---- Chapter 15 Eliza POV: While the final details of the acquisition were being hammered out, Cash disappeared. He didn't show up to meetings. He didn't answer his phone. He had abdicated, leaving the smoldering ruins of his family's empire to the lawyers and accountants. He drove straight to Catherine's penthouse. When she opened the door, a hopeful smile on her face at his unexpected appearance, he pushed past her without a word. "Did you send people to spread rumors about Eliza after she left New York?" he demanded, his voice a low, dangerous growl. Catherine's face went white. Her eyes darted around nervously. "I... | don't know what you're talking about." He grabbed her wrist, his grip like iron. "Don't lie to me," he snarled, his face inches from hers. "Not anymore." Tears sprang to her eyes. "I did it because | love you!" she cried, the pathetic, familiar refrain of a woman with no other defense. "She was trying to take you from me!" He recoiled from her as if he'd been burned, dropping her wrist ---- in disgust. "And the boat?" he whispered, his voice filled with a horrified disbelief. "You and my father... you were going to kill her." The look of pure terror on her face was all the confirmation he needed. He stared at her, at this woman he had married, this woman who had borne his supposed child, and he saw a monster. He turned and walked out, leaving her sobbing on the floor. He went to his office and, with a chillingly calm efficiency, he gathered every piece of evidence of the Yang family's corrupt business dealings-files he had been privy to as their partner and son-in-law. He compiled a dossier of fraud, bribery, and insider trading, a testament to a corporate culture as rotten as their morality. Then he called the police. Catherine and her father were arrested that evening. As she was led away in handcuffs, screaming his name, Cash felt nothing. No satisfaction. No remorse. Just a vast, hollow emptiness. He agreed to see her one last time, at the detention center. She was a wreck, her face tear-stained and swollen. "Get me out of here, Cash," she pleaded, her hands gripping the bars that separated them. "Please. For Elias. He needs his mother." ---- The mention of the child gave him pause. The boy was innocent in all of this. "| will hire the best lawyers," he said, his voice flat. "I will ask the judge for leniency. That is all | can do." It was a sliver of hope, and she clung to it. The day of the trial was a media circus. | arrived with Dane, both of us dressed in dark, severe suits, a united front of power and control. Cash was already there, standing alone, looking like a ghost at a feast. He couldn't meet my eyes. As the proceedings were about to begin, | walked past him. "It's a shame, really," | murmured, my voice just loud enough for him to hear. "All this trouble for a child that isn't even yours. You always did have a soft spot for raising other men's sons." He froze, his head snapping up to look at me, his eyes wide with confusion and dawning horror. The reporters, sensing blood in the water, swarmed him. "Mr. Robinson! Is it true? Is the child not yours?" Dane stepped forward, calm and collected, and handed a file to one of the more prominent journalists. "The paternity test results," he said with a polite smile. "| believe you'll find them illuminating." ---- Cash stumbled backward, his hand flying to his chest as if he couldn't breathe. He looked from the DNA report to Catherine, who had slumped in her chair, her face a mask of pure, unadulterated despair. The final betrayal. The ultimate humiliation. The great Cash Robinson, heir to a fallen empire, had been made a fool of, in the most public way imaginable.