Chapter 1

Three years into a secret marriage, I showed up at work with my son, who was burning with a 104°F fever.

The chairman's newly hired assistant slapped a suspension notice onto my desk in front of the entire department.

"This isn't a daycare. Take your burden and get out," he sneered.

I didn't cry or scream. Holding my son, I stormed into the chairman's office on the forty-second floor.

The long table was piled with documents and tea sets. I shoved them aside and carefully set my feverish son down on the table.

"Ms. Miller, your grandson's got a 104-degree fever," I said.

"Your precious son has been missing for forty days. Are you going to deal with this mess or not?"

My son, Charles Miller, was three years and four months old. He was burning up with fever, his whole body trembling, his little head nestled in the crook of my neck, too weak to even cry anymore.

In the hallway, more than twenty pairs of eyes locked onto me.

Not a single person dared to say a word.

******

Ten minutes ago, I was at my desk, holding Charles in one arm while racing to finish a design proposal.

Michael Brown, the chairman's assistant, strutted over in his shiny leather shoes and slapped a document with a red seal onto my desk.

he sneered, "Sophia, what do you think you're doing bringing a kid to work?

"This isn't a daycare. Take your burden and get out."

He said it with his chin held high, loud enough for everyone to hear.

The whole floor was so quiet, you could hear the hum of the air conditioning vents.

Not a single person spoke up for me.

I glanced down at Charles's feverish face in my arms, and then looked up at the suspension notice. Everything spelled out plain as day.

"Major violation of company rules: bringing someone who doesn't belong here into the office."

I actually laughed.

It wasn't bitter or sneer. The whole thing was so ridiculous I almost laughed.

Three years of keeping my marriage a secret, three years of biting my tongue, and now, right here in his dad's company, my son gets called "burden."

I folded the suspension notice in half twice and stuffed it into Michael's suit pocket.

"Here, you can keep this," I said.

"I'd rather speak to your boss directly."

Then I turned around, holding Charles, and marched straight to the forty-second floor.

Michael's voice rang out behind me. "Sophia, get back here!"

I didn't stop.

My heels struck the marble floor one step at a time, each click sounding like a countdown.

When I got to the chairman's office, two receptionists stepped in front of me.

"Ms. Lane, Ms. Miller's in a meeting right now, could you please—"

I shifted to the side and kicked the heavy wooden door open.

The door slammed against the wall, muffled thud.

The conference room was connected to the office, and behind the glass partition, every executive in the room turned to stare at me.

Mr. Shaw's coffee cup stopped halfway to his lips, frozen in place.

Mr. Morgan, the marketing director, had his jaw drop, but he didn't say a word.

The woman at the head of the long table—Bella Miller, chairman of the Miller Group and my so-called mother-in-law—looked up slowly.

She was fifty-six, but looked younger than her age—well-preserved, not a strand of hair out of place, dressed in a custom dark gray suit that screamed authority.

I could count the number of times I'd met her on one hand.

I didn't slow down. I walked right up to her, swept the papers aside, and set my son—burning up with fever—down on the table.

The hard surface made Charles flinch, and he finally let out a cry, his voice hoarse and weak, sobbing in broken gasps.

Everyone in the room stood frozen.

I straightened up and looked at Bella.

"Ms. Miller, your grandson, Charles, is burning up with a 104-degree fever," I said.

"Your son, Ethan Miller—the vice president of the Miller Group—has been missing for forty days, seven hours, and twenty minutes.

"His phone's unreachable, and he's vanished. I've been paying for the baby formula and medical bills out of my own pocket.

"Today, I really had no choice. The nanny quit, and the daycare won't accept a kid with a fever.

"So I had no choice but to bring him to work. And your star assistant told me to take my kid and get out, like he's just some dead weight."

I paused.

"Ms. Miller, are you going to handle this mess or not?"

Someone in the conference room sucked in a sharp breath.

"Mr. Miller's... wife?"

"She said she's Mr. Miller's wife?"

"Is this kid really Mr. Miller's?"

The whispers exploded, filling the room.

Michael came running up to the door, out of breath, his face flushed red.

"Ms. Miller, this woman's crazy! She's just a nobody from the design department, making up wild stories—"

"Shut up," I snapped.

I glanced back at him.