“Say hello to your father,” I told them.
Ethan stepped forward, his small hand extended.
“Hello, sir,” he said politely. “My name is Ethan Vance. It is nice to meet you, even though you abandoned us before we were born.”
I had not coached him to say that.
The kid was a natural.
Julian looked down at the small hand, then at Ethan’s face, which was a perfect miniature copy of his own.
He did not shake the hand.
Oliver stepped forward next.
“I am Oliver,” he said cheerfully. “Mama says you were not ready to be a father. That is okay. We turned out great anyway.”
Lucas said nothing, just stared at Julian with those serious, assessing eyes.
Sophia was last.
She looked at Julian, then at Victoria, then back at her father.
“You picked wrong,” she said simply. “Mama is way cooler than her.”
Some of the wedding guests actually laughed at that.
I put my hand on Sophia’s shoulder.
“Alright, babies,” I said. “We have made our point. Let us let these nice people get back to their wedding.”
I turned to leave, then paused and looked back at Arthur.
“Oh, and Mr. Sterling? That one hundred twenty million you paid me to disappear? I invested it. It is now worth approximately forty billion. So thank you. You gave me the seed capital to destroy everything you built. I could not have done it without you.”
I smiled, that same serene smile.
“Enjoy the wedding.”
I walked out of that ballroom with my head high, my children beside me, and the sound of chaos erupting behind me.
Outside, the car was waiting.
I helped the children in, then slid in beside them.
“Did we do good, Mama?” Sophia asked.
“You did perfect,” I said.
As we pulled away from the Plaza, my phone started buzzing.
Texts. Emails. Calls from reporters, investors, lawyers.
The story was already spreading.
Billionaire tech mogul crashes ex-husband’s wedding with secret quadruplets.
Sterling heir confronted by children he never knew existed.
Wedding of the decade becomes scandal of the decade.
I silenced my phone and looked at my children.
“Are you hungry?” I asked.
“Starving,” Oliver said.
“Then let us get pizza,” I said. “The kind your father would never approve of.”
We went to a tiny pizzeria in Brooklyn, the kind of place I used to go to when I was a broke graduate student.
The kind of place that served pizza on paper plates and did not care who you were or how much money you had.