The Ring He Gave Her Chapter 03

The Ring He Gave Her Chapter 03

The room went so quiet I could hear the violinist’s bow scrape to a halt.

Emma padded toward me on bare feet, her stuffed rabbit dragging along the marble floor. Her eyes—Nathan’s eyes, that same devastating green—were wide and confused.

I dropped to my knees and pulled her into my arms. “Baby, what are you doing here? Daddy said you were at Sophie’s house.”

Emma shook her head against my shoulder. “Daddy said we were going to a special dinner. The nice lady said I could watch cartoons in the back room, but I heard yelling.”

The nice lady.

I looked up at Lily, whose mask of innocence had slipped just enough to reveal the panic underneath.

“You brought my daughter here?” My voice was barely human. “You brought my four-year-old to your engagement party?”

Nathan stepped between us. “She was supposed to stay in the private lounge. She wasn’t supposed to see any of this.”

“Oh, well, that makes it perfectly fine then!” I stood, lifting Emma onto my hip. “You planned this whole circus and parked our child in a back room like a coat check?”

Margaret, the dean’s wife, had the audacity to interject again. “Dr. Cross, perhaps it would be best if your… if this woman took the child home. The stress isn’t good for Lily’s condition.”

I turned to her slowly. “Say ‘this woman’ one more time. I dare you.”

She shrank back.

Nathan ran both hands through his hair—his tell when he was calculating, not panicking. I’d seen it a thousand times before surgery. He was strategizing.

“Sadie.” His voice dropped to that calm, clinical tone he used with difficult patients. “I understand you’re upset. But everything I’ve done, I’ve done because you and I both know our marriage was over. The miscarriages broke something between us. You stopped eating. You stopped sleeping. You wouldn’t even let me touch you.”

“Because you told me it was my fault!” The words ripped out of me. “You said my body couldn’t carry a baby. You said the genetic testing proved it. You made me believe I was broken!”

Emma buried her face in my neck, whimpering.

Lily stepped forward, one hand on her belly, tears streaming. “Sadie, I know this is painful, but Nathan and I didn’t plan for this to happen. We fell in love during late nights at the hospital. He was lonely. You pushed him away—”

“Don’t.” I pointed at her. “Don’t you dare rewrite my marriage to justify what you did.”

I turned back to Nathan. “The genetic tests. The ones that said I couldn’t carry to term. I want to see them.”

A flicker of something—fear—crossed his face. “Sadie, this isn’t the time—”

“You’re a cardiac surgeon at the top hospital in New York. You have access to every lab, every file, every result. Show me the tests.”

He said nothing.

“You can’t,” I whispered, the realization hitting me like cardiac arrest. “Because they don’t exist, do they? You made it up. You told me I was genetically defective so I’d stop trying to have another baby—because you were already having one with her.”

The murmur that swept through the room was thunderous.

The dean leaned forward in his chair, suddenly very interested. A board member whispered urgently to his wife. I could practically hear careers recalculating in real time.

Nathan’s mask finally shattered. He grabbed my wrist—hard—and yanked me toward the hallway. “You’re going to destroy everything I’ve built—”

“Let go of my mother.”

The voice came from the doorway. Not small. Not shaky. Commanding.

My older brother, Ryan Walker, stood in the entrance of the restaurant flanked by two men in suits. His expression was the kind of calm that preceded absolute destruction.

Ryan was a federal prosecutor. The youngest ever appointed in the Southern District of New York. And he had told me—begged me—not to marry Nathan Cross.

I hadn’t listened.

Nathan released my wrist instantly. “Ryan. This is a private matter—”

“A forged divorce decree is not a private matter, Dr. Cross.” Ryan stepped forward, his shoes clicking against the marble. “It’s a Class E felony in the state of New York. Punishable by up to four years in prison.”

He turned to the two men behind him. “Agents, please secure the document Mrs. Cross is holding. It’s evidence.”

The room collectively stopped breathing.

Lily’s face went white. She clutched Nathan’s arm. “Nathan, what is he talking about? You told me the divorce was real—”

“It is real!” Nathan snapped. But his voice cracked on the last word.

Ryan pulled out his phone and held up a screen showing a legal database. “Funny thing about court filings, Dr. Cross. They’re public record. I checked this afternoon. There is no divorce decree on file for Nathan and Sadie Cross. The document you produced tonight is fraudulent.”

He pocketed his phone and looked Nathan dead in the eye.

“Which means you’re still married to my sister. Which means that ring on Dr. Chen’s finger is stolen property. And which means—” he glanced at Lily’s belly “—you have quite a lot of explaining to do.”

Nathan’s face contorted. He looked at me, at Ryan, at the roomful of colleagues who were already distancing themselves physically, chairs scraping backward.

Then Lily let out a sob and collapsed against him. “Nathan, you promised me. You promised this was all taken care of.”

Before he could respond, Emma lifted her head from my shoulder and looked at her father with those big green eyes.

“Daddy,” she said quietly, “are you a bad guy?”

The question detonated like a grenade in the silence.

And then my phone buzzed. I glanced down at the notification.

It was from my gynecologist’s office—a message marked urgent.

Mrs. Cross, we’ve completed the independent review of your reproductive health records you requested. There are significant discrepancies between Dr. Cross’s reported findings and your actual test results. Please call us immediately. This is a matter of serious concern.

My hands went numb. I looked up at Nathan, and his eyes—those lying, beautiful eyes—told me everything.

He hadn’t just cheated on me. He hadn’t just forged a divorce.

He had tampered with my medical records.