Chapter 1

Evelyn

"Lift your hips. Spread your legs yourself."

Alexander's voice was hoarse. His rough thumb traced a line from my lower belly down the inside of my thigh, then gripped the crease of my leg and pinned my whole body beneath him.

There was no tenderness, no foreplay—not even a single kiss. He pressed himself against me, thick and hot, and with the aid of the wetness already spilling out, forced his way in inch by inch, meeting no resistance.

The overwhelming fullness made me arch my neck sharply, my toes curling and tensing beyond my control.

"Hold on to my shoulders," he ordered in a low voice against my ear.

Each heavy thrust was deep and precise, grinding straight over the most sensitive spot inside me. Pleasure and a raw ache detonated together in my belly. I bit down hard on my lower lip, trying to swallow the sound, tears pricking at the corners of my eyes.

"Don't bite. Let me hear you."

His free hand pried my lips apart, his thumb pressing down on the tip of my tongue while his movements below grew only more brutal. Every collision came with a heavy, ragged breath, rocking the bed frame until it shook violently.

...

I don't know how much time passed before the storm finally subsided.

I lay collapsed like a beached fish, stripped of all dignity, sprawled across the absurdly vast black bed. Beside me came the sound of steady breathing—the man who had just used my body however he pleased had already fallen asleep with his back turned to me.

Outside the window, New York at four in the morning was still steeped in darkness, only the distant skyline flickering with faint lights.

I turned my head slightly and, by that sliver of light, studied the profile of the man beside me.

Alexander Whitmore.

The youngest head of New York's most powerful business dynasty, a man standing at the very apex of the pyramid of wealth and power.

I looked down at my own body, mottled with bruises, my thoughts in chaos. Damn it all—only days ago we had been two strangers living in parallel worlds, with nothing between us. And now here I was, lying in his private bedroom, the most shameful secret of this vast and illustrious family.

It was more ridiculous than the most absurd Hollywood B-movie.

I closed my eyes, and my thoughts drifted, unbidden, back to the afternoon that had changed the course of my life for good.

The corridor of a private medical center in New York. The air was thick with the sharp sting of disinfectant. I sat alone on a long bench, the screen of my phone slick with sweat where I gripped it.

It displayed the balances of all my bank accounts—numbers so pitifully small they wouldn't cover next month's rent, let alone the astronomical cost of my mother's next round of chemotherapy.

To scrape the money together, I'd sold the beat-up Ford I'd driven for five years, put my dream of finishing my counseling certification on hold, and started keeping my daily food budget under five dollars. But my mother's ever-mounting medical bills were a bottomless pit that could never be filled, and they had swallowed the last shred of my hope clean away.

The attending physician's words still echoed in my ears: "Miss Carter, if you're unable to pay for the next stage of treatment by this Friday, I'm afraid we'll have no choice but to suspend her current course of care."

Suspending treatment was as good as sending her to die.

In that moment, staring at the lifeless numbers on my phone screen, despair surged over me like a rising tide. A terrible thought even crossed my mind: if I jumped from the roof, would the insurance payout be enough to save her?

"Evelyn Carter?"

Just as the crushing weight of reality was about to break me, a man appeared before me in a tailored suit, not a hair out of place. He held out a gold-embossed business card. "I'm the chief private attorney for the Whitmore family. My client would like to offer you a job."

Twenty minutes later, in a private room at an upscale café across from the hospital, I came face to face with the woman who so often graced the covers of fashion magazines—the woman envied by all of New York's high society.

Victoria Whitmore. She wore an elegant cream-colored Celine coat, her blond hair swept back immaculately, and on her finger sat a sapphire wedding ring worth a small fortune. She looked at me with gentle eyes that nonetheless carried the appraising quality unique to the upper class.

"I know about your mother's condition, Evelyn," Victoria said, sliding a thick folder toward me. "She needs the finest medical team in the country. And I need a healthy womb."

After marrying Alexander, an accident years ago had left her completely unable to bear children. But the Whitmore family's enormous trust fund and its board of directors required a legitimate heir carrying Alexander's bloodline.

"A seven-figure payment. Full coverage of every one of your mother's medical expenses, and a place for her in the best private care facility in America." Victoria leaned back against the sofa, smiling as she watched me.

I stared at the cold words on the agreement—"provide a healthy womb," "relinquish all custody and visitation rights," "be available at any time for artificial or natural conception"...

A violent wave of nausea and humiliation rushed straight to my head.

"No." I shot to my feet as if I'd been electrocuted, trembling all over, my voice shrill. "I need money, but I'm a person—not some animal you rich people keep around for breeding!"

I didn't spare so much as a glance at the check on the table. I snatched up my bag, slammed the door of the room behind me, and rushed out.

I walked fast through the streets, scrubbing the humiliated tears from the corners of my eyes. I swore to myself that I would sooner wash dishes all night in some diner, sooner take out a loan from a loan shark, than ever sell my womb and my dignity.

But reality took less than ten minutes to grind my pitiful pride into dust.

When I dragged my exhausted body back to the hospital room, what I found instead was my mother curled up on the bed, ashen-faced, wracked with the agony of her chemotherapy.

Two nurses were briskly disconnecting the pain pump and the imported IV drip keeping her stable.

"Stop! What are you doing?!" I lunged at them like a madwoman, grabbing at the nurse's hands.

"Miss Carter, your account is severely overdrawn," the nurse said, expressionless, pushing me away. "Until the outstanding balance is settled, all non-essential paid medications and pain management are suspended. Please don't interfere with our work."

"If you stop the pain pump she'll be in agony until it kills her!" I dropped to my knees, clutching the hem of the nurse's uniform, tears streaming down my face in great drops. "Please... just give me two more days... I swear I can borrow the money..."

On the bed, my mother forced her eyes open through the pain. Her withered hand trembled as it reached up to touch my face, her voice so weak it was nearly inaudible. "Evelyn... stop begging them... Mom doesn't want the treatment anymore... pull out the tubes... don't spend the rest of your life in debt for my sake..."

Looking at my mother's face, contorted with pain, I felt my heart being torn apart, piece by piece.

I bolted into the cramped little bathroom in the corner of the room, locked the door behind me, and slid down the cold tile wall to the floor. I bit down hard on my own wrist, not daring to let out a single sound.

From beyond the door came the faint, unstoppable moans of my mother's suffering.

Could pride buy targeted therapy drugs? Could dignity keep my mother alive?

If I refused, my mother would die today in unbearable pain. If I agreed, the only thing destroyed would be me.

At last I had to admit it: in the face of death, my pitiful pride was worth nothing at all.

Trembling, I reached into the pocket of my cold-sweat-soaked coat and pulled out that black, gold-embossed card. I took a deep breath and dialed the private number.

"I'll sign."