**The Millionaire’s Fiancée Hit a Housekeeper With a Hockey Stick—Then Her 5-Year-Old Daughter Called Him “Daddy,” Exposing a Secret His Family Had Buried for Years.**

The alarm shrieked through June's apartment. I grabbed Lily, still half asleep in her pajamas, and headed for the stairs. Nathan was already holding the door.

"Stay with me," I told my daughter.

"Is the house burning?"

"I don't smell smoke. But we follow the rules."

We joined our neighbors in the stairwell. On the seventh floor, a woman wearing a maintenance jacket stepped toward us.

"I'll take the little one," she said. "Families with children have a separate exit."

"No," I said.

She reached for Lily anyway.

Nathan moved between them. "Back away."

The woman turned and pushed through the stairwell door. A building security officer ran after her. She disappeared before they reached the lobby, leaving behind a plastic badge with the Cole Foundation logo.

Lily trembled against me. "Why does everyone want me to go away?"

I knelt beside the sidewalk, sirens flashing against the windows. "Because some grown-ups are making terrible choices. None of those choices are your fault. Your job is to stay close and tell me when you're scared."

"I'm scared now."

"I know. I'm scared, too. But we're together."

The fire department found no fire. Someone had pulled the manual alarm beside June's elevator. Vega recovered footage of the woman in the maintenance jacket meeting a man in a parked car. The license plate led to a contractor who had worked for Meridian.

"They knew we would evacuate," Nathan said.

"They hoped we'd separate," Vega replied. "They were wrong."

Back upstairs, Lily fell asleep with her shoes on. Nathan stayed in the hallway until I invited him to sit by the door.

My phone vibrated just before dawn. A gossip website had published a story calling me a former employee who had taken a secret payment from Wallace Cole and was now claiming a child belonged to Nathan.