Pregnant With The Ruthless Billionaire's Secret

The wave of nausea hit her without warning.

One moment, Aubree Hamilton was staring at her reflection in the gilded mirror of Le Ciel's restroom, and the next, she was lurching into a marble stall, her stomach clenching violently. She gripped the cold porcelain of the toilet bowl, her body convulsing in a series of dry, racking heaves.

Nothing came up. There was nothing to come up.

It's the wine, she told herself, pressing a clammy hand to her forehead. The cheap bottle of Pinot Grigio she'd had last night. A hangover. That had to be it.

But the excuse felt thin, worn out. This feeling-this churning, sour sickness-had been her unwelcome companion for days.

She finally pushed herself up, her legs unsteady, and faced the mirror again. The woman staring back was a ghost. Her skin was pale, her professional smile replaced by a tight, drawn line. Dark circles bloomed beneath her eyes, stark against her pallor. She looked nothing like the top-tier executive assistant to one of Wall Street's most formidable titans.

A dizzy spell washed over her, and she gripped the edge of the marble sink to steady herself. The polished surface was cool against her trembling fingers. In the pristine reflection, the elegant restroom dissolved, replaced by an image that seared itself behind her eyelids.

A hotel suite, a month ago. Rain lashing against the floor-to-ceiling windows. The scent of expensive linen and something else-something uniquely him. Beck Franco's bare chest, muscles defined in the dim light. The unrestrained fire in his deep gray eyes as he looked at her.

She shook her head, a sharp, violent motion, as if to physically dislodge the memory. A knot of regret and pure, unadulterated fear tightened in her gut.

It was a mistake. A single, catastrophic mistake.

She'd taken care of it. The thought was a desperate mantra. She had walked to the 24-hour pharmacy the next morning, her hands shaking as she paid for the little white box. She had taken the pill. There would be no consequences. There couldn't be.

Her phone buzzed on the counter, pulling her violently back to the present. A message from Paige, her friend and fellow assistant.

"He's back! Beck's jet just landed!"

Aubree's heart didn't just sink. It plummeted, a dead weight dropping through her stomach and into the floor. A month. He'd been in Europe for a whole month. A blessed, thirty-day reprieve that had just ended.

She took a deep, shuddering breath. Then another. She straightened her black blazer, smoothed down her pencil skirt. She was a professional. She needed this job. The salary, the benefits, the apartment it paid for-it was her entire life. She could not get fired.

Composed, or at least faking it, she walked out of the restroom and back to her table.

Across from her sat Julian Fletcher, the executive assistant to Alistair Rhodes-Prescott. He was a familiar face from her university days, all polished charm and ambition.

He smiled as she sat down. "Everything okay?"

"Just a bit of a headache," she lied, forcing a smile of her own.

He pushed a beautifully wrapped, slender box across the table. It was heavy, expensive. "A little something for your boss," he said, his tone casual but his eyes intent. "Alistair wanted to send a signal of goodwill."

Inside, she knew, would be a limited-edition fountain pen or some other absurdly expensive trinket.

"I was hoping you could give it to him," Julian continued. "Everyone knows you're the one person he actually trusts."

The words were meant as a compliment, but they felt like a death sentence. The last thing on earth she wanted to do was face Beck Franco.

"I'm sorry, Julian, but Mr. Franco doesn't accept gifts," she said, her voice tight. It was a well-known rule.

Julian's smile faltered. "Aubree, please. Alistair is... insistent. It would make me look really bad if I can't even get this through the door."

She felt the weight of his plea, the unspoken rules of their world. Favors were currency. Alliances were everything. He was putting her in an impossible position.

Her stomach churned again. She looked at the box, then at his hopeful face. With a sense of dread so profound it felt like swallowing glass, she took it.

It felt like a bomb in her hands.

Back at the Franco Enterprises headquarters, the air on the 50th floor was different. It was still, charged, like the air before a lightning strike. He was here. You could feel it.

Paige intercepted her by the elevators, her eyes wide. "He's in a black mood," she whispered. "Just tore the head of investment banking a new one. Said his ten-year-old nephew could have made a better projection."

The bomb in Aubree's hands felt heavier.

She walked the long, silent corridor to his corner office. She felt like a prisoner on her final walk. The massive mahogany doors loomed before her.

Just as she was about to raise her hand to knock, the door opened and Alex Nash, Beck's senior aide, stepped out. His face was grim, his shoulders tight. He looked like he'd just survived a hurricane.

An idea-a last-ditch, desperate plan-sparked in Aubree's mind.

"Alex," she said, her voice a low, urgent whisper. "Can you help me out?" She held up the gift. "This is from Rhodes-Prescott. Could you possibly-"

Alex looked from the box in her hands to the closed door, then back at her. His expression was one of pure, unadulterated pity. It was the look you give someone you know is about to be devoured.

"Sorry, Aubree," he said, his voice barely audible. "He was specific. He wants to see the person who brought it. Personally."

The floor seemed to tilt beneath her feet. Another wave of nausea washed over her, hot and acidic. She swallowed it down, forcing it back. It's just stress, she told herself. It's only stress.

There was no escape.

She took a deep breath, the air feeling thin and useless in her lungs. She raised a trembling hand and knocked on the solid wood that separated her from the man who could ruin her life with a single word.

A moment of silence, then a voice from within. Cold, deep, and utterly devoid of emotion.

"Come in."

"Alex, please," Aubree whispered, a final, desperate plea. Her hand was frozen on the doorknob. "You know his rule about gifts. This is-"

"I'm sorry, Aubree." Alex's eyes were full of genuine sympathy, but his stance was unmovable. "He just got back, he's in a foul mood, and his exact words were, 'I want to see them.' I can't help you."

His tone said what his words didn't: You're on your own.

Her heart sank into the soles of her expensive heels. There was no way out. She was trapped.

She turned back to the door, her palm sweating against the cool brass of the handle. She couldn't bring herself to push it open. Her mind raced, a frantic scramble for an excuse, any excuse. Family emergency. Sudden illness. A fire drill. Each one sounded more pathetic than the last.

Then, a wild, insane thought took root.

Run.

Just turn around, shove the box at Alex, and bolt for the elevators. It would be professional suicide, but it felt infinitely better than walking into that office.

She was tensing her muscles, ready to pivot and flee, when a soft cough sounded behind her. It was Alex, a gentle reminder that he was still there, that the entire executive floor was watching.

She closed her eyes, a silent surrender. The escape fantasy evaporated, leaving only the cold, hard reality of the mahogany door.

She pushed it open.

The office was vast, a cavern of glass and steel overlooking the sprawling Manhattan skyline. And there he was. Beck Franco stood with his back to her, a tall, imposing silhouette against the afternoon light. His shoulders were broad beneath his perfectly tailored suit, his posture radiating an unassailable authority.

The room was so quiet she could hear the frantic, rabbit-fast thumping of her own heart.

"Mr. Franco, sir?" Her voice was a reedy whisper.

He turned, slowly. The movement was fluid, controlled, like a predator turning on its prey. His face was a masterpiece of masculine beauty, all sharp angles and unforgiving lines. But it was his eyes that held her captive. They were the color of a storm cloud, gray and intense, and they scanned her with an unnerving precision, as if they could see straight through her skin, through her carefully constructed lies, and into the terrified mess of her soul.

His gaze lingered on her face for a beat too long before dropping to the gift box clutched in her hands.

"This is from Mr. Alistair Rhodes-Prescott," she managed, her voice shaking slightly. "He asked me to deliver it."

Her words hung in the air. An idea, a chance for a quick escape, presented itself.

She stepped forward and placed the box on the corner of his massive desk, a slab of polished ebony that looked like it had been carved from a single tree.

"The gift is delivered," she said, trying to sound brisk and efficient. "If there's nothing else, I'll get back to my desk."

She turned, her body screaming to get out, to put as much distance between them as possible. Her fingers were inches from the doorknob.

"Did I say you could leave?"

The voice was low, dangerously soft, but it stopped her as effectively as a physical blow. Her entire body went rigid.

Slowly, she turned back. He had moved behind his desk and was now seated, his hands steepled in front of him. He looked like a king on his throne, a judge about to pass sentence.

Desperation clawed at her throat. She had to say something, do something to sever this unbearable tension. She opened her mouth to speak, to re-establish the boundary between boss and assistant, but the words wouldn't come.

She took a step back, a clumsy, involuntary retreat. Her heel caught on the edge of the plush rug. She stumbled, a small, undignified lurch.

And then she turned and fled.

She didn't run, not exactly, but her walk was fast, a panicked stride down the silent corridor. She rounded the corner toward the main assistant's bay, her heart hammering against her ribs.

She collided with something solid.

A wall of muscle, unyielding and warm. Strong hands gripped her upper arms to steady her, and she looked up, her breath catching in her throat.

It was Beck Franco.

She stared in horror, not at the door he was supposed to have come from behind her, but at a discreet, flush-mounted panel at the end of the hall she'd never noticed before. It was a private entrance, likely leading to his personal elevator or an adjoining suite. He hadn't chased her; he had anticipated her.

The gift box, which she had inexplicably snatched back from his desk in her flight, slipped from her nerveless fingers. It landed on the carpet with a soft, damning thud.

He bent down, retrieving it in one smooth motion. He glanced at the logo on the wrapping paper, then his gray eyes lifted to lock with hers. They were unreadable, chips of granite.

He didn't speak. He simply tilted his chin toward the office she had just fled. The command was silent, absolute.

In.

Aubree stared into those bottomless eyes and knew, with a certainty that chilled her to the bone, that this time, there was truly nowhere left to run.

The heavy office door clicked shut behind her. The sound was soft, but it echoed in the cavernous silence, a final, definitive sound of a cage being locked.

Beck didn't return to his throne-like chair. Instead, he leaned against the edge of his massive desk, crossing his arms over his broad chest. The pose was casual, but the effect was anything but. It was a posture of pure, predatory dominance.

He broke the silence, his voice a low rumble that vibrated through the floor. "You're avoiding me, Aubree."

It wasn't a question. It was a statement of fact.

Her heart skipped a beat. She forced herself to meet his gaze, to project a calm she was nowhere near feeling. "No, sir. I've just been... busy with the quarterly reports."

A corner of his mouth lifted in a smirk that held no humor, only ice. He didn't believe her.

He pushed off the desk and took a step toward her. The air crackled, thick with a tension she could taste. Involuntarily, she took a step back. Then another, until her back was pressed flat against the cold, unyielding wood of the door.

He didn't stop. He closed the distance between them, placing a hand on the door next to her head, caging her in. The scent of his cologne-sandalwood and something sharp, like gin-filled her senses, a scent she remembered with a horrifying clarity. It was the smell of her biggest mistake.

The nausea from the restaurant returned with a vengeance. She swallowed hard, fighting it down.

He leaned in, his face just inches from hers. "About a month ago," he began, his voice dropping to a rough, intimate whisper. "We need to talk."

Panic, stark and blinding, seized her. This was it. The moment she had been dreading. If she didn't stop this, right now, her career, her entire life, would be over.

A desperate, reckless idea formed in the chaos of her mind. She needed a shield, something so absolute he would have no choice but to back away.

She lifted her chin, forcing herself to look directly into his stormy gray eyes. She marshaled every ounce of strength she had and spoke, her voice surprisingly clear and steady.

"Sir, that night was a mistake. A mistake I will never make again. Because I'm engaged."

The air in the room seemed to freeze, to crystallize into a million tiny shards of ice.

Beck's expression didn't change, but she saw something shift deep in his eyes. A flicker of... something. A cold light that hadn't been there before.

To make the lie believable, to sell it completely, she pushed on, the words tumbling out. "My fiancé... we're getting married soon. That night... I had too much to drink. I feel terrible about what I did to him."

She deliberately took all the blame, positioning herself as a woman consumed by guilt, a woman who belonged to someone else. A woman who was off-limits.

It worked. He slowly straightened up, pulling back and creating a chasm of space between them.

The look on his face had transformed. The cold curiosity was gone, replaced by an expression of mingled disgust and contempt.

She thought he was repulsed by her "infidelity," that her lie had successfully erected the wall she so desperately needed. She had no way of knowing that she had just stumbled into the one, unmarked minefield of his psyche. Beck Franco didn't care about one-night stands, but he had a pathological, unyielding contempt for disloyalty. In his mind, she hadn't just made a mistake. She had cheated. And she had used him to do it.

He thought he was just a pawn in her tawdry little drama.

A humorless laugh, little more than a puff of air, escaped his lips. "Engaged?" he said, the word dripping with scorn. "Congratulations, Miss Hamilton."

He turned his back on her and walked to his desk, picking up the limited-edition pen from the gift box. He tossed it from one hand to the other.

"Since you're about to be another man's wife," he said, his voice dangerously smooth, "I think, to avoid any future... 'misunderstandings'... you should reconsider your position here."

The blood in her veins turned to ice. Reconsider her position? Was he firing her?

Her lie hadn't saved her. It had just handed him the gun to execute her with.

She opened her mouth to protest, to explain, to take it all back, but it was too late. He pressed a button on his intercom.

"Alex," he said, his voice hard as steel. "Inform HR that Miss Hamilton is on an immediate and indefinite leave of absence. All access privileges revoked. I want her to go home and await further instructions." He paused, his cold eyes finding hers, pinning her to the door. "Escort her from the building."