Marcus: Get your hands off my son right now!
Evelyn: Marcus, please! I can explain everything!
Marcus: Explain what? That you've been wearing a fake silicone belly for four months?!
Evelyn: I did it for us, Marcus! I did it to protect our family standing!
Marcus: You lied to me, you lied to the board, and you just struck my seven-year-old child in front of two hundred people!
Marcus grabbed Evelyn by her arms, shaking her as the deflated cushion hung loosely under her red silk gown. Leo retreated behind his grandmother, Beatrice, who pulled the crying boy into her arms.
Beatrice: You absolute monster, Evelyn! How dare you lay a finger on my grandson!
Evelyn: Beatrice, stay out of this! You don't know what Marcus promised me!
Beatrice: My son promised to marry a woman of honor, not a gold-digging fraud who fakes a pregnancy to force a prenuptial agreement!
Marcus: Is that what this was all about, Evelyn? The trust fund clause?
Evelyn: The trust fund belongs to the primary heir! You said if I carried your child, the voting shares would transfer to my name!
Marcus: I said the shares would belong to a child, not to a liar who tricks her way into an estate!
Leo: Dad... she told me yesterday that she was going to send me to boarding school once the baby came.
Marcus: What? She said what to you, Leo?
Leo: She said I was taking up space in the mansion, and that the new baby would get my bedroom.
Evelyn: The boy is lying! He's trying to make you hate me!
Marcus: Leo is seven years old, Evelyn! He doesn't invent stories about estate trusts and boarding schools!
Evelyn: Marcus, look at me! We have a wedding scheduled in two weeks! Think about what the press will say if you call it off now!
Marcus: The press is the least of your concerns, Evelyn. Look around you.
Evelyn turned her head slowly, her face turning pale as she realized every senator, CEO, and reporter in the grand hall was holding up their smartphones, recording her ruined dress and her deflated belly.
Senator: Disgraceful. Absolutely disgraceful behavior.
Guest A: She faked a pregnancy for a corporate trust fund? That's federal fraud!
Guest B: And she hit Marcus Sterling's kid right under the American flag! She's completely finished in this city.
Evelyn: Turn those cameras off! All of you, put your phones away!
Marcus: Let them record, Evelyn. Let the entire world see who you really are.