The billionaire’s champagne glass slipped from his fingers, shattering loudly against the marble floor.
“Clara?” he choked out.
His wife lunged forward, her elegant facade snapping into pure, feral panic. “Security! Get this lying tramp out of my house right now!”
But the burly guards standing by the oak doors didn’t move a single muscle.
Slowly, the nanny wiped the wet tears from her cheek. The humiliated, trembling posture vanished in an instant. She stood up straight, her spine like steel, keeping the little boy shielded safely behind her legs.
When she looked at the billionaire’s wife, the fear was entirely gone. Replaced by absolute, terrifying ice.
“I warned you, Victoria,” the nanny’s voice echoed, perfectly calm and dangerously loud. “I told you what would happen if you ever raised a hand to my boy.”
The billionaire father grabbed his wife’s arm, his mind reeling. “You said the surrogate moved to Europe! You said she signed an ironclad NDA!”
“I did,” the nanny interrupted smoothly. She reached into her apron pocket and pulled out a crisp, folded medical document, dropping it right at the billionaire’s leather shoes. “But Victoria left out one crucial detail seven years ago. She didn’t just pay me to carry a child. She paid me to use *my* egg.”
A collective gasp ripped through the crowd. Cellphones instantly shot back up, recording every second.
“Which makes me his undisputed biological mother,” the nanny continued, taking one lethal step toward the trembling socialite. “And as for the father?”
The billionaire’s heart stopped cold.
The nanny’s eyes drifted past him, locking perfectly onto the billionaire’s younger brother—the fiercely competitive, recently ousted co-founder of the family empire—who was standing by the champagne tower, swirling his glass with a vicious smirk.
“You really should have double-checked the fertility clinic’s donor files, Richard,” the nanny whispered.
The billionaire stared at his brother. Then at his violently sobbing wife. Then at the little boy who, he suddenly realized, had his brother’s exact piercing green eyes.
The nanny gripped her son’s hand tightly.
“We’ll be taking our shares of the company now,” she smiled. “Enjoy the party.”