TOO LATE MR.BILLIONAIRE

THE OFFER

Sophia's phone buzzed at seven the next morning, and she already knew who it was before she looked.

She let it ring out.

It rang again thirty seconds later.

By the fourth call she gave up and answered, mostly because Nora was standing in her kitchen doorway mouthing *just get it over with*.

"What."

"We need to talk." Ethan's voice was rough, like he hadn't slept either. "Not on the phone. In person."

"I said everything I needed to say last night."

"Sophia." A pause, and she could picture him exactly, standing at that floor to ceiling window in his penthouse office, one hand braced against the glass. "Please."

She almost hung up. Her thumb hovered right over the red button.

But some stubborn, foolish part of her still wanted to look him in the eye one more time and watch him explain himself. Wanted proof, maybe, that the man she'd loved for seven years hadn't been a complete stranger the whole time.

"One hour," she said. "The coffee shop on Fifth. Not your office."

"Why not my office?"

"Because your mother's assistant works two floors down and I'm not giving Victoria the satisfaction of a security camera clip."

Silence. Then, quietly, "Fair enough."

The coffee shop was nearly empty when she arrived, tucked into a corner booth with her back to the wall, out of habit more than strategy. Ethan walked in eleven minutes later wearing sunglasses indoors like a man trying not to be recognized, which only made him more recognizable.

He slid into the seat across from her.

Up close, the damage from last night showed. Dark circles. A muscle ticking in his jaw.

"You look terrible," she said.

"Thank you."

"I meant it as a compliment to my own restraint. I didn't say it to your face at the gala."

A ghost of a smile crossed his mouth before it disappeared again. "I deserve worse."

"You do."

He wrapped both hands around the coffee cup the waitress set down, not drinking it, just holding on. "I didn't plan any of this the way it happened. The engagement wasn't supposed to be announced last night. My mother moved the timeline up without telling me."

"That doesn't change what you said in front of three hundred people."

"I know."

"Or that you smiled for the cameras like it was the best day of your life."

"Sophia—"

"Or that you let me find out with everyone else instead of telling me privately, like I meant something to you at all."

His jaw tightened. For a second she thought he might actually argue, might actually try to defend it, and some small, tired part of her almost wanted him to, just so she'd have a clean reason to hate him.

Instead he reached into his jacket and pulled out a folded check.

He set it on the table between them, sliding it toward her with two fingers.

Sophia looked down. The number on it had six figures behind the comma.

"What is this."

"A settlement," Ethan said. "For everything. The years, the way this ended, all of it. I want to make sure you're taken care of, Sophia. Whatever you need to start over, whatever you need to be comfortable—"

She laughed. It came out sharp and ugly, nothing like her real laugh, and the two women at the next table glanced over before pretending not to.

"You think I want your money."

"I think you deserve it."

"I don't want a settlement, Ethan. I wanted seven years of my life to have meant something other than a line item you can write a check to close out." She pushed the paper back across the table so hard it nearly slid off the edge. "Do you have any idea how insulting this is?"

"I'm trying to help."

"You're trying to buy your conscience back cheap."

That landed. She watched it land, watched something flicker behind his eyes, guilt or anger or both tangled together so tightly he couldn't separate them anymore.

"Then tell me what you actually want," he said, voice low, almost desperate. "Because I don't know how to fix this if you won't tell me what fixing it looks like."

Sophia opened her mouth. Closed it again.

There was an answer sitting right behind her teeth, one word, four letters, a truth that would break this entire conversation wide open and change both of their lives forever.

She didn't say it.

Not yet. Not in a coffee shop with his mother's spies probably already circling the block, not when she still didn't trust what he'd do with it.

"I want you to leave me alone," she said instead. "That's what fixing it looks like."

She stood, grabbed her bag, left the check untouched on the table like something contaminated.

"Sophia, wait—"

"Goodbye, Ethan."

She was almost at the door when his phone rang behind her, loud in the quiet café, and she heard him answer it on reflex, heard three words that stopped her cold with her hand on the handle.

"She's pregnant, sir."

Sophia turned.

Ethan's face had gone white as bone, phone pressed to his ear, eyes locked on her from across the room like he'd just seen a ghost.

"That was my mother's private investigator," he said slowly, lowering the phone. "He's been following you for two weeks."

The floor seemed to tilt beneath her feet.

"He just confirmed it. You're pregnant."

The whole café had gone quiet, or maybe it was just her own pulse roaring loud enough to drown out everything else, because Ethan Kingsley was staring at her like the ground had opened up beneath both of them at once.

"Sophia." His voice cracked on her name. "Is it mine?"