Mia makes it six more days before her life implodes.
Six days of pretending everything is fine. Six days of swallowing crackers at 3 AM to settle her stomach and researching free prenatal clinics and avoiding Marcus's increasingly suspicious looks at the café. Six days of not thinking about Alexander Kane or the baby currently the size of a peach inside her or how spectacularly screwed she is.
Then Victoria Ashford walks into the café.
Mia doesn't recognize her at first. She's just another Manhattan socialite in designer everything, the kind who orders complicated drinks and doesn't tip. Tall, blonde, beautiful in that sharp-edged way that looks expensive because it is. She sits at table four—Mia's section, naturally—and doesn't even glance at the menu.
"Green juice with extra ginger, and make sure it's organic," she says without looking up from her phone. "Actually, is anything here organic? Never mind. Just water. Sparkling. Imported, not domestic."
Mia bites back a response and goes to get the overpriced water they keep for exactly these customers.
When she returns, Victoria is staring at her. Really staring, with eyes that dissect and catalog and judge.
"Do I know you?" Victoria asks.
"I don't think so." Mia sets down the water. "Can I get you anything else?"
"No, I definitely know you from somewhere." Victoria tilts her head, studying Mia like she's a particularly interesting insect. "Have you done any modeling? Acting?"
"No."
"Hmm." Victoria pulls out her phone, fingers flying across the screen. Then she goes very still. "Oh. Oh, this is perfect."
Mia's stomach drops. She doesn't know why, but some instinct screams danger.
"I'm sorry, do you need something else?" Mia tries to keep her voice steady.
Victoria looks up, and her smile is poison wrapped in Chanel lipstick. "You're her. The girl from Sophie Martinez's wedding. The one who left Alexander's penthouse at eleven in the morning wearing last night's dress."
The café noise fades to white static. Mia's hands go numb.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Please. I have photos." Victoria turns her phone around. There it is—Mia in her wrinkled bridesmaid dress, one shoe missing, walking out of Kane Tower looking exactly like what she was. The photo is date-stamped. September 16th, 11:03 AM. "My friend lives in the building. She sends me all the interesting visitors."
Mia's throat closes. "Why do you care?"
"Because Alexander Kane is mine." Victoria's voice drops, losing its affected sweetness. "We've been on and off for three years. We're supposed to be engaged by spring. And then you show up at some wedding and spread your legs and suddenly he's sending me to voicemail for two weeks."
"I didn't—we didn't—" Mia can't finish the sentence. The café is spinning.
"Oh, spare me. I know what happened. What I want to know is what you're planning." Victoria leans forward, eyes narrowed. "Are you going to call him? Show up at his office? Try to blackmail him with these photos?"
"No. God, no. I don't want anything from him."
"Good. Because you need to understand something." Victoria's perfectly manicured nails tap against the table. "Alexander Kane doesn't do relationships with girls like you. You were a distraction. A momentary lapse in judgment. If you try to make it into something more, his lawyers will destroy you. Do you understand? They will bury you so deep you'll wish you'd never been born."
Mia's hands shake. She clasps them behind her back. "I'm not trying to make it into anything. It was one night. It's over."
"See that it stays that way." Victoria stands, dropping a hundred-dollar bill on the table for water she didn't touch. "Stay away from Alexander. Stay away from his life. Forget you ever met him. That's my friendly advice."
She leaves in a cloud of perfume and threats.
Mia makes it to the bathroom before she throws up.
---
She calls in sick to her evening shift.
Can't do it. Can't smile and serve drinks and pretend her world isn't falling apart. She goes home instead, climbs into bed fully clothed, and stares at the ceiling.
Victoria Ashford knows. Has photos. Could ruin her with a single social media post—not that Mia has much to ruin, but still. The humiliation alone would be crushing.
And she called Alexander hers. Said they were supposed to be engaged.
Was he with Victoria when he texted Mia? Was she just a side piece in some rich people drama? The thought makes her sick all over again.
Her phone rings. Sophie.
"I can't talk right now," Mia answers.
"You need to see something." Sophie's voice is tight. "Check your email. I'm forwarding you a link."
"Sophie—"
"Just look. Please."
Mia opens her laptop, clicks the link Sophie sends. It loads slowly—some society gossip blog she's never heard of. The headline makes her blood freeze.
**"Kane Heir Apparent: Alexander Kane Spotted with Mystery Brunette After Years with Victoria Ashford. Wedding Bells or Womanizing?"**
There are photos. Grainy but clear enough. Alexander and Mia on the balcony at Sophie's wedding, talking. His hand on her waist as they dance. Them leaving together. And the kicker—Mia doing the walk of shame the next morning, helpfully circled in red.
The article is pure speculation and innuendo, painting Mia as either a gold digger or a homewrecker, depending on which paragraph you read. The comments are worse.
*Who is this nobody?*
*Obviously after his money*
*Poor Victoria, she's way too good for him*
*She's not even pretty. What does he see in her?*
Mia slams the laptop shut.
"Mia?" Sophie's voice is tinny through the phone speaker. "Are you okay?"
"No." Her voice cracks. "Sophie, I'm so not okay."
"I know. I'm so sorry. I don't know how they got those photos. The wedding was private—"
"It doesn't matter." Mia presses her palms against her eyes. "It's out there now. Everyone knows. And Victoria Ashford came to my work today and basically threatened me to stay away from Alexander."
"She what?"
"She has photos too. From that morning. She told me to forget I ever met him or his lawyers would destroy me." Mia's laugh is hollow. "The universe is really committed to this joke, huh?"
"This isn't funny."
"It's a little funny. In a cosmic horror kind of way." Mia stands, pacing her tiny apartment. "I'm pregnant with the baby of a man I can't contact without looking like I'm after his money. His ex-slash-current girlfriend is threatening me. And now there are photos of me online for everyone to see. What's next? Locusts?"
"You need to tell him."
"Are you insane? Tell him now? When it looks like I deliberately leaked those photos to get his attention? When Victoria is clearly trying to get back together with him? Sophie, I'd look like the biggest opportunist in history."
"You'd look like a woman who's pregnant and trying to do the right thing."
"To who? To him? To Victoria and her lawyers and all those people commenting online?" Mia's voice rises. "They already think I'm trash. They've decided I'm some nobody who got lucky one night. If I show up now claiming to be pregnant—"
"Then you show up with a paternity test."
"Which he'd have to agree to. Which means getting close enough to ask." Mia sinks onto her bed. "I can't, Sophie. I can't put myself through that. I'll figure this out on my own."
"How?"
Good question. Mia looks around her apartment. At the eviction notice she found on her door yesterday. At the stack of unpaid bills. At the pregnancy pamphlets from the clinic.
"I don't know yet," she admits. "But I will."
They talk for another hour, Sophie trying to convince her, Mia refusing to budge. Finally, Sophie gives up.
"Promise me you'll think about it," Sophie says. "Really think about it. Not for you. For the baby."
"I promise."
It's not a lie. Mia thinks about nothing else.
---
She's heating up ramen three hours later when someone knocks on her door.
Mia's not expecting anyone. Sophie would text first. Her landlord uses the doorbell. For one paranoid second, she wonders if Victoria sent someone to make good on her threats.
She checks the peephole.
And her heart stops.
Alexander Kane stands in her dingy hallway, looking impossibly out of place in a charcoal suit that probably costs more than her entire building. His dark hair is slightly disheveled, like he's been running his hands through it. Those gray eyes stare at her door with an intensity that makes her stomach flip.
This can't be happening.
This isn't happening.
Mia's not ready. She's wearing her rattiest sweatpants and a stained t-shirt. Her hair is in a messy bun. She has no makeup, no plan, no idea what to say.
He knocks again.
"I know you're in there," he calls through the door. His voice is exactly as she remembers—smoke and whiskey and command. "I can hear you breathing."
Mia considers not answering. Pretending she's not home. But that's childish, and honestly, after the day she's had, what's one more disaster?
She opens the door.
Alexander Kane is even more intimidating in person than in photographs. Tall—she'd forgotten how tall. Broad shoulders that fill her narrow doorway. That perfect face with its sharp angles and sharper eyes, currently pinning her with a look she can't read.
"Mia Chen." He says her name like he's testing it. "We need to talk."
"How did you find me?" Her voice comes out steadier than she feels.
"I'm a billionaire with unlimited resources. I found you three months ago. I just respected your decision not to call me back." His jaw tightens. "Until today."
"I don't know what you mean."
"Don't." The single word cuts. "Don't insult my intelligence. Those photos are everywhere. My phone has been ringing nonstop. My board is concerned. My mother is asking questions. And Victoria—" He stops, something dark crossing his face. "Victoria seems to think you're some kind of threat."
"I'm not. I didn't leak those photos. I didn't even know they existed until a few hours ago."
"I know."
That throws her. "You do?"
"I had them traced. Some guest at the wedding sold them to the blog. Not you." He studies her face. "But that's not why I'm here."
"Then why are you here?"
Alexander steps closer, and Mia's tiny apartment suddenly feels microscopic. She can smell his cologne—cedar and something darker. Can see the tension in his shoulders, the exhaustion around his eyes.
"Because three months ago, you left without a word," he says quietly. "And I need to know why."
Of all the things Mia expected him to say, that wasn't it.
"I... I didn't think you'd want me to stay."
"You didn't think, or you didn't ask?"
"Does it matter?"
"It matters to me." His eyes search hers. "That night—it wasn't nothing. Not to me. And then you vanished, and you wouldn't return my calls, and I thought maybe I'd misread everything. Maybe it was just the champagne and the moment and you wanted to forget it happened."
Mia's throat tightens. "Isn't that what people do? One-night stands. You wake up, you leave, you move on."
"Is that what you want? To move on?"
She should say yes. Should tell him to leave. Should protect herself and her baby from the inevitable heartbreak of wanting something—someone—she can never have.
But she's so tired of lying.
"No," she whispers. "But it doesn't matter what I want."
"Why not?"
"Because you're Alexander Kane. And I'm nobody."
His expression shifts—something like anger, something like pain. "Don't say that."
"It's true. You saw those comments. You know what people think."
"I don't care what people think."
"Well, I do. I can't—" Her voice breaks. This is too much. Victoria's threats, the photos, him standing in her apartment looking at her like she matters when she knows she doesn't. "You should go."
"Mia—"
"Please." She's begging now. "Please just go. This was a mistake. All of it. Let's just forget it happened."
Alexander doesn't move. For a long moment, he just looks at her, and Mia has the horrible feeling he can see right through her.
Then he reaches into his jacket and pulls out a business card.
"My direct number," he says, pressing it into her hand. "Not an assistant. Not a secretary. Me. When you're ready to stop running, call me."
He leaves.
Mia closes the door and slides down to the floor, clutching the card like a lifeline.
She's three months pregnant with his baby, and he just asked her to stop running.
The universe's sense of humor is officially out of control.