TWISTED FATE:The Hidden Billionaire

CHAPTER TWO

The air conditioning in the penthouse had a low, constant hum. It vibrated right behind my teeth. I stood in the center of Aiden Thorne’s office, my chest heaving up and down. Every breath felt like I was pulling in cold air through a narrow straw.

Aiden sat completely still. He was staring at the plastic pregnancy test sitting in the middle of his massive glass desk.Water dripped from the hem of my coat. It hit his expensive gray carpet with a soft pat. The puddle around my black boots was getting bigger, soaking into the thick fibers. I shifted my weight, and the wet rubber let out an embarrassing squeak.

On the wall behind him, a heavy silver clock ticked. Tick. Tick. Tick. It was 9:14 AM. My father checked the mailbox at our house exactly at noon. He treated the mail delivery like a military schedule. If he was even a minute late, he complained about the postal service all through dinner.

I did the math in my head again. I had forty-two dollars and fifteen cents in my checking account. The clinic bill was five thousand dollars. If I didn't get the cash to the billing department by eleven-thirty, the automated system would print the invoice and mail it to the house. The insurance statement detailing the blood work would follow right behind it.

"Mr. Thor-ne," I started. My voice cracked. I cleared my throat, tasting stale coffee and morning fear. "I know this is... I know it’s a shock. But I just need—"

"How many?" Aiden cut me off.

He didn't look up from the test. He just leaned back. His heavy leather chair creaked loudly in the quiet room.

"I'm sorry?" I asked.

"How many other executives did you corner at the gala?" He finally lifted his head. He didn't look angry, just annoyed, like I was a meeting that had gone five minutes over schedule. "Did you try the CEO of Vanguard first? Or was I just the easiest mark at the open bar?"

My mouth fell open. "I wasn't looking for a mark. I was working. I carried champagne trays around that ballroom for six hours."

"And then you ended up in my hotel room." He pointed a long finger at the plastic stick. The nail on his index finger was perfectly manicured. "With a cheap prop. You can buy those online, you know. Positive tests. Fifty bucks a pop. It's a very low overhead for a scam."

"It’s not a prop."

"It's a shakedown," he said. He reached over and straightened a stack of files on his desk. The corner of the top manila folder was slightly bent. He smoothed it down flat with his thumb. "So let's skip the crying. I have a board meeting at ten. How much do you want? Ten thousand? Twenty?"

"I don't want your money for me," I said. My hands balled into fists inside my wet coat pockets. My fingernails bit into my palms. "I just need the clinic bill paid. Directly to them. It's five thousand dollars."

Aiden scoffed. It was a harsh, scraping sound in the back of his throat. "Five thousand. Right. The 'modest' request to get your foot in the door. Then next month, it's fifty thousand for silence. I don't negotiate with extortionists."

"I'm not an extortionist! My father will disown me!" The panic boiled over into a sudden, hot wave of anger. I didn't care that he owned half the commercial real estate in the city. I stepped forward, my boots squelching on the gray carpet, and slammed both my hands down on the edge of the glass desk.

The impact made my wrists sting. The glass vibrated under my palms.

"If you don't pay that bill right now, they are going to mail the itemized receipt to his house," I said, my voice rising. "He checks the mail at noon. If he sees it, my life is over. I'm an accounting student. I rely on him for my tuition. For my rent. For everything."

Aiden stopped smoothing the folder. His hand froze on the desk.

"So you'll pay it," I said, my breathing ragged and loud. "Or I'll go downstairs and find the first reporter on the street. I will tell them exactly what kind of man Aiden Thorne is. I'll tell them everything about that night."

Aiden looked at me. Really looked at me…The muscles in his jaw flexed, a tight ripple under his skin. He slowly pushed his chair back and stood up. He was wearing a dark blue suit, no tie, the top button of his crisp white shirt undone. He towered over the desk.

"You're threatening me," he stated.

"I'm giving you a choice," I shot back, though my hands were shaking so badly I had to press them harder against the glass to hide the tremors.

"You don't have the leverage for a choice." Aiden reached over to the black phone sitting on the corner of his desk. He pressed a small button.

"Marcus. My office. Now."

He let go of the button and looked back down at me. "If you breathe my name to a single reporter, my legal team will file a defamation suit before you even reach the lobby downstairs. I will freeze your bank accounts. I will have you expelled from your university by the end of the day. You will be buried in legal fees until you are forty years old. Do we understand each other?"

I couldn't speak. A lump formed in my throat, thick and choking. I swallowed hard, but it didn't go away. The AC hummed.The heavy oak doors behind me clicked open. Two men walked in. They wore matching dark gray suits. One of them had a small earpiece curled around his ear.

"Remove this trespasser," Aiden said. He picked up a silver pen from his desk and clicked it. He pulled a document toward him and started writing. He was already ignoring me.

One of the men grabbed my left bicep. His fingers dug in hard through my coat. "Let's go, miss."

"Wait," I choked out. "Aiden, please—just listen to me—"

The second man grabbed my other arm. They didn't drag me, but they didn't give me a choice to stay, either. They walked me backward. My wet boots left dirty water smudges on the gray carpet all the way to the door.

"You can't do this!" I yelled.

The heavy oak doors shut in my face, cutting off my voice with a solid thud.

Aiden listened to the doors click shut. The office was quiet again. There was just the low hum of the AC and the steady ticking of the silver wall clock.

He set his pen down. He hadn't actually written anything.

He looked at the edge of the glass desk. There were two handprints left behind, fogged with the heat of her skin. In the center of the desk, the plastic pregnancy test sat exactly where she had left it. There was a drop of rainwater resting right over the two pink lines.

He reached out and picked it up. The plastic felt cheap and light in his hand.

He didn't throw it in the trash can under his desk. Instead, he set it down on top of a stack of quarterly earnings reports.

Aiden picked up his cell phone and pressed the speed dial for his head of security.

"Marcus," Aiden said when the line connected.

"She's in the elevator, boss. We're taking her to the street now."

"Fine. When you're done, I need you to run a full background check on her. Isabella Reed." Aiden walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window. He looked down at the street fifty floors below, watching the umbrellas move like tiny colored dots on the wet asphalt. "I want her bank statements for the last two years. I want her university transcripts. And hack into the central hospital network. I want her medical records by tonight."

Marcus paused on the other end. "Medical records, sir? That’s highly illegal. It takes time to bypass those firewalls."

"I pay you to ignore the law, Marcus. Just get it."

"Yes, sir. Anything specific you're looking for?"

"I want to know if she actually visited a clinic this week," Aiden said. He rubbed a smudge off the glass window with his thumb. "And find out who her father is. She mentioned he checks his mail at noon. See if you can get eyes on the house."

"On it."

Aiden hung up the phone and tossed it onto the desk. He looked back at the plastic test. He didn't believe in coincidences. He didn't believe in accidents.

But the panic in her eyes when she slammed her hands on the desk... that hadn't looked like a performance. She hadn't looked greedy. She had looked like someone who was completely, utterly cornered.

And cornered animals were unpredictable.

The elevator ride down took entirely too long. The digital numbers above the door glowed a bright, harsh red. 54. 53. 52.

The two guards stood on either side of me. They smelled like stale cigarette smoke and strong peppermint gum. Neither of them said a word. I stared at the scuff marks on the metal elevator doors, trying to force myself to breathe. My lungs felt too small for my chest.

Ding.

The doors opened to the lobby. The marble floors were crowded with people in suits rushing to morning meetings, holding paper coffee cups and leather briefcases.

The guards walked me through the crowd. A few people stopped and stared. I kept my head down, letting my wet hair hang in my face to hide my burning cheeks.

When we reached the front, one of the guards pushed the revolving glass door. He shoved me forward. I stumbled through, my boots slipping on the slick, wet pavement outside.

I caught my balance against a metal trash can, breathing in the sharp smell of wet asphalt and city exhaust fumes. The rain was coming down harder now, cold and biting against my skin.

I turned around, but the guards were already walking back into the warm lobby, blending into the crowd of office workers.

I stood on the sidewalk, getting soaked. A yellow taxi drove past, splashing dirty puddle water onto the hem of my jeans.

I had failed. I had forty-two dollars. I had no way to pay the clinic.

I reached into my coat pocket to check the time. Maybe I still had time to take the subway home and wait by the mailbox. If I ran, maybe I could intercept the mail carrier before my dad got to the box.

My phone buzzed against my palm.

I pulled it out. The screen was cracked in the top right corner, a spiderweb of broken glass resting over the battery icon.I wiped a raindrop off the screen and unlocked it.

It was a text message. A text that ended my life.

It was from my father.

I came home early because my stomach was bothering me, the message read.

Why did the insurance company mail me an invoice from a maternity clinic? Get here now.

My thumb hovered over the cracked glass. The rain kept falling, soaking through my clothes, but I couldn't feel the cold anymore. I just felt numb.