Chapter 2

Nathan Cross did not panic. Panic was for men who lacked resources. He had a security team, a private investigator on retainer, and the legal right to the child Lena carried. The surrogacy contract was ironclad. He had made certain of that.

What he had not made certain of was Lena.

She had always been the quiet one. The dependable one. The sister who worked double shifts and never complained. Vivienne was fire; Lena was furniture. That was how he had categorized them. He saw now, with a dawning unease, that he may have miscalculated.

"She checked out at six this morning," his head of security reported. "Paid her bill in cash. No taxi record, no rideshare. She walked out the front door and disappeared."

"People don't disappear," Nathan said, his jaw tight.

"Pregnant women traveling alone tend to be noticed. We'll find her."

"Find her today."

He hung up and turned to face Vivienne, who was perched on the edge of his desk, examining her manicure with the serene focus of a woman who had never once doubted her right to occupy any space she chose.

"She'll come back," Vivienne said, not looking up. "She has nowhere to go. Mom's treatment costs eight thousand a month. Where's she going to get that kind of money?"

"I cut off the payments this morning," Nathan said. "As leverage."

Vivienne looked up then, a slow smile spreading across her face. "Smart."

He did not feel smart. He felt a sour, curdling sensation in his gut that he refused to identify as guilt.

"The wedding is in two weeks," Vivienne continued, sliding off the desk. "I need her found before then. I'm not walking down the aisle with this hanging over us."

"Why does it matter?"

She fixed him with a look of exquisite patience. "Because, Nathan, I am going to be photographed holding that baby on the front page of every society magazine in this city. The narrative is simple: grieving widower finds love again, and his late wife's precious child has a beautiful new mother. It's a fairy tale. Fairy tales require all the props to be in place."

She smoothed her skirt. "Lena is a prop. The baby is a prop. Find them."

After she left, Nathan sat in the silence of his office. He opened his phone and scrolled to a photograph he had taken three months ago. Lena, asleep on his couch, one hand resting on her belly, her face soft and unguarded. He had thought, in that moment, that he had never seen anything so peaceful.

He deleted the photo.

Then he called his lawyer. "I want an emergency custody filing prepared. The surrogate has breached the contract. I want full legal authority to recover the child the moment it's born."

"And if she's left the state?"

"Then we go federal."

He ended the call and stared out the window at the city skyline, a kingdom of glass and steel that bent to his will.

One woman — one quiet, stubborn, insignificant woman — would not undo him.

His phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number.

You stopped paying for my mother's chemo. I know what kind of man you are now. You will never hold this baby.

He read it three times. The fourth time, his hands were shaking.