Chapter 1 - The Secret Contract
Four days later, Payton sat alone in the private tea room of the St. Regis, her back straight and her expression unreadable. The heavy mahogany door clicked open, and Eleanor Davis stepped inside, wearing a dark tweed suit and carrying a slim black leather briefcase. She was alone.
"Where are Spencer and Chloe?" Payton asked smoothly, sipping her warm jasmine tea.
"They don't need to be here for this," Eleanor said, sitting across from her and laying a thick legal document on the table. Beside the contract, she placed a cashier's check written out for $120 million.
Payton looked down at the staggering figure. "Spencer promised me sixty million. You’ve doubled it."
"Take the $120 million and leave my son," Eleanor said, her voice dropping into a harsh, trembling whisper that caught Payton off guard.
"I expected cruelty, Eleanor," Payton replied, eyeing her mother-in-law closely. "I didn't think you'd be desperate enough to pay double just to buy him his freedom."
"I'm not paying you to give him his freedom," Eleanor’s eyes flared with an emotion Payton had never seen in her—pure, primal terror. "I'm paying you to keep him alive."
Payton froze, her hand pausing over her teacup. "What are you talking about?"
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Eleanor opened her briefcase and pulled out a secondary file—a confidential medical dossier bearing the seal of a private genetics lab in Zurich. She slid it across the table.
"Read it," Eleanor commanded softly. "And you will understand why Chloe’s pregnancy isn't a blessing. It is a death sentence."
