Chapter 2

Ashley's POV 

He's bigger than the billboards let on.

That's the first thought that lands, stupidly, before the fear even catches up. Liam Ashworth fills the doorway shoulder to shoulder, dark hair, a jaw like it was carved rather than grown, eyes so pale they're almost silver. He's wearing a suit that probably costs more than my mother's entire hospital bill, and every line of his body says he is used to rooms rearranging themselves around him the second he walks in.

Right now that room is this one, and I'm the only person in it.

Behind him, two men in dark suits linger at the threshold, clearly bodyguards, clearly waiting for a signal that never comes. He doesn't spare them a glance. His attention is entirely, unnervingly, on me.

"You," he says, and his gaze locks onto me like a searchlight finding its target. "You're the surrogate."

"I, um." My voice comes out smaller than I want it to, and I hate myself for it. "I don't actually know what happened yet. Nia was just explaining that there might have been some kind of error."

"What happened," he says, stalking closer, each step slow and deliberate, "is that a clinic I trusted with something irreplaceable made a mistake that cannot be undone. Do you understand what you're carrying?"

"A baby," I say, finding some spine from somewhere, even as my heart hammers against my ribs. "I understand that much."

Something flickers across his face, too fast to name, and then he's leaning down, close enough that I catch a low breath through his nose like he's actually smelling me. His whole body goes rigid, shoulders locking, hands curling at his sides like he's fighting the urge to reach for me.

"Mine," he says, almost to himself, like the word surprised him on the way out. Something shifts the instant he hears himself say it, and he jerks back a step, jaw hardening like he's furious at his own reaction. Whatever that was, he didn't intend to let it show.

"Excuse me?"

He straightens abruptly, jaw tight, looking at me like I'm a problem he hasn't finished solving. "The pup is mine. There's no question about that now, the scent confirms it before the blood test even could." His eyes narrow, sweeping over me like he's cataloguing every detail. "What I don't know is what kind of woman signs up to carry a stranger's child for money."

Heat rushes up my neck. "The kind who needed to pay her mother's medical bills and didn't have a trust fund to fall back on," I snapped, before I could stop myself. "Not that it's any of your business, Mr. Ashworth."

For a moment he just looks at me, and something in his expression shifts, not softer exactly, but sharper, like he's reassessing an opponent he underestimated. He pulls his phone from his jacket, scrolling through something with a scowl deepening across his face.

"This wasn't a clerical mistake," he says, more to himself than to me. "My sample's security code was entered correctly, then overridden less than a minute later by someone with clearance high enough to bypass the vault's protocols entirely. Clinics don't misfile embryos protected at that level. Someone did this on purpose."

"On purpose?" The words land heavier than expected. "You're saying someone did this deliberately?"

"I'm saying someone did this to me," he corrects, voice hard. "You simply happened to be standing in the way." He pockets the phone, expression closing off again. "It is entirely my business," he says. "That is my son or daughter you're carrying. Which means, as of this moment, your wellbeing is my business too. Your diet, your safety, your surroundings, all of it."

"I have a life," I say. "A job. An apartment. Rent due in two weeks. I don't need a billionaire werewolf deciding how I live just because his clinic made a mistake."

"You signed away your right to make that call the moment that embryo implanted," he says, voice flat and certain. "I don't trust strangers with what's mine, and I trust this clinic even less than I did an hour ago. You'll be relocated to my estate until the birth, where you can be properly looked after by people I actually trust."

"Relocated." I laugh, disbelieving, even though nothing about this feels remotely funny. "You can't just move me into your house like I'm the furniture you ordered."

"I can, and I will." He says it so simply, so certain, that for one horrible second I actually believe him completely. "You can come willingly, or I can make it very difficult for the clinic that caused this mess to survive the week. Your friend included, since her name is on your file."

My blood goes cold. "Leave Nia out of this. She didn't do anything wrong, it wasn't her mistake."

"Then give me a reason to leave her alone."

He holds my gaze, and something passes between us that has nothing to do with anger, a current I don't understand and don't want to, humming low under my skin like the moments right before a storm breaks over the city. I hate that I feel it. I hate that some traitorous part of me doesn't want to look away from him.

"I need time to think," I manage, wrapping my arms around myself.

"You have until tomorrow morning." He turns for the door, pausing just long enough to look back at me over his shoulder, and for one unguarded second the fury in his face gives way to something that looks almost like hunger. "Do not make me come looking for you, Ashley."

He's gone before I can ask how he already knows my name, his footsteps fading down the hall as fast as they arrived, leaving me standing there with my hand pressed flat against my stomach and no idea what my life is about to become.

Nia slips back in a moment later, having clearly been waiting just out of sight for him to leave. "Ashley," she breathes, "I am so sorry. If I had noticed the mix-up before the procedure I would have stopped everything, I swear it."

"I know." My voice sounds far away, even to me. "This isn't your fault."

"What are you going to do?"

I look down at my own hands, still faintly trembling, and think about the way his eyes went hungry right before the door closed behind him. "I don't know yet," I admit. "But I don't think I have very many options left to choose from."

My phone buzzes on the counter before Nia can answer. An unknown number, a single text waiting on the screen.

A car will be outside your apartment at dawn, whether you've decided or not. L.A.

I stare at the message until the letters blur, my heart pounding somewhere up in my throat. He hasn't even given me the full night he promised, not really, not when dawn is already circled on his calendar like a deadline I never agreed to.