Chapter 1

On the day I delivered his heir, Julian Cross brought his mistress into my hospital room, told me to hand over the baby, and asked the nurse to double my sedatives so I wouldn't "make a scene" at his engagement party tonight.

I'd been his contract surrogate for nine months. What the contract didn't say was that I'd fall in love with him — or that he'd already promised our son to Vivienne Ashford, the woman he'd loved since prep school, who couldn't carry children of her own.

"Elara." Julian didn't look at me. He was adjusting Vivienne's cashmere wrap, his thumb grazing her collarbone with a tenderness I'd never once received. "The pediatrician says the baby needs skin-to-skin for another hour. After that, Vivienne will take over."

Vivienne smiled at me — the kind of smile a woman gives when she's already won. "Thank you so much, Elara. Truly. You've given us the greatest gift."

Us.

My arms tightened around my son. My son. I'd carried him through morning sickness so violent I lost fifteen pounds, through gestational diabetes, through a labor that lasted thirty-one hours and nearly killed me. And now this woman, draped in Chanel, manicured and glowing, was calling him ours.

"His name," I whispered, my voice wrecked. "I want to name him."

Julian finally looked at me. His jaw tightened. "That's not in the contract."

"I don't care about the contract—"

"You should." His voice dropped, cold enough to freeze the IV drip. "Because the contract is the only reason you're in a private room instead of a county ward. Don't push me, Elara."

He turned back to Vivienne, pressing his lips to her temple. "Let's give her a moment. She's hormonal."

Hormonal. I'd hemorrhaged on the delivery table. The surgeon told Julian I'd needed emergency transfusions. He'd replied — the nurse told me later, her eyes wet — "Handle it. I'm in the middle of something."

The "something" was picking out a crib with Vivienne. A $12,000 crib, hand-carved Italian oak, monogrammed with the initials V.C. — Vivienne Cross. Not mine. Never mine.

When they left, I pressed my face into my baby's skin, breathing him in. Milk and warmth and mine. The discharge papers sat on the bedside table. Beside them, a check for $500,000 — the final payment for my services.

Beneath the check was a note in Julian's sharp handwriting:

"Your obligation ends here. A car will take you to the airport tomorrow. Don't contact us again."

My hands trembled. I looked at my son, his tiny fingers curled around my pinky, and made the only decision that mattered.

I wasn't leaving without him.

But I also wasn't stupid. Julian Cross owned half of Manhattan, had judges on retainer and a legal team that could bury me in motions before I finished a sentence. I needed help. I needed someone more powerful than him.

I picked up my phone and dialed the one number I'd sworn never to call.

It rang twice. Then a voice — deep, steady, unmistakably commanding — answered.

"Elara? Is it done?"

"He wants to take my baby, Dominic."

Silence. Then: "I'm already on my way."