ANMELDENThe flutter came during the worst possible moment—in the middle of Liam's attorney's detailed explanation of how Elena's claim could destroy them.
Sophia sat rigid in the leather chair of Connor Blake's office, her hand pressed against her abdomen as a sensation like butterflies or bubbles moved beneath her palm. For three seconds, she forgot about DNA evidence and manipulative wills and pregnant ex-lovers. The world narrowed to a single, miraculous point: the tiny life inside her, making itself known for the first time. Real. Undeniable. No longer just morning sickness and fatigue, but an actual presence announcing its existence with the gentlest of declarations.
Then reality crashed back. She was sixteen weeks pregnant—barely showing, easily hidden beneath the flowing blouse she'd chosen specifically for this meeting. Liam sat beside her, every mu
Sophia understood she was in love with Liam Westbrook the moment she watched him hold another woman's baby.The hospital room was sterile white and beeping machines, Elena pale and exhausted in the bed, and Liam standing frozen by the bassinet where a tiny girl with unmistakable ice-blue eyes slept under warming lights. Sophia had expected to feel jealousy, rage, betrayal—all the emotions a wife should feel watching her husband meet the child he'd unknowingly created with an ex-lover. Instead, she felt her heart crack open with devastating clarity as she watched the terror and wonder war across his face. This was the moment everything became real. Not their wedding or their own pregnancy announcement or even last night's tender promises. This—watching the man she loved confront the consequences of his father's cruelty while trying desperately not to shatter—this was when Sophia finally ad
They'd kissed dozens of times—heated encounters in elevators, desperate grasping in the dark, the practiced performance of affection at public events. But at 3:47 AM, with Sophia awake beside him and the city sleeping below, Liam realized they'd never actually kissed. Not really. Not in the way that mattered.She sat curled in the window seat overlooking Central Park, wrapped in one of his shirts, her hand resting on the barely-there curve of her belly. The moon painted her in silver and shadow, making her look like something from a dream he'd never dared to have. She hadn't been able to sleep—neither of them had—and instead of pretending, instead of maintaining the fiction that they were fine, she'd simply gotten up and sat vigil over the city while demons circled. Liam had watched her for twenty minut
The flutter came during the worst possible moment—in the middle of Liam's attorney's detailed explanation of how Elena's claim could destroy them.Sophia sat rigid in the leather chair of Connor Blake's office, her hand pressed against her abdomen as a sensation like butterflies or bubbles moved beneath her palm. For three seconds, she forgot about DNA evidence and manipulative wills and pregnant ex-lovers. The world narrowed to a single, miraculous point: the tiny life inside her, making itself known for the first time. Real. Undeniable. No longer just morning sickness and fatigue, but an actual presence announcing its existence with the gentlest of declarations.Then reality crashed back. She was sixteen weeks pregnant—barely showing, easily hidden beneath the flowing blouse she'd chosen specifically for this meeting. Liam sat beside her, every mu
The photo of Elena changed everything—and nothing.Liam had expected the revelation to detonate their fragile new intimacy, to send Sophia retreating behind walls of self-preservation. Instead, she'd looked at him with those steady eyes and said, "We deal with your brother first. Then we deal with her. Together." That single word—together—had unlocked something in him he hadn't known was still capable of opening. Now, three days later, they existed in a strange liminal space: waiting for Marcus's detailed findings, bracing for Elena's inevitable appearance, but refusing to let his father's manipulations poison what they were building.So they'd made an unspoken pact: evenings were theirs. No talk of wills or ex-lovers or pregnant ghosts from the past. Just them, learning the small intimacies that transformed a contract into something dangerous
The phone call lasted exactly seven minutes and forty-three seconds, but it shattered the foundation of everything Liam thought he knew about his life.He stood rigid by the window, knuckles white around his phone as Marcus's voice delivered revelation after revelation—each one a surgical strike to the carefully constructed narrative Liam had built his entire identity upon. When he finally lowered the device, his hand trembled so violently that Sophia moved toward him instinctively, only to stop when she saw his face. Whatever she read there made her go pale."Liam?" Her voice seemed to come from very far away. "What did he say?"He couldn't look at her. If he looked at her, if he saw the concern and care in her eyes, the fragile control he was maintaining would splinter completely. Instead, he stared at the c
The penthouse was suffocating in its silence.Liam stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows, Manhattan glittering below like scattered diamonds on black velvet, and felt the weight of what had happened in the elevator pressing down on his chest. Behind him, he could hear Sophia moving through the space—the soft click of her heels on marble, the rustle of fabric, the deliberate distance she was maintaining. They'd barely spoken since security had discreetly interrupted their heated moment with news of an urgent board matter. Three hours later, with the crisis managed and the night stretching ahead, the unresolved tension between them felt like a living thing.He'd crossed a line today. Multiple lines. The possessive display at the conference, the jealousy he'd worn like armor, the way he'd cornered her in the elevator and demanded she acknowledge the claim he







