A few nearby diners exchanged awkward glances.
Sebastian swallowed.
“Hannah… can we talk somewhere private?”
Instead of answering, Hannah calmly folded the children’s drawings, zipped their jackets, and began gathering their things.
“If they’re mine,” Sebastian insisted, “I have the right to know.”
“They’re children,” Hannah replied evenly. “Not another company you can claim ownership of whenever it’s convenient.”
Olivia smiled sweetly.
Or at least she tried to.
“Maybe Hannah should explain why she disappeared without telling anyone.”
Hannah looked directly into her eyes.
“I called Sebastian eleven times from the hospital.”
She paused.
“I emailed him.”
“I mailed him my ultrasound.”
“I even sent a handwritten letter.”
“Someone made sure none of it ever reached him.”
Sebastian slowly turned toward Olivia before looking back at Hannah.
“My mother told me… you lost the babies.”
Hannah laughed once.
A cold, humorless laugh.
“Your mother came into my hospital room with a lawyer while I was still bleeding.”
“She pressured me into signing my discharge papers.”
“Then she had every lock at the house changed before I even left the hospital.”
The silence around them became overwhelming.
People at nearby tables had stopped pretending not to listen.
Sebastian stepped in front of her.
“You can’t disappear again.”
She smiled.
“You still think I need your permission.”
Little Ethan quietly moved in front of his mother, his small hands trembling.
Restaurant staff called security.
Only then did Sebastian reluctantly move aside.
The drive back to Hannah’s apartment on Chicago’s North Side was almost completely silent.
Her phone vibrated twice.
The first message came from Sebastian.
Don’t leave Chicago. This isn’t over.
Seconds later another notification appeared.
This one came from Olivia.
Those children need stability—not revenge from a bitter woman.
Hannah saved screenshots of both messages without replying.
In the rearview mirror she saw Sophie quietly crying.
Ethan wrapped one arm around Lucas.
The three of them were trying to understand why a complete stranger had suddenly claimed to be their father.
What none of them knew…
…was that Olivia had personally picked up Hannah’s phone five years earlier…
…the very night Sebastian tried calling from the hospital.
And no one—not Sebastian, not Olivia, not even Hannah herself—
could imagine the scandal that was about to destroy everything.
