PREGNANT, NUDE & LIVE FOR MY STEPFATHER

Amy

My mother blinked, glancing down at the paper, then up at his dark, murderous eyes. “What is this supposed to mean?”

“Read it,” he growled at her.

“Damien, I’m having breakfast with my daughters—”

“And I’m asking you a fucking question.”

His voice remained terrifyingly low, but the ice in it made my sister pull her hands back from the table as if she’d been burned.

Finally, my mother, with a deep exhale, picked up the document. Her eyes moved across the typed lines, her expression stubbornly refusing to crack, though I watched the subtle twitch in her jaw before she laid it back down.

“I was handling it,” she said smoothly.

“You were handling it?” Damien repeated, leaning forward, his shoulders tensing under his shirt. “You’ve pumped millions of corporate dollars into a speculative tech venture that I explicitly told you not to touch, and now the investment has collapsed? The company is facing a cash-flow shortfall you cannot cover. Rose, what exactly have you been handling?”

“I made an investment for us,” my mother said.

“I told you I didn’t approve of it,” Damien countered.

“You told me your opinion. I made my decision,” my mother asserted.

“Can you hear yourself?” Damien asked, his brows shooting above his forehead. “You used the company’s funds, Rose. Our funds.”

“So?” my mother asked, her selfish ‘I don’t give a fuck’ mask returning.

“Now you know it didn’t work,” she snapped back, her voice matching his coldness. “What do you want me to do, cry about it?”

Money. It always came back to money for them.

I sat there, watching them glare at each other across the table.

If it weren’t for business and family arrangements, I had never understood what held my mother and Damien together.

It certainly wasn’t affection.

Not even kids.

In fact, I had never seen them behave like two people who actually liked each other, let alone loved each other.

They spoke about business, assets, leverage, family wants, and the people they needed to impress.

When they weren’t discussing those things, they were fighting about them.

I had a lot to deal with. And a falling empire was not one of them.

“Excuse me,” I muttered, standing up abruptly with my bowl of cereal.

Neither of them looked at me. They were already locked in a vicious back-and-forth about bank accounts.

I turned and walked out of the room, my footsteps fast and quiet, eager to escape the suffocating walls of the dining room.

I took the stairs two at a time, heading straight for my bedroom. But before I could even turn the handle of my door, soft, quick footsteps hurried up behind me.

“Amy! Amy! Wait!”

I turned. And it was Princess coming forward, her expression pale and pinched. It was the kind of face she made when she had something secret to gossip about.

I halted. “What?” I asked, my voice tight.

“It’s about Mom and Damien,” she whispered, glancing nervously down the hallway toward the stairs.

I let out a harsh, dry breath, pushing my bedroom door open and walking inside. “What about them? They’re always fighting. It’s not the first time.”

“I know, Amy. But… there’s… there’s more.” She slipped into the room after me, closing the door softly behind her. “Mom told me some last night.”

I paused, dropping my bowl onto the bedside table. “Told you what?”

“The company lost a lot of money, Amy. A lot.”

I paused.

“So much that… that it may cause serious damages. A lot of damage,” she said.

“Okay, I guess Rose will figure it out, won’t she? I mean, she’s got Grandpa, and Damien’s got his family. It can’t be too serious,” I shrugged.

“It’s more than she expected, Amy. There’s no help this time,” Princess whispered. “And… and… Mom said if things get worse, some household expenses are going to have to be cut.”

A cold, heavy stone dropped straight into my stomach. “What expenses?”

Princess brought her eyes down, staring at the floor now, while twisting her fingers together.

“Your… school fees,” she whispered. “Mom said… she said you might have to take a leave of absence. Or stop school altogether.”

The world turned red. My breath jammed in my lungs. “What?!”

“She said you’re nearly twenty. Said you should be able to find a way to support yourself by now instead of bleeding her dry.”

“And you?” I cut in, my voice shaking before I could stop it. “Does this mean your plans are changing too?”

Princess swallowed hard, shaking her head. “I’m still going,” she whispered.

The words were so quiet I barely heard them over the rushing blood in my ears. Going?

My brows furrowed in confusion. “Going where?”

She raised her face, looking at me with glassy eyes.

“London.”

My legs weakened.

“Mom arranged everything months ago. My flight is tomorrow evening.” princes whispered.

Jesus Christ! My mouth opened wide. “Tomorrow?”

“I’m sorry, Amy. I swear I wanted to tell you, but Mom… she… she warned me not to. She… she said—”

I laughed. The sound came out harsh and bitter, my eyes burning.

“So… I’m finding out that my entire future, my entire education, is being ripped away right now, and you’re telling me you’re getting shipped off to Europe tomorrow?!”

“It’s not my fault,” she whispered, tears trailing down her eyes. “I didn’t ask her to do this!”

“No, of course you didn’t,” I whispered back, laughing. “It’s always easier for everyone to explain why I deserved less than to explain why you deserved more, isn’t it?”

“Don't say it like that Amy”

“Don't say it like that?” I asked. My eyes burning.

“Princess You failed seven subjects in high school. You got rejected by the universities here, and now you're being shipped abroad. Meanwhile, I failed one chemistry course after years of getting straight A's, and suddenly I'm too expensive to educate.”

My voice cracked.

“And do you know what makes it worse? I was offered a scholarship to study in London.

Yes. An actual scholarship. I didn't ask Mom to pay for it. I earned it. But guess what? she refused! She refused to let me go.”

Princess stared at me helplessly.

“Now you're going there with all those F's and D's on your certificate, while I'm being told to abandon everything I've worked for.”

She opened her mouth, but no words came out. She just looked at me with this pitiful, guilty expression that made me want to scream.

Before I could say anything else, a sharp, angry voice echoed up from the bottom of the stairs.

“Princess! Get down here right now!”

Princess flinched. She looked at me, desperate. “I have to go.”

“Yeah,” I choked out, turning my back to her. “Feel free.”

She slipped out of the room, leaving the door slightly ajar.

I stood there in the center of my bedroom, the silence rushing back in to suffocate me.

My life was officially over.

I had struggled to get here.

Without my degree, without my tuition paid, I was trapped in this house forever. I would be at my mother’s mercy. I would be a permanent fixture of failure, or worse, I would be forced out onto the street with nothing.

My eyes drifted across the room, landing automatically on the closed laptop sitting on my desk.

The memory of the dark room and the presence of Damien sitting in that wooden chair flashed through my mind.

But then I remembered something else.

The chimes of the tips.

I hadn’t even checked them when I woke up this morning.

I didn’t think. I crossed the room in three long strides, grabbed the laptop, and flipped the screen open.

My fingers flew across the trackpad, waking the machine from sleep and pulling up my streaming dashboard.

I logged into my creator account, my hands trembling so badly I almost dropped the mouse.

My eyes locked onto the total revenue share from last night’s stream.

I blinked once.

Twice.

To confirm I wasn't seeing things

I leaned closer to the screen, my chest tightening at the sight in front of me.

15,420 USD.

I mean, fifteen thousand four hundred and twenty dollars.

In one night!

Just then, a message popped up.

It was from Leo.

I stared at the message.

Leo: I have a proposal for you, sweetheart. One million dollars.

My eyebrows rose.

One million dollars? For what?

Leo: Not for another ordinary show. I want to see you pregnant. I'll pay you one million dollars to get pregnant, and I want the journey documented on camera.

What?

I stared at the screen for another few seconds before letting out a disbelieving laugh.

What the fuck?

Was this person serious?

A million dollars to get pregnant and broadcast the experience online?

Jeez… What kind of sick fantasy was that?

Yes, I knew rich people had strange ways of entertaining themselves. But this one? This must be a joke. A big, fat joke.

I shook my head and dismissed the message.

I had more immediate problems.

I clicked back to my notifications.

Hundreds of messages flooded my inbox, most of them asking about the mysterious man from last night's stream.

User_992: Holy shit. Was that your actual dad? Please tell me you're doing another show tonight. I love incest!

DarkViper: Name your price for another show with the two of you. I'm serious.

Another message appeared from Leo.

Leo: $5,000. That's what I tipped you last night. And I'd do it again.

$5,000? From just him?

My eyes scanned the other messages.

Guess what everyone wanted?

Damien.

And last night's earnings were proof of just how much they were willing to pay to see him.

Fifteen thousand four hundred and twenty dollars.

I'd never made that much in one night. My previous record was three thousand, and even that had felt life-changing.

I stood there, my head running free with so many thoughts.

My tuition was about to disappear, and Princess was preparing to leave for London.

I needed every dollar I could make.

One successful stream could help. Yes.

But several successful streams? That could change everything.

I glanced at Leo's ridiculous offer one last time before closing the message.

A million dollars sounded tempting, but it was too absurd to take seriously.

What I needed was something I already knew could work. And that, again… was...

Damien.

If his appearance had brought in that much money once, imagine what would happen if he agreed to do it again. The viewers were practically begging for another show.

I shut the laptop and stood.

In my head, there was a plan. Stupid. Ridiculous. Forbidden. But I moved.

My mother could take away my tuition, but I alone decided how my life would go. And right now, I was deciding that it was going to involve… HER HUSBAND.

I headed for Damien's private office, a room I'd never entered in the three years he'd been married to my mother.

I shoved it wide open.

Damien was sitting behind his desk, a phone pressed to his ear. He looked up instantly, his eyes narrowing with cold irritation as he spotted me barging in like a lunatic.

He pulled the phone away from his ear slowly, brows furrowing.

“What is it?” he demanded, his gaze locking onto mine. “Why the hell are you barging into my office like this?”

My heart slammed against my ribs like a caged animal. My hands were shaking at my sides. But I didn’t step back.

This was my chance.

“I want to make a deal with you,” I said, my voice firm.

Damien stared at me for a moment.

Then he slowly set his phone on the desk.

“A deal?”

I forced myself to hold his gaze, even though every instinct I had was telling me to turn around and abandon this stupid idea.

“Yes.”

“What makes you think you have anything I want, Amy?” he asked, clasping his hands on the table.

My throat tightened.

I hated him. I hated that I was standing in his office, that I had to ask him for anything, that he was the one person who could make this nightmare better or more bearable.

But I couldn’t afford to walk away. Not with all that was at stake.

“Because, Damien, I know something you don’t want my mother to know,” I said.

His expression changed.