Chapter 1 Shattered Promises
"Ella, we need a child," Austin murmured, his broad chest still heavy against hers in the dimly lit bedroom.
The words weren't a passionate plea, but a cold, calculated transaction.
He needed an heir to secure his billion-dollar empire—and to finally clear the path to marry the woman he truly loved.
Ella Brooks held the sheets protectively across her chest, her body aching from his brutal intensity. After two months of making tabloid headlines with his scandals, Austin Raymond hadn’t returned home for love. He had returned to complete a mission.
Outside, the rain battered against the windows, a stark contrast to the suffocating silence inside. Austin had tasted every inch of her, his movements driven by an inexplicable, addictive familiarity that he stubbornly refused to acknowledge.
Before Ella could even process the bitter reality of his demand, Austin’s phone rang.
He didn't hesitate to answer. As he stood by the window, the cold, predatory hawk-like gaze he reserved for Ella dissolved into unexpected tenderness.
"Don't be afraid. Wait for me at home, I'll come right over to be with you," his low, husky voice coaxed gently.
Ella froze, feeling as if someone had thrown shattered glass into her eyes. Without guessing, she knew exactly who was on the other end. Judith.
Judith was returning. And Austin required a child with his legal wife solely to appease his grandmother and fully inherit the Raymond fortune. Once the heir was born, he could divorce Ella and give Judith the world.
After hanging up, Austin turned back. The warmth in his eyes vanished, replaced by his usual icy demeanor.
"Remember to take your medicine," he instructed coldly. Not contraceptives. Fertility medication.
He grabbed his coat and walked unhesitatingly into the thunderstorm—the very storms he knew terrified Ella—leaving her alone in the dark. From the window, she watched his Maybach speed away into the rainy night, rushing to another woman’s side.
A bone-deep chill spread through Ella, a haunting echo from the snowy mountains ten years ago. Back then, an eighteen-year-old Austin had promised to marry and protect her forever. When a car accident left him paralyzed at twenty-four, Judith fled the country. It was Ella who stayed by his side through three agonizing years of rehabilitation, pulling him out of the darkness.
She thought she had melted his icy heart. Yet, a single glance from the returning Judith was enough for Austin to abandon everything.
The next morning, the news headlines were a bold, oversized red assault: AUSTIN RAYMOND, HEIR TO FINANCIAL EMPIRE, SPENDS NIGHT AT DESIGNER JUDITH’S HOME.
The sight pierced Ella's chest, twisting like a rusty knife.
Her phone buzzed. A text from Austin: [Wait for me at home tonight. Take your folic acid regularly.]
He spent his nights comforting Judith, only to return to Ella’s bed to fulfill his breeding task. What did that make her? A vessel? A tool to buy his freedom?
Crystalline tears slid down her cheeks, dropping onto the screen. But as she stared at the bottle of fertility pills on the nightstand, the suffocating fog of her ten-year unrequited love suddenly began to clear.
If all he wanted was a child to buy his ticket to Judith... what would happen if the unquestioning, obedient Ella simply disappeared?
The shrill ring of the phone shattered the fragile silence of the bedroom, pulling Ella away from her dark thoughts and the bottle of fertility pills.
When she answered, the color instantly drained from her face. "What did you say? Grandmother collapsed? I'm on my way!"
From Ella's townhouse to the Raymond family's Golden Oak estate, the drive usually took thirty minutes. Ella made it in fifteen, driving recklessly through the lingering storm. Karen Raymond, her grandmother-in-law, had always been her only pillar of support in this suffocating marriage.
When Ella burst into the sprawling colonial mansion and reached the master bedroom, the heavy atmosphere felt suffocating. Karen lay unconscious on the grand bed.
