Chapter 3

Callie

"We are going back to that clinic right now, and you are telling them to undo it."

Iris, my best friend, was pacing the narrow length of her cramped, paint-splattered studio apartment, her combat boots thudding aggressively against the floor. She was holding a half-empty mug of black coffee like it was a weapon, her dark curls practically vibrating with rage.

"Iris, it doesn't work like that," I whispered, pulling the scratchy wool blanket tighter around my shoulders.

I was huddled on her lumpy futon, wearing a pair of her oversized sweatpants and an old band t-shirt. My damp, ruined clothes were currently tumbling in the laundromat machine down the street. I was entirely exhausted, my bones aching with a deep, hollow chill that no amount of blankets could seem to cure.

"I don't care how it works, Callie!" Iris yelled, whirling around to point her coffee mug at me. Dark circles framed her eyes, she had stayed awake the entire night holding me while I sobbed so hard I couldn't breathe. "He set you up! That parasitic, lying sociopath tricked you into signing a contract to carry a child just so he could dump you and run off to his billionaire sugar mommy! You are not carrying that bastard’s baby!"

"It's not his baby. It's an anonymous VIP client. Tristan just...used the money."

"Which is exactly why you need to terminate it," Iris pleaded, dropping down onto the edge of the futon. Her fierce anger softened into concern. She reached out, gripping my cold hand. "Callie, look at me. You owe him nothing. You owe this anonymous rich client nothing. You are twenty-three years old, brilliant, and just lost your entire life in an afternoon. You cannot be an incubator for the next nine months. We will find a way to pay back the agency's down payment. I'll take double shifts at the bar. I'll sell my paintings. Just...don't do this to yourself."

I looked down at our joined hands, my throat tightening.

It would be so easy to agree. It would be so easy to walk back into Dr. Roth’s clinic, demand a termination, and disappear. I had done it before. I had vanished from my parents' lives at eighteen. I knew how to be a ghost.

But as I pressed my fingers against my stomach, an unshakable resolve settled over my fractured heart.

"No," I said softly. "I'm not doing it."

Iris blinked, her face falling. "Callie..."

"My parents brought me into this world, and the moment I wasn't useful to them, they discarded me. Tristan just did the exact same thing. The agency already ran the transfer, Iris. There is a real embryo inside me right now. A real baby is coming. I don't care who the parents are, and I don't care how much it hurts. I will not abandon the child the way I was abandoned."

Iris stared at me for a long time, the fight slowly draining out of her shoulders. She knew my history. She was the only person on earth who knew my identity. She knew that when I made a vow like that, absolutely nothing could break it.

Before she could argue further, a piercing ring shattered the quiet of the apartment.

We both jumped. I reached toward the coffee table and picked up the cheap burner phone the surrogacy agency had issued me for VIP communications. The screen was flashing with an unknown number.

My heart gave a nervous flutter. I swiped the screen and brought it to my ear. "Hello?"

"Miss Callista," a woman's voice came through the speaker, cold, and entirely devoid of warmth. "This is the Elite Origins Agency. We have been instructed to invoke Clause 4A of your contract."

I frowned, sitting up straighter. "Clause 4A? What does that mean?"

"It means the VIP client has demanded an immediate, mandatory in-person assessment. A car will be at your listed address in exactly one hour. If you fail to appear, you will be in direct breach of contract, resulting in immediate termination and a penalty f*e of one hundred thousand dollars, payable by the end of the business day."

Panic flared in my chest. "One hour? But the transfer was just yesterday, I'm supposed to be resting..."

"One hour, Miss Callista," the woman interrupted, the line clicking dead a second later.

I lowered the phone, staring at the black screen in pure shock. One hundred thousand dollars. Where the hell was I supposed to get that amount of money? I'd practically given everything to Tristian already.

"Iris," I called, throwing the blanket off my legs and scrambling off the futon. "I need my blazer from the laundromat. Now."

Fifty-five minutes later, I was standing on the curb in the freezing morning air, wearing a plain black turtleneck Iris had lent me, my only unwrinkled black blazer, and my worn-out jeans. It wasn't the attire of a high-end surrogate, but it was my best.

A black town car rolled silently up to the curb, the tinted back door swinging open. I climbed in, my stomach tying itself into a massive knot as the driver pulled away without a single word.

We drove for nearly an hour, leaving the cramped, noisy streets of the city behind and crossing into a sprawling, ultra-exclusive enclave of private estates. The trees grew thicker, the stone walls higher, until the town car finally slowed in front of a pair of massive, imposing gates. They swung open silently, revealing a winding driveway lined with perfectly cut evergreens.

At the end of the drive sat a breathtaking, terrifying fortress.

It was a sprawling mega-estate built of dark stone and glass, radiating an oppressive kind of power.

The car stopped at the front steps and before I could even reach for the handle, the door was opened by an older, impeccably dressed butler with a face carved from stone.

"Miss Callista," he said smoothly, bowing his head slightly. "Please follow me. They are expecting you in the grand dining room."

I stepped out, my worn sneakers feeling entirely inappropriate against the limestone steps. I followed the butler through the massive double front doors, stepping into a foyer of towering crystal chandeliers. The sheer scale of the house was dizzying. It felt less like a home and more like the headquarters of an empire.

We walked down a long hallway lined with original, priceless artwork. My heart was hammering violently against my ribs. I had no idea who this VIP client was, but people who lived like this did not summon their surrogates at seven in the morning just to say hello. Something was wrong.

The butler finally stopped in front of a pair of towering double doors.

He reached out, firmly grasped the brass handles, and pushed the doors open.

"The surrogate has arrived," the butler announced, his voice echoing into the room.

I took a deep breath, squaring my shoulders, and stepped through the doors.

The dining room was magnificent, flooded with harsh morning sunlight streaming through floor-to-ceiling windows. A lavish breakfast spread covered the center of a massive table that could easily seat twenty people.

But I didn't look at the crystal juice pitchers or the silver serving trays.

My eyes locked directly onto the man sitting halfway down the right side of the table, currently laughing as he fed a piece of a pastry to a stunning brunette.

The breath instantly left my lungs.

My feet stopped moving, the world spinning.

Sitting there, wearing a designer sweater and looking like absolute royalty, was...Tristan.