THE BILLIONARIA’S DANGEROUS DEAL

CHAPTER 1 Samantha pov The knife slipped in my hand, and I nearly sliced my thumb open instead of the mango. I set it down, pressed my palm flat against the cutting board, and breathed. Focus you have twenty minutes. My stomach growled, loud enough that I glanced toward the door to make sure no one had heard. I hadn't eaten since yesterday afternoon. There wasn't time to think about that anyway. I smoothed my apron, tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear and carried the tray of juice into the dining room just as footsteps started down the staircase. “Samantha.” I turned, Mrs. Cole stood in the doorway of the kitchen, and her eyes did the thing they always did, swept the table once, slowly, top to bottom. “Is breakfast ready?” “Yes.” I kept my voice low. She nodded and swept past me into the dining room. The rest of the family trailed behind her, already talking among themselves. Xavier's father was laughing at something, nobody looked at me. I stood in the doorway a second longer than I needed to, watching them settle into their seats. I served the eggs first, then the coffee, refilling cups with juice before anyone had to ask. By the time I finally sat down at the far end of the table, my plate was waiting for me. Smaller than everyone else's. Always smaller. Mrs. Cole didn't look up from her coffee. “That's enough for you, Samantha. You've been looking a little, she paused, choosing the word with visible pleasure, — fat, lately. I looked down at the plate. Two eggs and half a slice of toast. My stomach twisted, and I hated it. I picked up my fork anyway and ate slowly, so it would look like enough. Xavier sat two seats down, scrolling through something on his phone. He hadn't said a word to me all morning. He hadn't said much of anything to me in weeks. — I hadn't planned on falling in love with my own husband. If you'd told me eight months ago that I'd end up here, I would have laughed in your face. But then eight months ago,I hacked into Cole Enterprises and deleted important transaction records. I knew what I’d done was illegal and Xavier could have sent me to prison. Instead, he gave me a choice. Carry his child as a surrogate, or face the consequences. I chose the second option, anyone would have. Two rounds of IVF failed. After the second failure, Xavier proposed marriage. “My grandmother wants an heir within the year,” he’d said, sliding a folder across his desk toward me. “Marry me. One million dollars when the child is born. I’ll take care of everything else.” I'd stared at the number on the page until it stopped looking real. A million dollars. It was more money than I had ever imagined having. And I couldn’t bring myself to say no. My aunt's condition had grown worse, and I desperately needed the money to keep paying for her treatment. Her medication wasn’t going to pay for itself. Desperately in need of money I signed and became Samantha Cole. Marrying him turned out to be the biggest mistake of my life. The first few weeks, I convinced myself things would get better, since I was his wife. Maybe his family would finally accept me. I was wrong and the weeks slowly blurred into months. With every passing day, I endured one humiliation after another in the Cole family, constantly reminded that I would never truly belong there. Every morning, I woke before everyone else. I made breakfast, and planned every meal down to the last dish. Made sure everyone at the table had exactly what they wanted before I even thought about myself. No matter how hard I tried to be the perfect wife, it was never enough. By the time I finally sat down to eat, my own plate had already been measured for me. Xavier’s mother made sure of that. While everyone else ate as much as they wanted, I was expected to be grateful for whatever she decided was enough. No one questioned it, not even Xavier. I lost weight without trying. Dark circles settled beneath my eyes. Some mornings, I barely recognized the woman staring back at me in the mirror. I should have left. I should have walked out and never looked back. But where would I go? I had nowhere else to go. And despite everything, some foolish part of me grew to love my husband. That was probably the saddest part. I kept believing that if I tried hard enough, loved him enough, and became the wife everyone wanted me to be, Xavier would eventually see me and love me. I didn’t realize how badly the hunger, endless work, and constant stress had worn me down until my body finally gave out. I was getting dressed one morning when the room suddenly started spinning. One second, I was reaching for the zipper at the back of my dress. Next, everything around me blurred. I reached for the dresser to steady myself, but my hand missed it. When I opened my eyes, Xavier's face was hovering above mine. One of his hands cradled the back of my head. The other gripped my shoulder like he was afraid I'd slip away from him if he let go. “Samantha, look at me.”His voice sounded different. I blinked at him. The ceiling swam behind his head. “I'm fine,” I whispered. My voice came out too thin to be convincing. He frowned. “You're not fine, you’re freezing and can barely hold your head up.” He was already pulling his phone from his pocket, already barking orders — get the car ready, get her shoes, someone get her a coat, his thumb moving fast across the screen. Then his phone rang. He glanced at the screen, and I watched every trace of that fear drain out of his face in real time — his jaw going slack, his eyes going flat and distant, like someone had reached inside him and switched something off. “I have to take this.” He was already standing. “Xavier— He didn't look back. His footsteps were already receding down the hall. “Xavier, I need to go to the hospital.” He paused at the door, “Five minutes, Samantha,” Then he walked away. A servant came in with my coat, her eyes sliding away from mine like she was embarrassed for me. “Mrs. Cole… “He left?” My voice came out smaller than I meant it to. She hesitated, then nodded. I stared at the empty doorway for a long moment. Of course he did. The car ride to the hospital blurred past in gray streaks of window glass. I sat curled against the back seat, too dizzy to sit up straight, my phone resting beside me on the leather. No calls or messages. Nothing from Xavier. I picked it up anyway, some small foolish part of me hoping. A news notification lit the screen instead, and my thumb moved to dismiss it before the headline actually registered. COLE ENTERPRISES CEO SPOTTED WITH LONG-LOST FIANCÉE VANESSA JAMES, BELIEVED DEAD IN OVERSEAS ACCIDENT. My breath left my body in one long, silent rush. I read it again. Then a third time, my thumb hovering over the screen like the words might rearrange themselves into something that made sense. There was a photograph. Xavier, his hand resting against a woman's back, his head bent slightly toward hers. I scrolled through the comments with a strange numbness settling into my chest. They really found their way back to each other. The Cole heir and his first love. Some love stories are meant to survive anything. I set the phone face-down on the seat and stared at the car's ceiling, my head went blank. When we reached the hospital, a nurse met me at the entrance and helped me inside. After checking my blood pressure and running a few tests, they put me on an IV and kept me under observation. The nurse came back to check my IV. I answered her questions and let the doctor examine me and did everything I was supposed to do. By the time the doctors discharged me, my things were already gone from the room I’ve shared with Xavier for the past months. My clothes had been folded into a single drawer in a smaller room beside the boys’ quarters. “Mrs. Cole thought it best,” the housekeeper said, not meeting my eyes. “Which Mrs. Cole?” My voice came out sharper than I meant it to. She lowered her head and before she could answer, laughter echoed through the mansion. Then came the sound of a car pulling into the driveway. Everything changed in an instant. Footsteps rushed past me toward the stairs. When I finally made my way to the top of the staircase, Xavier's mother was already standing at the bottom, and I had never once seen her smile the way she was smiling now. The front doors opened. She was beautiful in a way that made the air leave my lungs — amber eyes, dark hair loose over her shoulders, a coat that probably cost more than a year of my aunt's medical bills. She wasn't looking at the family gathered to greet her. She was looking at Xavier. And Xavier — my husband, the man who an hour ago had left me bleeding out on our bedroom floor for a phone call was looking back at her like the rest of the world had simply stopped existing. I stood frozen halfway down the stairs, one hand gripping the banister so hard my knuckles went white. Vanessa James. Xavier’s first love, his beloved. The woman everyone thought was dead is back. And now that the woman he had always wanted was back, there was nothing left for me in the Cole mansion.