text her.
“A stranger,” I whispered. “He just... stayed.”
“Men don't just stay, Amelia,” my mother said, her voice tight with the hard-earned wisdom of a woman whose own husband had vanished into thin air. “Nobody does something for nothing. Remember that.”
She was right. The world didn't work on charity. It worked on leverage.
Three days later, I was discharged. I walked out of the hospital into the biting Atlanta wind, holding two car seats against my chest like shields. Derek still hadn't called. His phone went straight to voicemail. His mother's secretary emailed me a formal, ice-cold cancellation for our next catering contract, citing "unforeseen scheduling conflicts."
Translation: The heir has discarded the toy.
I drove back to my small apartment in East Atlanta. It smelled of baby formula, stale coffee, and the lingering scent of anxiety. I opened my laptop, intending to check my business account, only to find a notification from my bank.
Account Balance: $142.18.
My catering business had been put on hold during my high-risk pregnancy. Clients had cancelled when rumors spread that Derek Fontaine—one of the largest commercial real estate and agricultural magnates in Georgia—was denying paternity. The local gossip columns had already picked up the scent: “High-Society Heir Disavows East Atlanta Caterer’s Unborn Twins.”
They painted me as a gold-digger. They painted Derek as the victim of a clever trap.
They didn't know that Derek hadn't paid for a single ultrasound. They didn't know that I had paid for our brief, suffocating romance with my own savings, believing his promises that we would "announce things properly once the harvest reports cleared."
As I sat on the edge of my sagging sofa, staring at the glowing screen, my phone buzzed. It wasn't Derek.
It was an unknown number.
I swiped to answer, my voice hoarse. “Hello?”
“Amelia Reed?” a crisp, polished voice asked. It belonged to a woman, cool and professional. “This is Victoria Vance, Chief of Staff to Mr. Warren Cole. Mr. Cole requires your catering services for an exclusive private acquisition dinner this coming Friday evening at the Cole Tower downtown. Details have been sent to your business email. The retainer has already been wired.”
I blinked, my breath catching in my throat. “Wait—Mr. Cole? The Warren Cole? Private Equity? Cole Industries?”
“Yes, Ms. Reed,” Victoria replied smoothly. “He specifically requested your peach bourbon glaze. And he mentioned you have twins now. Congratulations. See that you arrive by 2:00 PM for prep. Do not disappoint him.”
The line went dead.
I scrambled to my laptop and opened my bank account. I refreshed the page.
そこに... there it was.
Wire Transfer Received: $50,000.00.
May you like
Not a deposit. A retainer. Enough to pay my back rent, clear my supplier debts, and hire a full-time night nurse for a month.
Warren Cole hadn't just walked into my hospital room by accident. Or maybe he had—but he was stepping back into my life with the force of a hurricane.
