Chapter 1

I signed a surrogacy contract for $500,000. I let a stranger's doctor implant a stranger's embryo. And when the pregnancy test came back positive with twins, I thought I'd finally pay off my mother's hospital bills.

Then I saw my "anonymous client's" face on the news.

It was the man who destroyed my life three years ago.

My name is Nora Priest. I'm twenty-four, broke, and six weeks pregnant with the babies of the most powerful CEO on the Eastern Seaboard — Dominic Ashford.

The man who fired me. The man whose brother I slept with the night I lost everything.

Let me explain.

Three years ago, I was a junior architect at Ashford Development. I was nobody — a scholarship kid from a trailer park who clawed her way into Manhattan's most elite firm.

Then I made the mistake of being talented.

I designed the Meridian Tower. Every line, every curve, every load-bearing innovation — mine. I worked eighteen-hour days for eleven months. I skipped meals. I slept under my desk.

The night before the client presentation, I submitted the final blueprints to my supervisor, Victor Ashford — Dominic's younger brother.

The next morning, I walked into the boardroom and saw my designs on the screen — under Victor's name.

"This is my work," I said, standing up in front of thirty executives.

Victor didn't even flinch. He smiled at me the way you smile at a confused dog.

"Nora, sweetheart," he said gently. "You assisted. That's what juniors do."

I looked at Dominic. He was sitting at the head of the table. Cold grey eyes. A jaw that could cut glass. He didn't look at me. He looked at his watch.

"Miss Priest," he said, without raising his eyes. "If you cannot conduct yourself professionally, security will escort you out."

"He stole my designs!" I shouted.

Dominic finally looked at me.

"Victor is a senior architect with twelve years of experience," he said. "You are a first-year hire with a community college transfer degree. Who do you think this room believes?"

The silence was my answer.

Security came. They took my badge. They took my laptop. They escorted me through the lobby in front of every colleague I'd ever had.

I stood on the sidewalk with a cardboard box, and my phone buzzed.

An email from HR.

Termination: Effective Immediately. Cause: Insubordination and False Claims of Intellectual Property. Blacklisted from all Ashford-affiliated firms.

Blacklisted. In architecture, the Ashfords were affiliated with everyone. I couldn't get hired to design a dog house.

That same night, drunk and shattered, I ended up at a hotel bar. A man sat next to me. Dark hair. Green eyes. Kind smile.

He said his name was "Evan."

He wasn't Evan.

He was Victor Ashford, wearing contacts and a baseball cap.

I didn't recognize him through the vodka and the tears. He bought me drinks. He listened. He took me upstairs.

I woke up alone. No note. No number.

Three years later, I'm standing in a fertility clinic bathroom, staring at a positive pregnancy test, and Dominic Ashford's face is on the TV in the waiting room.

"Ashford Development CEO seeks private surrogate for undisclosed medical reasons," the anchor says. "The contract, reportedly worth half a million dollars, has been signed through an anonymous agency."

I look at the test. I look at the screen.

The agency told me the client's identity was confidential. They told me I'd never meet him. They told me it was just science — an embryo, a womb, a paycheck.

They lied.

And now I'm carrying Dominic Ashford's babies. The man who destroyed my career without blinking.

But that's not even the worst part.

The worst part is the date. The night at the hotel. The math.

Victor's night with me was exactly three years and two weeks ago. My body has been carrying a ghost — not a pregnancy, but a memory.

But the embryo transfer was six weeks ago. And the test shows twins.

Twins. From the implantation.

Except the doctor just called me back into the room. She's frowning at the ultrasound.

"Miss Priest," she says slowly. "There are two embryos. But they're not the same gestational age."

My blood goes cold.

"What does that mean?"

"It means one of these babies isn't from the transfer."

I grip the table.

"It means you were already pregnant."

One baby is Dominic's. The contract baby. The half-million-dollar heir.

And the other — the secret one, the impossible one — is Victor's.

The man who stole my career is paying me to carry his child. And his brother already put one inside me without knowing it.

I am carrying both Ashford brothers' babies.

And neither of them knows.