Chapter 2

Charlotte Jennings POV:

The ride back to our penthouse was silent, a thick, suffocating blanket of unspoken words filling the space between myself and Gabe' s grim-faced driver. I stared out at the glittering lights of New York, but saw nothing. My mind was a chaotic storm of betrayal and disbelief. The home I had designed, the sanctuary I had built for us, now felt like a gilded cage waiting to close in on me.

When we arrived, Gabe was already there, pacing the length of our living room, the city skyline a dramatic backdrop to his distress. He had shed his jacket and tie, his sleeves rolled up his forearms. He looked like a man preparing for a fight.

He stopped when I walked in, his eyes searching my face. "Lottie."

I said nothing. I walked past him to the floor-to-ceiling windows and stared down at the river, a dark, churning ribbon of black.

"I know you' re angry," he started, his voice soft, persuasive. The voice he used to close billion-dollar deals and charm skeptical investors. "You have every right to be. But you have to understand. The IPO..."

"Don' t," I cut him off, my voice flat. "Don' t you dare talk to me about the IPO right now."

"It' s everything, Lottie! It' s everything we' ve worked for!"

"We?" I spun around, the fury I' d been suppressing finally erupting. "We worked for this? I was the one holding you up when you were ready to quit. I was the one who believed in you when your own family called you a failure. And this is how you repay me? By publicly humiliating me and claiming another woman' s child?"

"It' s not like that!" he insisted, taking a step toward me. "Harper is... she' s fragile. She has no one. Her family threw her out. She came to me for help."

"And what am I, Gabe? Am I not fragile? Am I not carrying your child? Or does our baby not matter as much as the child of your childhood sweetheart?"

The words hung in the air, heavy and poisonous. He flinched as if I' d slapped him again.

"Of course our baby matters," he said, his voice dropping to a desperate whisper. He knelt before me, taking my hands in his. His touch felt alien, wrong. I didn' t pull away, my body frozen in shock. "Lottie, look at me. I love you. You are my wife. Nothing changes that."

I stared down at the top of his head, at the man I loved kneeling at my feet, and felt nothing but a vast, empty coldness.

"It' s just for show," he continued, his words tumbling out in a rush. "A story for the press. Once the IPO is finalized, everything will go back to normal. We' ll expose the truth, I promise. I' ll tell the world that you are the one carrying my heir. We will quietly adopt our own child. Legally, it will be clean. No one will ever know."

The sheer audacity of his plan stole my breath. He wanted me to hide my own pregnancy. To give birth to our son in secret, only to "adopt" him later, all to protect his public image and his company' s stock price. He was asking me to accept that our child would be born a dirty secret, while Harper' s would be celebrated.

"You' re insane," I whispered, pulling my hands from his grasp. "Absolutely insane."

"It' s the only way!" he pleaded, getting to his feet. "My mother is already on board. Your parents, too. They all agree this is the best solution to protect the family and the business."

The mention of our families felt like a physical blow. His mother, Eleanor Sullivan, a woman who valued social standing above all else, had always seen me as an accessory to her son' s success. And my adoptive parents, the Jennings, who had taken me in as a child but never truly loved me, were social climbers of the highest order. Of course they would side with Gabe. The Sullivan fortune was a prize they would do anything to remain attached to.

"You told them?" I asked, my voice trembling. "You discussed the fate of my child with them before you even spoke to me?"

"I had to manage the crisis, Lottie!"

"This isn' t a crisis, Gabe! This is our life! Our family! Our son!" My voice cracked on the last word. I wrapped my arms around my stomach, a primal instinct to protect the tiny life he was so willing to sacrifice.

"And I am protecting him!" he yelled, his frustration boiling over. "I am protecting his future! The fortune he is set to inherit!"

"He doesn' t need a fortune!" I screamed back, tears streaming down my face. "He needs a father who will acknowledge him! A father who won' t trade his legitimacy for a stock ticker symbol!"

He ran a hand through his hair, his composure finally breaking. He looked cornered, desperate. "What do you want from me, Charlotte?"

He used my full name. He only ever did that when he was trying to distance himself, to turn a personal conflict into a business negotiation.

"I want a divorce," I said, the words tasting like acid.

His face went slack with shock. "No. Absolutely not. A divorce right now is out of the question. It would be a disaster."

"I don' t care about your disaster, Gabe. You' ve created mine."

He strode over to me, grabbing my arms. His grip was tight, bordering on painful. "You are not divorcing me. You are not leaving this apartment. We are going to see this through, as a family. Do you understand?"

The threat was unmistakable. I was a prisoner in my own home. His home. He had the money, the power, the family support. I had nothing.

The doorbell rang, a sharp, intrusive sound that made us both jump. Gabe released me and went to the door.

My heart sank when I saw who it was. Harper. She stood there, looking small and helpless, an overnight bag at her feet. Behind her stood Gabe' s mother, Eleanor, her face a mask of cold disapproval, and my own adoptive parents, their expressions a mixture of greed and pity.

The enemy had arrived. And they were moving in.

Eleanor swept past Gabe without a word to him, her icy gaze landing on me. "Charlotte. We need to talk."

My fate, it seemed, was no longer in my hands. It was a business transaction, and I was the liability being managed.