Chapter 4: Triggers and Reminders

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• Bound to the Billionaire’s Baby   Chapter 37: Storm Glass

  Max’s breathing was shallow but even, his eyelids twitching lightly under sedation. Amara sat beside him, her fingers threaded loosely with his. The hospital room felt like a bubble—too sterile, too still, too far removed from the chaos her life had quietly become.Liam leaned against the doorway, arms crossed. He hadn’t told her about the call from Sebastian. He wasn’t even sure how to. There was a protective fury inside him, and it was growing louder each day.“His color’s better,” Amara murmured without looking up.“Yeah,” Liam said. “Dr. Alain said they’ll repeat the labs tomorrow. If the markers hold, he might be able to sit up by the weekend.”She nodded, then finally turned to him. “You didn’t sleep.”“No.”A pause stretched between them.“He’s still watching us, isn’t he?” she asked softly.Liam didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Yeah. I’m sure of it.”Amara swallowed. “I don’t want to live like

• Bound to the Billionaire’s Baby   Chapter 36: The Fire Beneath the Silence

  The sun filtered through the apartment windows, soft and golden. It painted the room in warmth, but Amara couldn’t feel it. She moved through the morning in silence—making tea, opening windows, letting the light in as if that alone would sweep away the weight lodged in her chest.Liam watched her from the doorway. Something in the way she avoided his eyes told him everything he needed to know—she was trying to bury something. He’d seen it before. With clients, with strangers. But this was different. This was her.“Amara,” he said gently, “talk to me.”She looked up, startled. “I am talking.”“No,” he said, stepping closer. “You’re performing.”She exhaled, shoulders slumping. “What do you want me to say?”“That you trust me. That whatever’s chasing you inside your head doesn’t have to stay there.”Amara turned back to the window. “I thought I was over him.”Silence.Liam didn’t ask who.“I thou

• Bound to the Billionaire’s Baby   Chapter 35: The Quiet Between Storms

  Amara lay still long after Liam’s breathing evened out beside her. The warmth of his body was real, anchoring, but her mind floated elsewhere—backward, inward. Eight weeks. She was eight weeks pregnant. The number rang in her chest like a tolling bell, marking time she hadn’t realized she’d lost. Or maybe—stolen.She rolled slowly onto her back, her palm flattening over her abdomen. Barely a swell, yet the weight of it felt immense. It wasn’t just a baby. It was a decision. A tether. A living consequence of everything she had run from, and toward.The memory was a ghost with claws. Sebastian’s hands on her thighs. The cold floor. His voice rough, commanding. “You’re not keeping that baby. You either choose me or you lose everything.” He’d said it with such calm certainty, like he was offering an ultimatum with a ribbon on top.At the time, she had believed she needed to hear him out. One last confrontation. One final severing of ties. But she’d been wrong.

• Bound to the Billionaire’s Baby   Chapter 34: The Grip That Burned

  The dream came uninvited.It always did.Amara was back in that dark loft apartment, high above Rue Montmartre, draped in shadows and red silk sheets. Candlelight flickered against the exposed brick walls. The scent of bergamot and firewood clung to her skin. And he was there.Sebastian.She felt his presence before she saw him—like a storm rolling in. His voice was a low, velvet thread in the back of her mind, tugging at her spine."You always look better when you’re unsure," he whispered, stepping from behind her, shirt unbuttoned, gaze unrelenting. "Let me help you remember what it means to belong to someone."Her breath caught. Not in fear. Not in anticipation. In something murkier. That cocktail of desire and danger that had always drawn her to him.In the dream, she didn’t resist.His hands gripped her wrists. Bound them behind her back with that black silk tie he always wore like a promise. He kissed her neck, slow and searing, and whispered things that made her knees weaken. H

• Bound to the Billionaire’s Baby   Chapter 33: The Shadow Behind the Glass

  Tessa woke with a pounding headache and the overwhelming sense that something wasn’t adding up. The chill of the holding cell, the sterile quiet of the precinct, the fragmented memory of the accident—it all felt like a dream stitched together with faulty thread.She sat up on the bench, brushing hair from her eyes, when something clicked. The phone call.The hospital call.She hadn’t asked Amara if she confirmed it. The doctor. The seizure. Max.Had Amara even verified it?Before the thought could settle, Elliot appeared at the door. He looked worn.“You’re being released pending investigation. The footage and witness reports are… complicated.”Tessa blinked. “Complicated how?”He stepped in, voice low. “The victim had no ID. No digital footprint. No confirmed residence.”“Wait, what?”“It’s like he didn’t exist.”Tessa’s mouth went dry.---Across town, Amara sat at Max’s bedside rereading her call log.The call from Saint-Pierre Hospital—the one that pulled her from her guesthouse a

• Bound to the Billionaire’s Baby   Chapter 32: Threads Unraveled

  Late that night, Amara found herself wide awake in her Paris guesthouse. Rain pattered against the window, a soft drumroll that matched the thrum in her chest. She’d spent the afternoon at Max’s bedside—short visits, hushed updates, assurances that he was stable. But her mind kept drifting back to Tessa in custody, Elliot’s restrained presence, and Liam's unwavering support.She reached for her sketchbook, fingers hovering over the blank page. Her pencil pressed in, forming the first delicate line—a heartbeat drawn in charcoal, jagged and anxious.Her phone buzzed:Liam (Paris): Can you meet me at Rue des Martyrs? 10 AM. Need to show you something.Amara’s breath caught. She replied: Yes. Heartbeats later, she fell into a fitful sleep.---Morning arrived damp and soft. Amara met Liam at a quiet café across from the old bookstore on Rue des Martyrs. He wore the same black sweater from the hospital like a talisman.He didn’t speak at first—only slid a small, unmarked envelope across th