The First Heir Is Not Mine to Give

Chapter 1 The Ink Pad

The red ink pad sat on the walnut table like a wound someone had decided not to bandage.

I had been staring at it for what felt like a long time, though the grandfather clock in the corner said only four minutes had passed since Julian Ashford slid it across the polished wood toward me. Beside it lay the contract, a single sheet of heavy cream paper with the Ashford family seal already pressed into the lower left corner. My father's stamp, a small square of blue ink with the Wainwright initials, sat above it. My mother's thumbprint, faintly ridged and slightly smeared, sat in the witness box.

Only mine was missing.

"You're quiet," Julian said. He sat across from me in the library of the Ashford estate, a room lined with leather-bound books that no one in his family had actually read. His tie was loosened, his collar unbuttoned, as though this were a casual conversation about dinner plans. "I thought you'd have questions."

"I have one," I said.

"Go ahead."

I looked up from the contract. "You want my firstborn son."

Julian exhaled through his nose, the way he did when he thought someone was being dramatic. "Not want. This isn't about want. It's about what's owed."

"To Eleanor."

"To my brother. To his memory." He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and for a moment I saw the man I had agreed to marry six months ago. The one who had laughed at my terrible attempt to parallel park in the rain. The one who had held my hand at the hospital when my grandmother was dying and told me I was the only person who made him feel like he could breathe. "Daniel died because of me. He went into that river to pull me out. I was drunk, I was stupid, and he paid for it. Eleanor lost her husband that night. She lost the future she was supposed to have."

"And now she wants my child."

"She wants a child," Julian said. "She can't have her own. The doctors were clear after the accident. Daniel was her only chance, and now he's gone." He paused. "The baby would still be yours. You'd carry it, you'd give birth to it, you'd live in the same house. Eleanor would just... raise it. As her own. That's all."

"That's all."

"The child would know you. You'd see it every day. It just wouldn't call you mother."

I picked up the contract. The paper was thick, textured, the kind of paper that cost more per sheet than I made in an hour at the gallery. The terms were simple. In consideration of the marriage between Julian Ashford and Mara Wainwright, the first male child born of the union shall be surrendered to Eleanor Ashford for raising, in acknowledgment of the debt owed to the late Daniel Ashford. The child shall be informed of its biological mother, but the title of mother shall belong to Eleanor Ashford alone.

My father had signed. My mother had witnessed.

Neither of them had called me.

"Your father thinks it's fair," Julian said, misreading my silence. "He said you'd understand. The Wainwrights have always respected the Ashfords. This is how families stay together."

I looked at him. "My father signed a document that gives away his grandchild."

"He signed a document that protects his daughter's marriage."

"From what?"

"From the past," Julian said, and his voice was patient, as though I were a child asking why the sky was blue. "Eleanor has been part of this family for twelve years. She has more claim to Ashford blood than you do. If she wanted to make things difficult, she could. She could contest the estate. She could turn the board against us. She could make sure this marriage never happens." He gestured at the contract. "This is the compromise. This is how we all get what we want."

"Eleanor gets my son."

"Eleanor gets peace."

"And what do I get?"

Julian smiled. It was a small, fond smile, the kind he used when I said something he found charmingly naive. "You get me. You get the Ashford name. You get a life most people would kill for." He pushed the ink pad closer. "Come on. It's one thumbprint. It's not like you're signing away the baby today. That's years away. By then you'll barely remember this conversation."

I picked up the contract and tore it in half.

The sound was louder than I expected, a sharp ripping that cut through the quiet of the library like a gunshot. Julian's face went through three expressions in the space of a second: surprise, disbelief, then something that looked almost like admiration before it settled into a tight, controlled anger.

"Mara."

"No."

"You don't understand what you're doing."

"I understand perfectly." I stood up, the torn halves of the contract still in my hands. "You're asking to take my child before I've even conceived it. You're asking me to give up the most basic thing a mother has. And you've already got my parents to agree to it behind my back."

"They agreed because they know how this family works."

"They agreed because you asked them to," I said. "And they're afraid of losing the Ashford money. My father's business is hanging by a thread. You knew that when you proposed. You knew exactly what leverage you had." I looked down at the torn paper. "I'm not signing anything."

Julian stood up slowly. He was taller than me, and in the dim light of the library, with his loosened tie and unbuttoned collar, he looked almost dangerous. "You don't get to make this decision alone."

"I'm not marrying you to be a surrogate for your sister-in-law."

"You're marrying me because you love me."

"Am I?" I said. "Because right now I'm not sure I know you at all."

He flinched. It was small, barely visible, but I saw it. Julian Ashford, the man who had never shown weakness in front of anyone, flinched.

"You're emotional," he said. "You should go home. We can talk about this tomorrow."

"There's nothing to talk about."

"Mara." He reached for my arm, and I stepped back. "Mara, wait. Just think about this. Think about what you're throwing away."

I looked at him for a long moment. The library was silent. Outside, the late afternoon sun was already starting to set, casting long shadows across the floor. In nine days, I was supposed to marry this man. In nine days, I was supposed to stand in front of three hundred guests and promise to love, honor, and cherish him until death.

Instead, I was going to destroy everything.

"I'm not throwing anything away," I said. "I'm refusing to give away a child that doesn't even exist yet. And if that's a problem for your family, then maybe this wedding shouldn't happen at all."

I walked out of the library. Julian didn't follow.

Two hours later, I was sitting in my mother's kitchen in the small house where I had grown up, holding a cup of tea that had long gone cold. My mother sat across from me, her hands folded on the table, her face a careful mask of calm.

"You shouldn't have torn it up," she said.

"I'm not signing it."

"No. I mean you shouldn't have torn it up in front of Julian. You should have asked for time. You should have smiled and said you needed a few days to think. Then we could have figured out what to do."

"What to do?" I stared at her. "You pressed your thumbprint on that contract. You watched Dad stamp it. You didn't call me. You didn't warn me."

"We thought you'd agree."

"I'm your daughter."

"And Julian is our only hope," my mother said. Her voice didn't rise. It never did. My mother had spent her entire life keeping her voice low, her face smooth, her feelings locked away in a box somewhere I had never been able to find. "You know what's happening with your father's business. The Marston deal fell through. We're three months away from defaulting on the loans. If that happens, we lose the house. We lose everything."

"So you sold my child."

"We protected our family."

"By giving Julian Ashford the right to take my baby."

My mother looked down at the table. "It's not like that."

"Then what is it like?"

"Eleanor is powerful," she said quietly. "She's on the Ashford Foundation board. She controls the trust. She has more influence over Julian than you realize. If she decides she doesn't want this marriage, it won't happen. And if the marriage doesn't happen, your father's business dies. We all die."

"You should have told me."

"Would you have agreed?"

I stared at her. "No."

"Then what was the point of telling you?"

I set the tea down and stood up. My mother didn't try to stop me. At the door, I turned back.

"I'm going to the cottage," I said. "I need to think."

"Mara..."

"Don't call Dad," I said. "Don't call Julian. Don't call anyone. I need one night where I'm not being sold to someone."

I walked out into the evening air. The street was quiet, the houses lit up with warm lights, families sitting down to dinner. I got in my car and drove north, toward the cottage my grandmother had left me. It was small and old and needed a new roof, but it was mine. No one else had a key.

No one else could take it from me.

The cottage was cold when I arrived. I built a fire in the old stone fireplace, then sat on the floor in front of it, wrapping a blanket around my shoulders. My phone buzzed four times in the first hour. Julian. My mother. Julian again. My father.

I didn't answer any of them.

Instead, I thought about Eleanor.

I had met her at a dinner party three months ago, right after the engagement was announced. She was beautiful in a sharp, controlled way, with dark hair pulled back in a perfect knot and eyes that seemed to see everything. She had smiled at me from across the table and said, "Welcome to the family." I had thought she was being kind.

Now I wondered if she had been measuring me. If she had been deciding whether I would be the kind of woman who would fight back.

She must have decided I wasn't.

She must have thought I would sign.

I thought about Julian, too. About the man I had fallen in love with, the one who had seemed so different from his family. He had given me a bracelet for our six-month anniversary, a simple silver band with a small stone. He had said it was nothing, just a little thing he saw in a shop window. Later I found out it was worth more than my car.

Everything with the Ashfords was worth more than it seemed. Everything came with a price.

At midnight, I pulled out my phone and called the one person I knew would answer.

"Hannah," I said when she picked up. "I need a lawyer."