Chapter One
1645 Words
Isla's Pov
I stared at the three positive pregnancy tests lined up on my bathroom counter like tiny bombs waiting to explode.
Eight weeks. That's how long it had been since the last time I'd spent the night with Damien Cross. Eight weeks since I'd woken up in his penthouse with Manhattan spread out below us like a kingdom, his arm draped over my waist, his breath warm against. my neck.
Eight weeks, and now I was pregnant.
I sat on the cold tile floor, my back against the bathtub, and tried to remember how to breathe. This wasn't supposed to happen. We were careful. Well… mostly careful and I'd convinced myself the nausea was stress and the missed period was just my body being irregular like it sometimes was.
But three tests strips didn't lie.
My phone buzzed on the counter and Damien's name flashed across the screen with a text:
Dinner tonight? I'll send the car at 7.
I stared at the message, then at the tests, and back at the message. We'd been together for two years. Two years of stolen weekends in his penthouse, charity galas where I wore diamonds that cost more than an average person's rent and late nights where he'd trace patterns on my skin and talk about everything except our future.
Every time I brought up the future and asked what a we were doing with our lives, he'd kiss me quietly and change the subject. Or he'd pull me closer and murmur something about how he liked things the way they were and we didn't need to complicate what was already working.
And I'd let him because I loved him. Because being with Damien Cross felt like standing in the sun after years of cold, and I didn't want to be the one to step back into the shade.
But now there was a baby. And suddenly, "what are we doing with our lives" wasn't a question I could let him dodge anymore.
I picked up my phone and typed:
Sounds perfect. See you at 7 babe. A heart emoji punctuation the sentence.
Slowly, I tucked the pregnancy tests into my purse. I'd tell him next week after my father's annual charity gala but I deserve one last perfect night before everything changed.
…………….
The Morgan Publishing Annual Charity Gala was the kind of event where senators mingled with bestselling authors and everyone pretended the champagne wasn't the main attraction. I'd grown up attending these galas, watching my father work the room with the easy charm of a man who'd built an empire on words and handshakes.
Tonight, I stood near the bar in a dress Damien had sent over that afternoon— a midnight blue silk that probably cost more than my car and watched my father in a round circle with a circle of donors.
"He's good at this," Damien murmured in my ear, appearing at my elbow with two glasses of champagne.
"He's had years of practice." I took the glass but didn't drink. The nausea had been worse today. "Thirty years of building Morgan Publishing into what it is enough time to know your onions."
"And legacy is important to him."
"Legacy is everything actually." I glanced at Damien. He looked perfect in his tux. His dark hair swept back and his well carved jaw left women staring and men reassessing their life choices.
"What about you? What's important to you?"
"Right now? You." He winked as he said it.
"That's not an answer, Damien."
"It's the only answer I have." He set his glass down and took my hand. "You have no idea just how important you are to me baby.
Dance with me?"
And just like that, the conversation was over. I let him lead me to the dance floor because it was easier than pushing. When his hand settled on my waist and he pulled me close, I took in a sharp breath.
I could almost believe that "right now" was enough.
"Your father's been watching us," Damien said quietly as we swayed to the music.
"He always watches. He wants to make sure you're treating me well."
"Am I?"
I looked up at him. "You know you are."
"Do I?" His expression was serious, almost sad. "Sometimes I wonder if you'd be better off with someone who could give you…"
"Don't." I pressed my fingers to his lips. "Don't finish that sentence."
He kissed my fingertips, then pulled me closer. We danced in silence, and I tried not to think about the pregnancy tests in my purse at home or the conversation I wasn't ready to have.
Across the room, my father raised his glass in our direction, smiling. The man who'd sacrified everything for me and built an empire in my name.
I smiled back, not knowing that in less than a week, that empire would be in ruins and I'd be running for my life.
……………
That was four days ago.
Now I sat in my apartment at two in the morning, watching my phone light up with calls I couldn't bring myself to answer. My father's name flashed across the screen for the seventh time in the last hour, and once again, I let it go to voicemail.
Something was wrong. I'd known it since this afternoon when rumors started circulating about accounting irregularities at Morgan Publishing. I heard federal investigators were asking questions about money that didn't add up.
My father had called me around five, his voice slightly controlled. "Isla honey,I need you to know that whatever you hear in the next few days, it's just noise.”
"Dad, what's going on?"
"Nothing I can't handle, sweetheart. It's just a disgruntled employee making trouble.”
“Dad…”
“Have I ever let you down?"
And because he never had, because he was my father, the man who'd raised me alone after Mom left and never hid anything from me, I'd believed him.
But now it was two in the morning and my phone wouldn't stop ringing and there was a knot in my stomach that had nothing to do with morning sickness.
A knock on my door made me jump. I looked through the peephole and felt my heart drop.
Damien stood in the hallway with a briefcase and an expression that made my stomach clench. He looked sick and his eyes looked exhausted like he hadn't slept in days.
I opened the door.
"We need to talk," he said quietly.
I stepped back and let him in, my mind racing. Damien had been distant the last few days, canceling plans and not returning calls. I'd assumed it was work but now, looking at his face, I knew it was something worse.
“It's midnight, D. Couldn't it have waited?”
“No! It has to be now.”
He set the briefcase on my coffee table, and the moment he opened it, papers spilled out. I mean documents with my father's signature, bank statements and invoices with numbers that blurred together until the numbers looked forged. .
My hands started shaking before I even realized it.
"Damien, what is this?"
"Evidence." His voice was flat, emotionless. Professional. Like he was presenting a quarterly report instead of destroying my world. "Isla, your father has been embezzling from Morgan Publishing for seven years. Forty-three million dollars funneled through shell companies, charity fraud, forged invoices to cover the gaps."
The words hit me like a physical blow I actually took a step back.
"That's not possible. My father wouldn't…"
"I've been investigating for three months, Isla. I'm sure."
Three months... For three months he'd been keeping this from me? He had been lying next to me in bed, kissing me, whispering that everything was fine while he built a case against my father?
"Three months, Damien. And you're only just telling me now?"
"Come on now… I needed to get my facts straight." He sighed loudly, running a hand through his hair. When I didn't respond, he continued. "I'm going to federal prosecutors in six hours and I just wanted you to know first."
"What do you mean six hours?" My voice cracked. "Damien, wait. Just give me time to talk to him please. I know there are rumors but I need to understand what's happening"
"There's no time. Some of the desperate employes who know small details are already exchanging evidence for tips. If I wait, the truth will be diluted before it gets out."
He tried to reach for my hand but I pulled away.
"Isla, please. I'm doing this because I love you."
"If you loved me, you wouldn't want to destroy my family like this."
"If I don't do this, it will destroy your life. And thst would destroy mine."
I didn't understand it. I didn't understand him. But it's typical Damian to say something and not care if you comprehended it or not. He would do whatever pleased him, regardless.
Here he was, actually destroying my family … without knowing he had already created one with me.
"Get out," I whispered.
"Isla"
"GET OUT!" I yelled.
He stood there for a moment, looking like he wanted to say something else. Then slowly, he closed the briefcase, picked it up, and walked to the door.
He paused in the doorway. "I'm sorry. I wish there was really another way."
Then he stepped out, the door closing behind him with a bang.
And I was alone with my pregnancy again. Only now there was a weight in my chest was as heavy as the one in my belly.
How would I have known tthat the man I loved was about to destroy everything I'd ever known?
I spent the rest of the night staring at my phone, watching and waiting for my entire world to fall apart in real-time news alerts.
- Writer
