"If you don't let Dad move in, I'll disown you!" Valentina's voice cut across the corridor like a blade. Her heels clicked faster than her words, each step a puncture. Nurses looked up. A janitor paused mid-sweep. The surgical wing door sighed shut behind them. Guinevere didn't look at her daughter. She unlatched her fingers from the plastic armrest and let them fall to her lap. The cast on her forearm was still new; the skin around it bruised. Someone had counted on that fragility. Guinevere stood anyway. "You're not going to blackmail me in a hospital," she said. Calm. Controlled. The corridor felt too bright. The fluorescent light made Valentina's mascara glitter. "Blackmail?" Valentina laughed—too high, too brittle. "Guinevere, please. It's called family." She leaned close, voice lowered for the cameras they both knew existed. "Give him a room. He apologizes. It's over. You keep the headlines quiet, you keep your image." A nurse hovered, clipboard pressed to her chest. Nicoletta stepped out from behind Guinevere like a shadow. "Ms. Cochran," she said quietly. "We can talk in private." Valentina snapped her head. "Oi, the assistant again. Save your loyalty for your paycheck, Nikki." She clipped the diminutive nickname with disgust. "You can't stand between a daughter and her father." Guinevere's jaw moved. She held back a smile that would have looked weak. She remembered the divorce papers, the night Forrest left with a suitcase and two