Novels by Esther David

The drive back to New York took four hours.Elara spent most of it staring out the window, watching the landscape shift from Boston's brick buildings to highway monotony to the familiar skyline of Manhattan rising like steel teeth against the grey sky.Sebastian worked on his laptop beside her, the quiet click of keys the only sound in the car besides the hum of the engine.He didn't try to make conversation.Didn't ask questions.Just let her exist in silence while her mind raced through every possible outcome of the decision she'd just made.One week.Seven days to figure out if she could survive in his world.Seven days to decide if the safety he offered was worth the price of letting him in.Around hour three, exhaustion finally pulled her under.She woke to Sebastian's hand on her shoulder, gentle.“We're here.”Elara blinked, disoriented.Through the tinted window, she saw a building. Not just any building- a tower of glass and steel that seemed to pierce the clouds themselves.

The car was waiting outside.Black. Sleek. Expensive enough that people on the street turned to look as Elara approached with her worn suitcase and secondhand coat.Marco held the door open, his expression carefully neutral.Elara stopped on the sidewalk.Her hand tightened on the suitcase handle. Every instinct screamed at her to run. To turn around and disappear into the Boston morning and never look back.But Sebastian's words echoed in her mind: Someone tried to hurt your baby.She looked at the car. Then at the hostel behind her. Then at Sebastian, who stood waiting with the patience of a man who already knew she would get in.“I can't do this,” she whispered.Sebastian's expression didn't change. “Yes, you can.”“You don't understand.” Her voice cracked. “I can't just... I can't go back to New York and pretend everything is fine. I can't live in your world.”“I'm not asking you to pretend.” He moved closer, stopping just in front of her. “I'm asking you to be safe.”“Safe,” she

Elara turned around slowly.Sebastian Vale stood in the doorway of the tiny hostel room like he owned it.Like he owned everything.Dressed entirely in black, hands relaxed at his sides, dark eyes locked on her with an intensity that made the air feel thinner. He wasn't even breathing hard. Wasn't disheveled from travel or rushed from the chase.He looked like he had simply decided to be here.And so here he was.“How…” Her voice cracked. She swallowed and tried again. “How did you get in here? This is a women's dorm.”Sebastian's mouth curved at the corner. “The clerk downstairs was very accommodating.”“You bribed him.”“Money solves most problems.” He stepped into the room, casual, unhurried, and closed the door behind him. “You should know that better than anyone.”The words landed like a slap.Elara stood abruptly from the bunk, putting distance between them. Her back hit the wall. Nowhere left to retreat.“Get out,” she said.“No.”“I'll scream.”“You won't.” His gaze was stead

The bus ride to Boston took four hours.Elara didn't sleep.She sat rigid in her seat, watching the highway blur past, one hand pressed protectively over her stomach. The other clutched her phone, screen dark, like holding a live grenade.See you in Boston.Three words that had turned her escape into a trap.Around her, passengers dozed or scrolled through phones or stared out windows with the blank exhaustion of people going nowhere important. Normal people. People whose biggest problem was maybe being late to work or missing a connecting bus.People who weren't being hunted by a billionaire.The woman across the aisle was still reading her romance novel, occasionally sighing at particularly emotional scenes. Elara watched her from the corner of her eye and felt something bitter twist in her chest.Romance novels always ended well.The heroine always got her happy ending.Real life wasn't so kind.Real life gave you impossible choices and left you pregnant and alone on a bus to nowhe

Elara had $517,000 in her bank account and nowhere to go.The motel room smelled like mildew and broken dreams. She sat on the edge of the sagging mattress, her small suitcase open at her feet, staring at the pregnancy test she still couldn't bring herself to throw away.Four weeks pregnant.With Sebastian Vale's child.The man who had bought one night of her body and inadvertently destroyed her entire world.Her phone sat dark and silent on the nightstand. She had turned it off hours ago, but she could still feel it there, waiting. Like a bomb she hadn't quite defused.He would call again. She knew it with the same certainty she knew the sun would rise.Men like Sebastian didn't lose. They didn't let things slip through their fingers, especially not things they considered theirs.And somehow, in the space of one desperate transaction, she had become his.Elara stood abruptly, the movement making her stomach roll. Morning sickness. The doctor had warned her it might start soon. Just

Cassandra Whitmore didn't believe in coincidence.A woman didn't vanish after one night with Sebastian Vale unless she had a reason. And if she had a reason, it meant she had leverage or she was carrying something that could become leverage.Either way, Cassandra refused to be the last person to know.She sat in the back seat of her car as Manhattan lights streaked past the tinted windows. Her expression was calm, her posture elegant, but her mind was already three steps ahead.Her phone buzzed.Derek, Private Intelligence.“Yes,” she answered smoothly.“We pulled what you asked for,” Derek said. ‘Basic info checks out. Elara Moore. Twenty-two. No criminal record. No real social presence. Mostly invisible.”Cassandra's mouth curved faintly. “Invisible people are the most interesting.”“There's more,” Derek continued. “Her mother was hospitalized at Metropolitan. Terminal cancer. Financial strain. The mother died two weeks ago.”Cassandra's fingers tightened slightly on her clutch. “An