HE FLICKED A FIFTY-DOLLAR BILL AT ME ON THE ROAD AFTER MY SURGERY, BUT BY DAWN, THE TRUTH BROUGHT HIM TO HIS KNEES

Richard, the senior partner, looked back and forth between Marcus and me, entirely confused. "Marcus? Do you know Ms. Sterling?"

Marcus was hyperventilating. Sweat beaded on his forehead. "Clara...? What... what is this? What are you doing here?"

"Clara Sterling," my father corrected, his voice dropping an octave, shaking the glass walls of the room. "My only daughter. The woman you legally married under false pretenses. The woman you threw out of a moving vehicle in a freezing rainstorm while she was hemorrhaging from surgery."

Richard gasped, dropping his pen. The other Vanguard partners stared at Marcus in absolute horror.

"No, no, wait," Marcus stammered, raising his hands, terror finally breaking through his arrogant facade. "This is a misunderstanding! Clara, baby, tell them! I was just—we had a fight! I didn't know you were bleeding!"

"You handed me fifty dollars," I said, leaning forward, pulling the exact, dried, mud-stained fifty-dollar bill from my blazer pocket and tossing it onto the marble table. It slid until it hit Marcus’s coffee cup. "You told me to call a cab. You told me I smelled like rotting meat, and that I was ruining your image."

"Mr. Sterling, I swear to God—" Marcus pleaded, turning to my father.

"Silence!" my father roared, slamming his fist onto the table. The sound was like a gunshot. Marcus physically flinched, shrinking back into his expensive chair.

My father slid a thick manila folder across the table toward Richard.

"In that file, Richard, you will find the police report filed by the State Troopers for felony reckless endangerment and abandonment," my father said clinically. "You will also find the medical records detailing the sepsis my daughter nearly died from due to his criminal medical neglect. And, just for your HR department, time-stamped photos of Mr. Vance using company funds to rent hotel rooms with your twenty-four-year-old marketing associate, Elena."

Richard’s face turned purple with rage. He looked at Marcus as if he were holding a live grenade.

"Marcus," Richard hissed, his voice shaking with fury. "Is this true?"

"Richard, please, it's a personal matter—"

"You left a woman dying on the side of a highway?!" Richard screamed, standing up. "You brought this liability into my firm?! You pitched to her father?!"

"Mr. Sterling," Richard said, turning to my father, his tone instantly shifting to desperate damage control. "Vanguard Legal had absolutely no knowledge of this. We pride ourselves on the ethics of our partners."

"He is not a partner," my father stated flatly.

"No, sir. He is not. In fact, as of this exact second, he is no longer an employee of Vanguard Legal," Richard said, glaring at Marcus. "You are fired, Vance. Pack your desk. Security will escort you out of the building. And I will personally see to it that you are reported to the state bar association for moral turpitude."

Marcus looked at me, tears of panic welling in his eyes. The king had been entirely stripped of his crown in less than five minutes.

"Clara, please," he begged, his voice cracking. "I love you. I'm your husband."