I attended meetings via video call when I could not travel.
I read pitch decks from hospital beds during monitoring appointments.
I made decisions while hooked up to machines tracking four separate heartbeats.
The doctors were amazed I was still working.
I told them I did not have a choice.
The truth was, the work was what kept me sane.
Every time I felt weak, every time I wanted to call Julian and tell him about the children he would never meet, I looked at my portfolio.
Companies that were growing, succeeding, changing industries.
Proof that I was more than the girl who was not good enough for the Sterling name.
I gave birth at thirty-two weeks, which the doctors said was actually impressive for quadruplets.
Four tiny, perfect babies.
Three boys and one girl.
I named them after scientists and mathematicians, not socialites or dead Sterling ancestors.
Ethan. Oliver. Lucas. And Sophia.
The moment they were placed in my arms, still attached to wires and monitors in the NICU, I made them a promise.
“You will never beg for a place at anyone’s table,” I whispered. “You will build your own table. And everyone else will beg to sit at it.”