CHAPTER 11: THE BILLIONAIRE UNRAVELED
1234 Words
The ballroom at the Grand Aurelia Hotel was not a party. It was a battlefield dressed in diamonds.
Three hundred of New York's richest people, fifty journalists with cameras ready, and a ten-billion-dollar merger on the line. And I, Alexander Knight, was supposed to be the calmest man in the room.
I wasn't.
My eyes had been scanning the crowd for twenty minutes. Not for investors. For her.
My mother had cornered me by the champagne tower. "Where is she? I told you to leave her at the penthouse, Alexander. If anyone finds out you married that... that middle-class girl six months ago, this merger is dead. Julian Croft will use it against you."
"She's sick, mother. I told you," I lied through gritted teeth. My hand was clenched so tight around my glass that my knuckles were white.
That's when I felt it. That strange electricity I only felt when she was near.
I looked up at the second-floor balcony.
And my world stopped.
Elena.
My secret wife was standing there in a dress that should be illegal. A tight, blood-red dress that hugged every single curve of her body. A body I knew was changing. A body that, according to the two pink lines she had shown me two weeks ago in our bathroom while crying, was now carrying my child.
She wasn't supposed to be here. She was supposed to be home, hiding. Like I had asked her to.
But she wasn't hiding. She was glowing. Her dark hair was curled in waves, her lips painted the same red as her dress, and she was laughing. Laughing at something my arch-rival, Julian Croft, was whispering in her ear, his hand dangerously low on her bare back.
The glass in my hand cracked.
"Alexander!" My mother hissed as champagne and blood from a small cut spilled onto my white shirt. "What are you doing?"
I didn't answer. The jealousy I had felt in Chapter 7 was nothing compared to this. This was primal. This was a fire that burned through my tailored suit and my billionaire reputation.
She had done this on purpose. After I told her she couldn't come tonight because the press would ask questions, after she cried and said she was tired of being a secret. This was her Red Dress Revenge.
Our eyes met across the ballroom. The music seemed to stop.
I saw her confidence flicker for one second. She saw my fury. She saw the possessive, dark look I had only ever shown her in our bedroom.
Then, she lifted her chin defiantly. And to punish me, she placed her small hand directly on Julian's chest and laughed even louder, letting him tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.
Something inside me snapped.
I moved.
I pushed through CEOs and models. I didn't care who stared. I took the stairs two at a time until I was on that balcony, until I was standing behind them, my shadow falling over them.
Julian turned, his smug smile fading when he saw my face. "Knight. We were just—"
I grabbed his shoulder and pulled him a foot away from my wife. My voice was low, deadly calm.
"Croft. Get your hands off my wife."
The word echoed.
Wife.
Julian's jaw dropped. "Your... your what? I thought you were single. The press release said—"
"The press release was a lie," I said, my eyes never leaving Elena.
Elena was pale now, her breath caught in her throat. The whole downstairs ballroom had gone quiet. I could feel a hundred eyes and fifty cameras turning towards us.
I grabbed her wrist. My grip was firm, but my thumb was gently rubbing her pulse which was racing like a hummingbird.
"We're leaving. Now."
I didn't give her a chance to answer. I dragged her past the shocked crowd, past Julian who was still frozen, past my mother whose face was a mask of pure horror. I didn't stop until we were in the private elevator and I slammed the emergency stop button. The doors closed, sealing us in mirrors and silence.
"What the hell were you thinking, Elena?" I finally exploded, turning her and pinning her softly against the mirrored wall. My hands were on either side of her head, trapping her. My chest was heaving. "Do you have any idea what you just did? You announced to all of New York that I have a secret wife! Do you know how dangerous that is?"
Tears welled in her beautiful eyes, but she didn't back down. The Elena who used to be scared of me was gone. This was the woman who was carrying my child.
"What was I thinking?" she spat back, pushing my chest. "You tell me I'm your wife behind closed doors, Alexander, but in public you introduce me as 'no one'? You told me to stay home and be sick while you flirt with investors? I'm not sick, Alexander! I'm pregnant! I'm tired! I'm tired of being your dirty little secret!"
Each word hit me harder than any business failure ever had.
"You wanted to make me jealous?" I whispered, my anger dissolving into something else, something raw and terrified. "It worked, dammit. It worked. Seeing his hands on you... seeing you in that dress for him... I thought I would kill him."
She looked up at me, her lip trembling.
"Then stop hiding me," she whispered. "If you want me to be yours, then show them I'm yours."
That was the last straw.
I crashed my mouth onto hers.
This was not our first real kiss. That was soft, sweet. This kiss was a punishment and a promise. It was possessive, desperate, full of six months of secrets, of nights I held her and couldn't tell the world she was mine. I tasted her lipstick, I tasted champagne, I tasted tears.
She gasped against me, her hands hitting my chest for a second before she gave in, her fingers tangling brutally in my hair, pulling me impossibly closer. The red dress bunched up as she wrapped her leg around me. The mirrors were fogging.
I pulled back, resting my forehead against hers, both of us breathing like we had run a marathon.
"You're right," I breathed. The hardest two words for a billionaire like me to say. "I'm done. I'm so done hiding you."
I took her hand, interlaced our fingers, and pressed the button to go down.
The elevator dinged and the doors opened back to the ballroom. The music had stopped. Everyone was staring.
My mother looked like she was about to faint.
I walked straight to the center of the stage, pulling my blushing, terrified, beautiful wife in the red dress with me. I took the microphone from the MC.
"Ladies and gentlemen," I said, my voice echoing, looking straight at Elena. "You came tonight to hear about a merger. But I have a more important announcement. Six months ago, I married the love of my life. And tonight, I'm proud to introduce you to her. And to the newest member of the Knight family, coming in seven months."
Gasps. Camera flashes exploded like lightning.
Elena's hand flew to her mouth. She wasn't expecting this.
I turned to her, dropped to one knee right there in front of everyone, and kissed her pregnant belly through that red dress.
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