The Billionaire's Secret Twins

Chapter 4: His Claim

The car ride home was silent torture.

Ethan didn't look at me once. He sat on the opposite side of the Maybach, his laptop open, typing furiously like I didn't exist. Like he hadn't just claimed another man's children as his own in front of all of New York's elite.

"Ethan, I-"

"Not here." He cut me off without looking up. "James is driving."

James, the driver, kept his eyes straight ahead, pretending he was deaf.

I stared out the window, my hands protectively over my stomach. My babies. My twins. What was I going to do? The contract said if I broke it, I owed $500,000. But I hadn't broken it, had I? I was pregnant before I even met him.

We pulled into the Knight Estate. Before I could open my own door, Ethan was already outside, yanking my door open. His grip on my elbow was tight as he pulled me into the house.

"Eleanor is in her garden. We have ten minutes before she comes in."

He dragged me into his office and slammed the door. The room was dark, all mahogany and leather and money. Like him.

He turned on me.

"Whose is it?"

His voice was ice. The possessive, almost gentle man from the boutique was gone. This was the real Ethan Knight - the billionaire who destroyed companies before breakfast.

"No one's," I whispered.

"Don't lie to me, Emma." He stepped closer, backing me against his desk. He placed both hands on either side of me, trapping me. "Is it the boyfriend you didn't tell us about in your file? The reason you dropped out?"

"I don't have a boyfriend!"

"Then who? Victoria said you were pregnant with another man's baby. Was she right?"

Tears spilled down my cheeks. I couldn't tell him the truth - that it was him, from that drugged night, that he had been my first and only. He would never believe me. He would think I was trying to trap him, just like Victoria said.

"It's... it's from before. Before I met you. A mistake. One night."

His jaw clenched so hard I thought it would break.

"A one-night stand," he repeated, his voice dangerously low. "You got pregnant from a one-night stand, and then you married me for money without telling me? Do you know what kind of position you put me in?"

"I'm sorry! I found out yesterday! I didn't know what to do!"

"So you thought you'd let me raise another man's bastards?"

The word hit me like a slap. Bastards.

My hand moved before I could think. I slapped him. Hard.

The sound echoed in the office.

Ethan's head snapped to the side. Slowly, he turned back to look at me, his cheek red, his eyes blazing.

For a second, I thought he would hit me back. Or call security. Or throw me out.

Instead, he did something completely insane.

He kissed me.

It wasn't gentle. It was angry, punishing, desperate. His hands tangled in my hair, his mouth crashing against mine. He tasted like coffee and fury and everything I had dreamed about since that night a month ago.

I should have pushed him away. This was against the contract. No touching in private.

But my body remembered his. My body remembered that night even if his mind didn't. I kissed him back, my hands clutching his suit jacket, my tears mixing with our kiss.

He broke away first, breathing hard, his forehead against mine.

"Damn you, Emma Wilson," he whispered, his voice rough.

"Why did you claim them?" I sobbed. "In the boutique? Why did you say they were yours?"

He stared at me for a long time. His thumb wiped a tear from my cheek. The gesture was so soft it made me cry harder.

"Because," he said slowly, "my father is dying. And if he finds out my wife is pregnant with another man's child a week after our wedding, it will kill him faster. And because..." He paused, his eyes dropping to my lips. "My wife does not get insulted by ex-girlfriends in public. Ever."

My wife. He kept saying it.

"So this is... for the contract?"

"Yes