Chapter 1: The Night That Was Never Supposed to Matter

Elizabeth had always believed that silence was safer than truth.

That belief was the reason she was standing alone in a dimly lit bathroom at 2:17 a.m., staring at a thin white stick in her trembling hand as if it were a weapon pointed directly at her heart.

Two pink lines.

Clear. Merciless. Impossible to deny.

She swallowed hard, her throat burning as tears blurred her vision. Her other hand pressed instinctively against her flat stomach, as though she could already feel something there something fragile, alive, and utterly life-altering.

“No,” she whispered hoarsely. “No, no, no…”

But the test didn’t disappear. The lines didn’t fade.

Elizabeth slid down against the cool tiled wall, the pregnancy test still clenched in her fingers. Her silk robe pooled around her legs as reality crashed into her with ruthless force.

Pregnant.

She was pregnant.

And the father was the last man on earth who could ever know.

Lewis Anderson.

Her ex-husband.

The billionaire who had once been her entire world and the same man who had shattered it beyond repair.

Three weeks earlier.

Elizabeth never planned to see Lewis Anderson again.

She certainly never planned to end up in his bed.

She had attended the charity gala out of obligation, not desire. Her publishing firm had co-sponsored the event, and skipping it would have raised questions she couldn’t afford to answer. So she wore a simple black gown, pinned her hair up, and told herself she was strong enough to exist in the same space as the man who had once sworn to love her forever.

She was wrong.

Lewis Anderson still commanded a room the moment he entered it.

Tall. Broad-shouldered. Impeccably dressed in a tailored tuxedo that looked as if it had been designed exclusively for his body. His dark hair was neatly styled, his sharp jaw dusted with light stubble that only made him more devastatingly handsome.

And his eyes

Those same steel-gray eyes that once softened only for her swept across the ballroom with calculated indifference.

Until they landed on Elizabeth.

The moment stretched.

The air shifted.

For five years, she had prepared herself for this possibility. She had rehearsed indifference, polite smiles, distant nods. She had convinced herself that time had dulled the pain.

But when Lewis looked at her, it was as though no time had passed at all.

Shock flickered across his face. Then something darker. Something unreadable.

Elizabeth’s chest tightened painfully.

She turned away first.

That should have been the end of it.

But fate or cruelty had other plans.

They ran into each other again on the balcony overlooking the city, the lights below glittering like a thousand secrets.

“I didn’t know you’d be here,” Lewis said, his voice low, controlled.

Elizabeth laughed softly, though there was no humor in it. “Funny. I could say the same.”

Silence settled between them, heavy with everything unsaid.

“You look well,” he said after a moment.

“So do you.”

A lie.

He looked better than well. He looked powerful. Untouchable. Like the divorce had never cost him sleep, or love, or the woman who had once mattered more to him than anything else.

“You disappeared,” he said quietly.

Elizabeth’s fingers tightened around the balcony railing. “You signed the papers.”

His jaw flexed. “You didn’t fight them.”

“I was tired of fighting you.”

The words slipped out before she could stop them.

Lewis turned fully toward her then, his gaze sharp. “Is that what you think this was?”

Her heart pounded painfully. “What else was it, Lewis? You believed every lie placed in front of you. You never once believed me.”

“That’s not”

“I begged you,” she interrupted, her voice trembling. “And you chose silence.”

The city hummed below them, oblivious.

Lewis exhaled slowly, running a hand through his hair. “You walked away.”

“Because you pushed me.”

Their eyes locked.

Anger. Hurt. Desire. Regret.

Five years of unresolved emotions pulsed violently between them.

When Lewis stepped closer, Elizabeth should have moved away.

She didn’t.

When his fingers brushed hers, she should have pulled back.

She didn’t.

And when he kissed her deep, desperate, and achingly familiar she kissed him back as if her heart had never learned how to stop loving him.

That night was a mistake.

A beautiful, catastrophic mistake.

By morning, Elizabeth left without saying goodbye.

She told herself it meant nothing.

Now, three weeks later, a pregnancy test was telling her otherwise.

Elizabeth rose unsteadily from the bathroom floor and rinsed the test down the sink, as if erasing the evidence could erase the truth. Her reflection stared back at her from the mirror pale, wide-eyed, terrified.

Lewis could never know.

Not now.

Not ever.

Lewis Anderson did not love gently. He loved with possession, with control, with expectations that had once suffocated her.

A baby would give him power over her again.

And she refused to let that happen.

She rested both hands against her stomach, her eyes filling with tears once more.

“I’ll protect you,” she whispered. “No matter what.”

Her phone buzzed suddenly on the counter.

Elizabeth froze.

The screen lit up with a name she had not seen in years.

Lewis Anderson.

Her breath caught painfully.

For a long moment, she simply stared at it, her heart racing as dread and disbelief tangled inside her chest.

The phone buzzed again.

And again.

She didn’t answer.

But as the ringing stopped, one terrifying truth settled deep into her bones.

Lewis Anderson was back in her life.

And somehow-somehow the secret growing inside her would not remain hidden forever.

Not when the man who created it had never been one to let go.