My husband came home with a pregnant woman and told me I was going to take care of her.
My husband came home with a pregnant woman and told me I was going to take care of her.
Not asked.
Told.
It was 7:18 on a Thursday evening when three black SUVs stopped outside our house.
Lucian normally came home alone.
That was the first thing that felt wrong.
The second was the two security men who entered before him.
Then Lucian stepped through the front door.
A woman followed.
She looked about thirty, with dark blond hair tied back and a gray coat stretched over a stomach so large I instinctively wondered whether she was already in labor.
She carried no handbag.
No suitcase.
Nothing.
One hand rested under her stomach.
The other gripped the doorframe.
She looked exhausted.
And scared.
Lucian shut the door.
“Arden.”
I looked at him.
Then at her.
“Who is she?”
The woman answered.
“Selah Wynn.”
I waited for the explanation.
None came.
Lucian took off his coat.
“Selah is staying here.”
“For dinner?”
“For a while.”
“How long?”
His eyes met mine.
“Until the baby is born.”
For a moment, I genuinely thought I had misunderstood him.
“Excuse me?”
“She’s thirty-six weeks. Three weeks, possibly less.”
I stared at him.
Lucian Ashcombe was forty-five years old, CEO of Ashcombe Group, and one of those men who had spent so long being obeyed that he sometimes forgot other people required explanations.
“Is the baby yours?”
Selah closed her eyes briefly.
Lucian didn’t blink.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“The question isn’t difficult, Lucian.”
“The baby is not mine.”
He answered too quickly and too calmly for me to doubt him.
Oddly, that made everything worse.
An affair would have made sense.
I knew what betrayal looked like.
This didn’t look like betrayal.
It looked like an operation.
“Then why is she in my house?”
“Because she isn’t safe anywhere else.”
Selah glanced at him.
Not affection.
Not gratitude.
Something closer to resentment.
“Safe from whom?” I asked.
“I’ll explain after she’s settled.”
“No.”
Lucian’s jaw tightened.
“You brought a pregnant stranger into our home with armed security and announced that she’s living here until she gives birth. You can explain before she gets settled.”
“Arden.”
“Who is she running from?”
He looked past me toward the hall.
“Who’s here?”
“What?”
“Staff.”
“Maribel. Jonah. Security. Why?”
“Send Maribel and Jonah home.”
I stared at him.
“Why?”
“No household staff goes upstairs.”
Selah turned toward him.
“Lucian—”
“I know.”
“No,” I said. “Apparently neither of you does.”
Lucian lowered his voice.
“Selah will stay in the east guest suite. No housekeepers. No chef. No driver takes her anywhere. If she needs medical help, use the number I give you.”
“What’s wrong with our doctor?”
“Nothing.”
“But she can’t see him.”
“No Ashcombe physician.”
That was the first thing that truly frightened me.
Our doctors had treated the Ashcombe family for decades.
Lucian trusted them with everything.
Apparently not with Selah.
“Why am I doing this?”
His pause was tiny.
But I caught it.
“Because I trust you.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Selah shifted, pressing a hand to her lower back.
I looked at her.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“I’m thirty-six weeks pregnant. Fine looks different now.”
Despite myself, I almost smiled.
Lucian didn’t.
“One night,” I said.
“Arden—”
“One. She eats. She sleeps. Tomorrow morning, you tell me everything. If I don’t like what I hear, she leaves.”
“She can’t.”
I looked at him.
“Can’t?”
Selah answered quietly.
“He means I shouldn’t.”
“No,” Lucian said. “I mean she can’t.”
The room went still.
That fear in Selah’s face when she entered suddenly mattered more.
I sent Maribel and Jonah home.
Twenty minutes later, the house felt wrong.
Too quiet.
Lucian disappeared into his study with two security men.
Two different guards took positions downstairs.
I had never seen either of them before.
That bothered me almost as much as everything else.
It meant Lucian didn’t trust his usual security either.
I made soup and carried it upstairs myself.
Selah opened the east guest-room door before I finished knocking.
She looked past me into the hallway.
Then pulled me inside and locked the door.
I set the tray down.
“Should I be worried?”
“Yes.”
“About my husband?”
“No.”
I crossed my arms.
“Good. Then let’s remove the obvious question.”
She waited.
“Did you sleep with Lucian?”
“No.”
“Were you involved with him?”
“No.”
“Is there any chance that baby is his?”
“No.”
Every answer immediate.
No hesitation.
“Then why is my husband acting like the wrong person seeing you could start a war?”
Selah looked at the locked door.
“Because the wrong person can’t know where I am.”
“Who?”
She said nothing.
My patience snapped.
“Selah, Lucian brought you into my home. He sent away my staff. He won’t let his own doctors near you. I’m apparently the only person allowed in this room. If you expect me to participate, tell me what I’m participating in.”
“I didn’t ask him to bring me here.”
“Then leave.”
Her hand moved over her stomach.
“I can’t.”
Same word.
Same answer.
“Why?”
She sat on the edge of the bed.
“Did Lucian really tell you nothing?”
“Nothing useful.”
A bitter little laugh escaped her.
“That sounds like Lucian.”
“You know him well?”
“Not the way you think.”
She studied my face.
Then said:
“The baby isn’t Lucian’s.”
“We established that.”
“But it is an Ashcombe.”
I stopped.
“What does that mean?”
Selah looked down at her stomach.
“Ask Lucian what happens to Ashcombe Group if Dorian left a child.”
Everything inside me went cold.
Dorian Ashcombe.
Lucian’s older brother.
Dead eight months.
The man who had been expected to inherit Ashcombe Group before his helicopter disappeared over the Atlantic.
I stared at Selah’s stomach.
“No.”
She didn’t answer.
“Dorian?”
Her eyes filled.
That was enough.
I sat down slowly.
“If this is Dorian’s baby…”
“It is.”
“Then Lucian knew.”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
Selah looked toward the door.
“Long enough.”
I thought of the security.
The secrecy.
The doctors Lucian suddenly didn’t trust.
Then one question pushed through everything else.
“Why would Lucian protect you?”
Selah gave me a look I couldn’t read.
“Because you still don’t understand what this baby means.”
“What does it mean?”
She rested both hands over her stomach.
“If Dorian is confirmed as the father…”
She paused.
“…Lucian loses control of Ashcombe Group.
The quiet in the guest suite suddenly felt suffocating.
I looked at Selah—at the tension in her shoulders, the gray coat that barely hid her trembling—and realized the nightmare had only just begun.
“If Lucian loses control,” I whispered, my mind racing through the corporate structure, the board seats, the billions in assets, “then everything goes to Dorian’s child. But Dorian is dead. And until now, there was no heir.”
“Which is why the board thinks Lucian is safe,” Selah finished, her voice dropping to a fragile murmur. “Which is why the people who killed Dorian will kill this baby before it ever takes a breath.”
My breath hitched. “Killed?”
Selah didn’t answer with words. She just pulled up her left sleeve.
There, faded but unmistakable, was a jagged burn mark shaped like a double chevron—the exact seal used by the private enforcement wing of the Ashcombe family’s oldest European rivals. The ones Dorian had supposedly crossed before his helicopter went down.
“They didn’t just sabotage Dorian’s helicopter, Arden,” Selah said, tears finally spilling over her lashes. “They tried to hunt me down two days ago. Lucian found me outside a safe house in Chicago. He didn’t bring me here to hide me from the public. He brought me here because his own security detail has been compromised from the inside.”
A cold sweat broke out across my skin.
Inside.
That meant the guards downstairs, the men Lucian had brought in, weren’t necessarily safe either.
Before I could process the sheer scale of the danger, a sharp, metallic click echoed from the hallway.
It wasn’t a knock.
It was the sound of a master key turning in the heavy lock of the east suite door.
Selah went completely pale, her hands instinctively shielding her stomach.
I stood up instantly, my heart pounding against my ribs, and backed toward the door just as the handle began to turn.