The Baby Clause

Distraction With A Pulse

Damian's POV

The conference table felt like a coffin.

Sterile. Suffocating. Drenched in the perfume of overpaid handlers and overpriced lies.

Twelve seats. Ten brand consultants. Two social media strategists. One PR rep with a voice so chirpy it made my teeth itch. All of them pretending this wasn’t a corporate strategy meeting to stage a fairy tale engagement. All of them pretending it mattered.

And at the head of the table?

Sabrina.

Glowing in a silk blouse the color of blood and ambition. Chin tilted like she belonged in the center of every lens. A diamond the size of a small country weighing down her left hand like it was a badge of victory.

Her voice rolled through the room, sweet, sharp, deliberate, as she detailed the itinerary for our upcoming engagement gala. A half-million-dollar circus designed to convince the world we were in love, aligned, and altruistic. That I was still the ruthless visionary SterlingTech needed, just with a smile softened by diamond cufflinks and a socially vetted fiancée.

That the man who ruled boardrooms now came with a curated heart.

Her father, Richard Belcourt, sat beside her. All polished gravitas and political poison. The man knew how to win an election without ever casting a vote. He was nodding, of course. Always nodding when it was Sabrina talking. The man built campaigns on optics, this arrangement was just his latest pitch.

My name. Her face. The illusion of stability in heels.

I should have been focused. Calculating market metrics. Reading the room. Thinking about Q4 strategies and AI verticals.

Instead, all I could think about was cinnamon and rain.

“You haven’t heard a word I’ve said,” Sabrina quipped, flashing a smile made for camera shutters. Her gaze flicked to me like a blade, polished but sharp. “Unless this is your brooding billionaire routine, in which case, A+, babe. It’s giving emotionally unavailable with a tragic backstory.”

I didn’t look at her. Didn’t smile.

Instead, I leaned back in my chair, one hand resting casually over my mouth, index finger tapping against my lower lip. A tell I only allowed when I was seconds away from ending a conversation.

Richard cleared his throat. “Damian, we’re five weeks out. Sponsors are expecting visibility. Investors like synergy. Sabrina’s been working hard on this...”

“I didn’t ask her to.”

Silence.

Sabrina’s smile faltered for half a second. Just enough for me to see the flicker behind her eyes.

“You’re really going to do this now?” she said, quieter. “In front of them?”

I didn’t answer.

“Because we can pretend all you want, Damian, but this ring on my finger? This entire production? That was your signature on the NDA. Your idea to merge optics. Your team who called mine.”

I still didn’t speak.

“You don’t get to disappear for weeks, show up when the cameras are off, and then act like I dragged you into this against your will.”

I finally looked up.

“Don’t confuse convenience with commitment.”

Richard shifted in his seat. “Let’s all take a breath...”

“I’m breathing just fine,” I said, voice flat. “It’s everyone else in this room gasping for relevance.”

Sabrina leaned forward, smile gone now, her eyes cold. “What is your problem lately? You’ve been...distant. Cold. Checked out. Is it the gala? The engagement? Me?”

“You’ve been staging a wedding for headlines,” I said, calm as ever. “Let’s not pretend this is about feelings.”

Her jaw twitched.

It was always there, beneath the polish, beneath the PR smile. That thread of truth she couldn’t keep buried. She didn’t love me. Never had. But she loved the idea of me. The name. The access. The branding potential.

She opened her mouth like she might say something else, but thought better of it.

She always did.

I pushed back my chair. The sound sliced through the tension like a guillotine.

“I have a call in ten,” I said, already walking.

“You’re running again,” Sabrina called after me. “Just like you always do when something doesn’t fit your script.”

I paused at the door.

“Correction,” I said over my shoulder. “I cut what doesn’t fit.”

She didn’t follow.

She never could.

I stepped into the hallway outside the executive suite and exhaled like I’d been holding my breath underwater. The air felt thinner out here, less perfumed, less plastic. The building’s glass walls pulsed with filtered sunlight, the skyline cutting across the horizon like a blade dressed in chrome.

I loosened my tie. Just enough to breathe.

And still, she was on my mind.

Not Sabrina.

Her.

The ghost with a smart mouth and rain in her hair. The woman who kissed like defiance and left like a secret. She hadn’t given me a name, but somehow she’d taken mine. Ripped it out of my mouth, replaced it with silence, then vanished barefoot into the dark like some twisted fairytale written in hunger and smoke.

I’d kissed her like a dare.

She kissed me back like it was the end of the world.

My phone buzzed in my pocket.

Cassian.

Cassian: I may have something. Check your inbox.

My pulse ticked up. Barely. But it did.

I made for the Sterling Room. My space. No assistants. No analysts. No cameras. Just reinforced glass, smart-locks, and the hum of a war machine disguised as an office.

I stepped in, and dropped into the leather chair like it was a throne. A quick flick of my wrist brought up the interface. My inbox blinked.

One file. Low-res. Gray-scale. Timestamped.

I hit play.

Juniper Street cam. Two blocks south of the Sterling eco-lab. Side angle, early dawn. Still wet from the storm.

And then, there she was.

Hair clinging to her face in damp curls. Bakery shirt soaked through and clinging to every sharp angle of her. Heels thrown carelessly into a scooter basket as she glided through the frame like she was being chased by her own breath. She moved fast. Reckless.

Not aimless though.

Purposeful.

Like she had to get somewhere no one knew her name.

I leaned forward, forearm braced against the desk, eyes locked on the feed. She looked over her shoulder once, just before ducking under a flickering streetlamp.

Paused.

Just for a breath.

The light caught her eyes, wide, haunted, and wild with something I couldn’t name.

My thumb froze on the trackpad.

That was her.

It was her.

The one who shattered my control and walked out like it hadn’t meant a goddamn thing.

I scrubbed the clip back, zeroed in on the still frame. Froze it. Zoomed in until the pixels blurred.

But even through the grain, I could see it, that defiance, raw and unfiltered.

That mouth. The one that spit fire and tasted like trouble. That mouth that told me, I don’t care what you want.

My chest clenched. Not with emotion. With focus.

The comm panel on my desk beeped.

Cassian stepped in, smooth as always, dressed in obsidian. He carried a folder in one hand and the quiet certainty of a man who never came empty-handed.

“She’s real,” he said, setting the file on the desk. “Location matches the camera feed. Small bakery on Juniper and 12th. Calls itself The Sweet Theory. Local place. Not flashy. No franchise ties. Independent. Niche.”

I flipped the file open with one hand. Faded exterior photo, copy of a lease, tax records. Nothing impressive. Nothing criminal. Just, small. Real.

“She owns it?” I asked, eyes still on the photo.

Cassian nodded. “Lease is under the name Brielle Noelle Taylor. Cross-referenced it with her tax ID and permit paperwork. Everything checks out. She’s filed consistently. Keeps the lights on, barely. No debt. No criminal record. No suspicious associations.”

“No sugar daddies. No failed reality show auditions.”

He smirked faintly. “No champagne brunches with scandal-prone influencers either. She’s clean.”

Too clean.

“People like her don’t walk into high-security galas through the service entrance without leaving a trail,” I said, my voice quiet, dangerous. “And they don’t disappear without a reason.”

“She used a borrowed vendor badge. Cake delivery. Traced it back to a third-party kitchen that outsources to events. She probably slipped in with a cake box and a prayer.”

I stared at the screen again. The footage looped, rewound, played. That same glance over the shoulder. That same flicker of fire in her eyes.

“She hiding something?” I asked.

Cassian gave the kind of shrug that meant he wasn’t ready to bet against her. “If she is, she’s playing it smarter than most. No social media presence beyond a bakery page with ten followers. No digital footprint that screams manipulation. It’s like she’s trying to stay invisible.”

“She’s not invisible,” I said, clicking the screen again. “She’s deliberate.”

He didn’t argue. Smart man.

“I had someone verify the timestamps,” Cassian added. “She left the vicinity of the gala around 6:14 a.m. Your driver logs you returning to the penthouse at 6:57.”

That tight little window. Barely half an hour.

No hesitation. No second glance. She walked out of my life like she had somewhere better to be. Somewhere that didn’t involve me.

She didn’t even look back.

“She’s not a threat,” Cassian offered carefully. “If anything, she’s hiding from the world, not from you.”

That wasn’t the part that bothered me.

What got under my skin was that she walked out like she knew I’d come looking.

Like she counted on it.

Like she saw the need behind my eyes and fed it just enough to leave me starving.

“I want her watched,” I said flatly.

Cassian blinked once. “Surveillance only?”

“No contact. No approach. Just eyes on her. Movement logs. Routines. Patterns. Quiet as hell.”

He nodded. “Understood.”

“And Cassian?” I said without looking up.

He turned.

“Not a word to anyone. Especially not PR. I don’t want this... muddied.”

Cassian’s expression tightened slightly. Not disapproval. Just awareness.

“You have it,” he said, then disappeared as silently as he’d come.

I leaned forward again, staring at the screen.

Paused on her face.

Those eyes, big, hazel, unflinching.

She wasn’t just some woman from a mistake I didn’t mean to make. She was the exception I never wanted.

The anomaly.

The malfunction in the machine.

“She’s no socialite,” I muttered, fingertips brushing the screen. “She’s no scammer.”

I narrowed my eyes.

“But then why the hell is she hiding?”