CHAPTER ONE:Two Pink Lines.

*Chapter 1: Two Pink Lines*

_Two pink lines._

I blinked. Rubbed my eyes with the heel of my palm until I saw stars. Counted again.

Still two.

The plastic stick shook in my hand like it was mocking me. Like the universe had decided twenty-five years of bad luck wasn’t enough, and I needed a boss-level disaster.

The date stamped on the wrapper said _Exp: 12/2027_. So the test wasn’t faulty. I was.

Six weeks. That’s all it had been. Six weeks since the company gala. Six weeks since too much champagne and a masked charity auction where “Mystery Billionaire #7” paid $50k to dance with the waitress.

Six weeks since I let Adrian Knight take me to his penthouse because, for one stupid night, I wanted to pretend I wasn’t invisible.

He never asked my name. He never took off his mask until we were already in his bed. By morning, he was gone. A black Amex and a note that said _“For your trouble”_ sat on the pillow.

I’d torn the check up and thrown it in his infinity pool. Pride. Stupid, useless pride.

Pride didn’t pay rent. Pride didn’t stop two pink lines from showing up on a Thursday.

My phone buzzed against the porcelain sink. I flinched so hard I almost dropped the test into the toilet.

*CHASE BANK: Balance $3.72. Insufficient funds.*

Rent was due tomorrow. My landlord in Queens had already taped a red _FINAL NOTICE_ to my door. Three days to pay or he was changing the locks.

And now this.

I pressed my free hand against my stomach. It was still flat. Still mine. For now. But in a few months, it would swell with Adrian Knight’s baby. The baby of the man who owned half of Manhattan and had his legal team fire me yesterday.

“Unprofessional conduct,” the HR letter said. Translation: I spilled a latte on his $5,000 Tom Ford suit because my hands wouldn’t stop shaking when he walked into the office.

He hadn’t recognized me. Why would he? To Adrian Knight, I was just the clumsy cleaner who breathed too loud. Not the girl from his bed.

The bathroom I was hiding in belonged to Knight Industries, 45th floor. I shouldn’t even be here. After HR walked me out yesterday, I’d begged Susan for one more shift. “Night cleaning. Please. I’ll be gone before anyone comes in.”

She’d rolled her eyes but said yes. Pity. I hated pity, but I needed the $200 more than I needed dignity.

Dignity wasn’t going to feed me. Or the…

I couldn’t even think the word. _Baby._

A violent knock rattled the stall door. I choked on a gasp and fumbled the test into my uniform pocket.

“Beth?” Susan’s voice was syrup-sweet through the wood. The kind of sweet that came right before HR executions. “You in there?”

I stared at my reflection. Dark circles. Chapped lips. My Knight Industries uniform hung off my shoulders—they’d given me a men’s size XL because they didn’t keep spares for women. For cleaners.

“You have exactly ten seconds before I call security,” Susan sang.

I flushed the toilet I hadn’t used, unlocked the stall, and stepped out.

Susan’s nose wrinkled. She was holding a clipboard like it was a weapon. “Mr. Knight wants to see you in his office. _Now._”

My blood went cold. Then hot. Then cold again. “Mr. Knight? But I was fired. Yesterday. You fired me.”

“Not fired enough, apparently.” Her smile was razor-thin. “He specifically asked for ‘the cleaner from last night.’ That’s you, right? The one who was mopping at 3 a.m.?”

I had been. I’d been scrubbing the coffee stain _I_ made out of his Persian rug on my hands and knees at 3 a.m. because the day crew ‘forgot.’

“He wants…” I swallowed. My throat was sandpaper. “He wants to see me?”

“And Beth?” She glanced at my bulging pocket where the pregnancy test was. I froze. “Bring your things. All of them.”

The floor tilted.

_Bring your things._ That’s what they said when they fired you. When they perp-walked you out with a cardboard box.

I’d already been fired. Could they fire me twice?

Susan clicked away on her heels, leaving the scent of Chanel and unemployment behind her.

I yanked the test out of my pocket. Two pink lines. Still there. Still screaming.

_Adrian doesn’t know._ He couldn’t. There was no way.

But in sixty seconds, I had to walk into his office. The office of the man who owned my job, my building, and now, apparently, 50% of my DNA.

My hand drifted to my stomach again. “I’m sorry,” I whispered to nothing. To the two lines. To the future I just lost. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know how to be a mom. I can barely be me.”

The intercom crackled above the bathroom door. Susan’s voice, broadcast to the whole floor: “Beth Williams to Mr. Knight’s office. Immediately. Mr. Knight does not like to be kept waiting.”

Williams. She’d used my last name. Like I was already on a termination report.

I shoved the test deep into my bra, where no one would look. Where it could press against my heart and remind me why I couldn’t fall apart yet.

The elevator ride to the 50th floor took eleven seconds. I counted them. Eleven seconds to figure out how to tell a billionaire that the cleaner he fired was carrying his heir.

Or eleven seconds to figure out how to lie.

The doors slid open. Adrian Knight’s office took up the entire floor. Glass walls. Views of Central Park. And him.

He stood with his back to me, phone to his ear, looking down at Manhattan like he owned it. He did.

“…and if she thinks she can blackmail me, she’s mistaken,” he was saying. His voice was ice and money. The same voice that had groaned my name—no, not my name, he never knew it—that night. “I want her gone. Today.”

Her. Gone. Today.

Me.

He hung up and turned.

For one second, one insane second, his eyes flickered. Like he almost recognized something. The set of my shoulders. The way I was chewing my bottom lip.

Then it was gone. Replaced with the cold stare of Adrian Knight, CEO.

“You’re Beth,” he said. Not a question.

“Yes, Mr. Knight.”

“You were cleaning my office last night.”

“Yes, sir.”

He stepped around his desk. Every step was a threat. He stopped two feet away. I could smell his cologne. Same one from that night. Sandalwood and sin. My knees nearly buckled.

“Did you take something?”

“What?” The word came out as a squeak.

“From my office. Did. You. Take. Something.” Each word was a bullet.

My hand flew to my chest, pressing the pregnancy test against my ribs. “No! No, I swear, I didn’t take anything—”

“Then explain this.” He grabbed a remote off his desk and clicked.

The giant screen on his wall flickered to life. Security footage. Time stamp: 3:17 A.M.

It was me. On my knees. Scrubbing his rug. Then standing, wobbling, and clutching my stomach before I ran to his private bathroom.

The same bathroom where I’d thrown up at 3:20 A.M.

Morning sickness. At night. Because my body hated me.

I watched myself on screen stumble back out, pale and shaking.

Adrian paused the video. On my face. On my hand pressed to my belly.

His eyes dropped from the screen to my stomach. Then back to my face.

“Are you ill?” he asked.

Two pink lines. No money. No job. No one.

And the father of my baby was staring at my stomach like it was a liability he needed to liquidate.

I opened my mouth. A lie, a truth, _something_—

His intercom buzzed. Susan again. “Mr. Knight? Miss Valeria is here for your engagement lunch.”

_Engagement._

The word hit me like a slap.

Of course. The Post had been talking about it for weeks. Adrian Knight, New York’s most eligible billionaire, finally settling down with Valeria D’Souza, heiress to the D’Souza shipping empire.

He was getting married.

And I was standing in his office, carrying his child, with a pregnancy test burning a hole in my bra.

Adrian’s jaw ticked. He didn’t look away from me. “Tell her I’ll be one minute.”

The intercom clicked off.

Silence. Just the sound of my heartbeat trying to escape my chest.

Adrian took one step closer. I could see the flecks of gold in his brown eyes. The same eyes I’d imagined my baby having.

“I asked you a question, Beth,” he said, voice deadly quiet. “Are. You. Ill?”

The two pink lines were screaming. My future was screaming.

I had two choices. Tell him the truth and watch him destroy me.

Or lie. And keep the one thing in this world that was mine.

I chose.

--.