Sebastian rose quickly.

Then, with a deliberate motion, he locked her office door.

Madeline’s instincts flared with alarm. “What are you doing?”

“Mrs. Turner is so dutiful, so accommodating,” Sebastian murmured, his tone so devoid of warmth it was impossible to decipher his intent. He strode toward her, every step steady, controlled, as his long fingers began undoing the strap of his watch.

The air around him bristled with aggression.

Madeline shot to her feet, grabbing her office chair and dragging it in front of her like a flimsy shield. “The hospital is full of cameras, Sebastian. I doubt you’d want to go from last night’s scene at the police station to being tomorrow’s headline drama.”

Sebastian’s eyes slid leisurely down her figure, taking her in from head to toe. She wore a standard white lab coat—plain, utilitarian, and shapeless—but the way she carried herself gave it an unintentional grace, sharp and cold as frost.

“We’re married,” he said smoothly, arching a brow. “At worst, it’s an internal matter. Someone might issue a memo warning a certain Dr. Smith not to act so desperate as to turn the workplace into her personal playground. But the legal system? Hardly.”

Madeline felt her stomach turn. This was not going to end well. Before her brain could fully form a plan, her body moved—she bolted for the door.

She didn’t make it.

Sebastian’s long arm shot out, catching her wrist. With a jerk, he tossed her effortlessly backward, straight into the adjoining rest area—where her small daybed waited.

“Ah!” She landed with a jolt, her shoulder striking something hard. A spike of pain reverberated through her, momentarily subduing any resistance.

Sebastian followed her in, one knee sinking down beside her on the narrow bed. He seized her hands effortlessly, pinning them above her head. His steady grip was as immovable as iron.

His eyes hovered just above hers, the faintest slant of his gaze making them seem both intoxicating and unsettling. Up close, they had an unnervingly detached quality, as if the glint of emotion in them had been carefully, methodically snuffed out.

“Your little scheme’s clever, Madeline,” he said in a voice dangerously low, “but I’m not playing your game. I don’t barter. The only thing I want is the child you’re carrying.” He leaned closer, letting the weight of his words settle. “Only that.”

The emphasis wasn’t subtle—it was a warning.

Madeline strained against him, but his strength eclipsed hers. He leaned in, a mixture of familiarity and estrangement in his scent, bearing down on her like an oppressive shadow.

“Don’t move,” he murmured, as if they weren’t at war. “I told you before: once you deliver the baby, we’ll finalize the divorce. Until then, Dr. Smith, every time you bring up ‘divorce,’ I’ll take it as an invitation.”

She glared back silently, but her expression screamed every curse she was too furious to voice aloud.

“Of course,” Sebastian added, his tone infuriatingly nonchalant. “Your invitation doesn’t guarantee I’ll accept.” He smirked, his words unbearable. “You’ll have to earn my compliance, Mrs. Turner. Make me... feel like it.”

Madeline lay there mute, her chest rising and falling sharply with indignation.

Sebastian seemed almost bored as he reached down and retrieved whatever had jabbed her shoulder. A small object. He turned it over in his hand—a ring box.

He flipped it open with one hand. Inside lay her wedding band.

She blinked. The ring. She’d been wondering where it was for days. She thought she might’ve thrown it away in a fleeting moment of reckless honesty with herself, but apparently not.

Sebastian studied the band for a moment, his expression inscrutable. “It’s abundantly clear how much you want out of this marriage.”

She opened her mouth to retort, but he released her then, standing and placing the ring box on the top shelf of the nearest cabinet—where it would mock her with its visibility. Sliding his wristwatch back into place, he turned to leave without a backward glance, as if dismissing the entire scene as inconsequential.

“Don’t want Scarlett’s child? What about the one living on Cloverfield Lane?”

Madeline’s words froze him mid-step.

When he didn’t turn around, she went on deliberately, her voice not apologetic but unsettlingly sincere. “I’m sorry, Sebastian. I was a lonely child. When you were kind to me back then, I didn’t realize you were kind to everyone. I thought you liked me, and I mistook that for something real. So when my mother suggested our marriage, I said yes.

“If I had known then that I was no different to you than any stray cat or dog, I never would’ve said yes. I ruined your plans, disrupted your life. I even got in the way of your pursuit of happiness—of love. If I could go back, I’d avoid you altogether.”

His silence stretched, heavy, cold. She couldn’t see his face, but the atmosphere in the room plummeted, as if he had drawn back inside a shell of ice.

It was fitting, she thought distantly. The memory of their beginnings wasn’t a happy one. Retelling it now was bound to close him off.

“Now I want to set things right,” she continued. “Set you free. All you have to do is agree to divorce me. True love, the children you want—you can have it all. Why cling to this grudge?”

His answer was devastatingly curt, devoid of warmth. His words lashed out like the final stroke in a duel.

“Grudge? Dr. Smith, don’t humor yourself. I don’t hold grudges. I simply don’t like losing. When I get what I’m owed, then we’ll go our separate ways.”

And with that, he was gone.

Madeline stayed unmoving on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Exhaustion poured through her, deep and all-encompassing. It felt as though her very soul had been wrung dry.

Her phone buzzed. She glanced at it limply before accepting the call. “Sarah.”

Sarah Campbell, one of her oldest friends and an obstetrician-gynecologist, spoke quickly, her voice muffled as if she held her phone close. “Girl, what the hell are you doing? That woman’s over here screaming her lungs out like I’m helping some CEO harvest the heroine’s organs for a mistress!”

Madeline pinched the bridge of her nose. “And you need to stop reading those ridiculous soap opera novels. Did you check—was she pregnant?”

“Of course not,” Sarah snapped. “I did an ultrasound. Cervix is clear, and she’s on her period.”

Madeline laughed softly, though there was no humor in it. “Let her go.”

Sarah had been instrumental in setting up the stunt, though she’d gone along more out of loyalty than understanding. The two had been inseparable since middle school. Even now, she relayed the order to release the woman with begrudging resignation. “Who even is she?”

“Sebastian’s mistress.”

Sarah went quiet for a moment before her voice turned calculating. “We could still offer her uterus to the competition.”

The suggestion was so barbarous it brought a flicker of true amusement to Madeline’s face. She shook her head. “Sebastian wouldn’t hesitate to ruin your career here in Notadel if you did.”

Sarah sniffed dismissively. “Oh, please. Let him try!”

“He’s already back.”

The line was abruptly silent. Then, meekly: “I didn’t say anything. Forget it.”

Another pause. Then Sarah asked cautiously, “Are you really going to leave him?”

Madeline glanced at the ring box on the shelf. “He said I owe him the child I lost.”

Sarah’s sharp intake of breath was audible. “The one we... last year?”

Madeline nodded faintly, though Sarah couldn’t see her. The reminder stirred fury in her friend, who launched into an impassioned tirade, spending a furious half hour assassinating Sebastian’s character with almost poetic precision. By the time she finished, she’d reduced him, in her mind, to something on par with vermin.

Madeline hung up, oddly comforted by the rant. Moments later, another message buzzed in from Madam Turner, summoning her to the Turner family residence for dinner to welcome Sebastian home.

She went.

But when she arrived at the sprawling garden estate, it was alone. Sebastian hadn’t bothered to show up, sending his secretary to relay three cold words on his behalf: “Busy. Another time.”

So the dinner table held only Madeline, Thomas and Rebecca Turner.

Rebecca reached across the table to place a piece of sweet-and-sour pork on Madeline’s plate. “Ms. Stewart won’t be a concern any longer. She’s been sent away.”

Madeline froze mid-bite, lifting her gaze. “You knew?”

Rebecca sighed, her expression tinged with both weariness and sympathy. “You’ve endured so much already.”

She said ‘already,’ because they all knew it wasn’t the first time. The Cloverfield Lane woman had seen to that.