The Billionaire's Cursed Heir

Chapter 5: The Offer

CHARLOTTE

I don't sleep again. I lie awake running through every version of what he could possibly say, and none of them prepare me for the one that's coming.

By the time I walk into his office at nine, my hands have stopped shaking. Not because I feel calm, but because I've run out of energy to be nervous. Nineteen days does that to a person. It burns away everything except the need to get through the next hour, and whatever new number the hospital calls me with by this afternoon.

Damian is behind his desk this time, a folder closed in front of him, untouched. He watches me sit down across from him like he's already rehearsed what comes next and is only waiting for the right moment to begin.

"I told you I'd have an answer," he says. "I do."

"Then say it."

"I need an heir." He says it plainly, no warmup, no softening. "My father has given me four months to produce one, or the company goes to a cousin who would run it into the ground within a year. I need a child, and I need a woman willing to carry it who won't complicate things with feelings or expectations of a real marriage."

I wait for the rest, the part that connects this to me, but he just looks at me steadily, letting the silence do the explaining.

"You're asking me," I say slowly, "to have your child."

"I'm offering you an arrangement." His voice stays even, like we're discussing a business contract instead of my body. "You carry the child. In exchange, I cover Ethan's surgery in full, whatever the final number comes to, plus recovery costs, plus enough to clear whatever debt you're currently carrying. No loans. No repayment. It's yours the moment you agree."

The room tilts. I grip the arms of the chair.

"You can't be serious."

"I've never been more serious about anything." He opens the folder and slides it toward me. Numbers, contracts, terms already drafted like he knew I'd say yes before I even walked in today. "The surgery alone would take you years to pay off working here. This solves it in one signature."

"This isn't a signature, this is my body, my life, a child I'd be raising while you what, disappear back into board meetings?"

"You wouldn't be raising the child alone. I'd want involvement, custody arrangements we can discuss, but the terms are flexible on everything except the timeline and the discretion."

"Discretion." I laugh, short and humorless. "You mean secrecy. You want me to disappear into your world quietly enough that nobody asks questions."

"I want this handled with dignity, for both of us." Something flickers across his face, gone before I can name it. "I'm not asking you to love me. I'm not asking for anything except what the contract states. A child, carried and delivered, in exchange for the money you need right now."

I stand up so fast the chair scrapes against the floor. "This is disgusting."

"It's practical."

"It's using two desperate people's problems to solve them like a business merger." My voice rises despite every effort to keep it level. "You're talking about a baby like it's a line item."

"I'm talking about survival." For the first time, something raw slips through his controlled voice. "Mine and yours both. You need money faster than any bank or loan will give it to you. I need an heir faster than any relationship could realistically produce one. This isn't romantic, Ms. Rivers. It was never going to be. But it works."

"Find someone else." I turn toward the door, my chest heaving, tears burning at the edges of my eyes that I refuse to let fall in front of him. "Find some woman who actually wants this life, who wants your money and your name and doesn't already have someone she loves."

"There isn't time to find someone else." He stands too, rounds the desk, closer now than he's ever stood before. "I have four months, Ms. Rivers. Not four months to search and vet and negotiate with strangers. I need someone I already trust, someone discreet by nature, someone whose motives I already understand completely."

"You don't understand me at all."

"I understand you'd do anything to save the man you love." His eyes hold mine, steady, relentless. "I understand you've already sold everything you own and it still isn't enough. I understand nineteen days isn't just a deadline to you, it's the difference between Ethan living or dying. Tell me I'm wrong about any of that."

I can't. That's the worst part. He's not wrong about a single word of it.

"I need an answer," he says quietly. "Not today. But soon. Ethan doesn't have the luxury of you taking weeks to decide."

"You're using his illness against me."

"I'm using the truth against you, because the truth is the only thing either of us has time for right now."

I stand in the middle of his office, torn between rage and the cold, creeping certainty that he's right about everything except how it feels to hear it said out loud.

"I need to think," I say, my voice barely holding steady.

"Think fast." He returns to his desk, sits down, closes the folder like the conversation is already over on his end. "The surgery window closes in nineteen days. I'd rather you walk out of here hating me than walk out of here too late to save him."

I leave without another word, because staying means saying something I can't take back, in either direction.

I make it to the elevator before the tears finally break loose, silent and furious, spilling down my face while the doors close and the numbers tick downward floor by floor.

My phone buzzes before the doors even open again. Dana, from the hospital, with the final number I've been dreading since this morning. I don't open it. Not yet. I already know it's going to be worse than the folder waiting on Damian's desk.

Nineteen days. One impossible offer. And somewhere underneath the disgust I want to feel, a small, terrified voice already whispering that I don't have another option left, and that whatever the number on my phone says, my answer was already decided the moment I walked into this building six months ago.