Chapter 1
Well, I’ve never been to Peru, right?
At the time, it seemed like as good a reason as any to make that South American country my one-way destination—that and the fact that the only outgoing flight from the airport within the hour was headed there. The spectacular beaches and clear, crystalline water in no way factored into my decision-making process, but once I was there, digging my toes into the white, warm sand, I felt confident that I’d made the right choice, at least about Peru. Of course I couldn’t say the same about any of the other choices I’d made recently.
After I settled into a hotel that had an opening, I went straight to the beach, and blended in like one of the tourists, another faceless member of the crowd. A waiter informed me that I’d arrived just in time for Mai Tais. It didn’t take me long, though, to realize that things in the Southern Hemisphere just weren’t the same. Even time was different; it moved at an addictively leisurely pace.
The magazines were different too, something I was grateful for. Not once did I see my own face staring back at me as I made my way out of the terminal and into the sun. Not a single fangirl or fanboy stopped me on the way out to ask, with the customary lack of tact, “Hey, what’s it like to fuck a celebrity billionaire anyway?”
Still, even on the other side of the world, I knew I could only hide for so long before the truth of my identity and my romantic involvement with a VIP finally caught up with me, before the sleepy South American paradise figured out what the rest of the world already knew and the news began to trickle out. The publicist in me kicked alive, and I could almost see the headlines:
Runaway Bride?
Nick Hunter’s Fiancée Vanishes into the Night
Worse than the exposure itself, the fallout would be vicious. If there was one thing the press loved more than a fairytale romance, it was a devastating breakup. As high as we’d climbed, the media and the internet would tear us down twice as fast, and the mass majority would love to hate it, secretly adoring it at the same time.
The people who had helped perpetuate our scheme would be called into question. The members of my little uptown firm uptown would be dragged through the mud. Nick’s staff would be harassed day and night, and his father would start breathing fire. Even James would be caught in the fray, thanks to his helicopter rescue at our engagement party. In a strange Beauty and the Beast moment, I pictured Ferdie and the rest of the lake house staff warding off paparazzi with hat racks and a stash of spare Armani shoes.
Still, as horrifying and global as all of that would be, I really gave it more than a passing thought as I drifted farther up the beach, away from the hordes of cheerful people. My eyes glazed over as I dug my toes deep in the sand, purposely leaving a trail of smudged, thoughtful tracks behind me. Try as I did to concern myself with the problems waiting back in New York, one thing insisted on taking up residence in the forefront of my mind: I’m going to have a baby. Me, a freaking mom.
The implications and ripple effects of that single statement were too numerous to count, but for the moment, those two little sentences were enough. I’d never imagined even thinking that, let alone facing it as a reality. Not in a million years would I have pondered being pregnant, having a child, and becoming a parent.
Parent? Moi?
Just like that, another unexpected title slipped into my dossier. Lately, it seemed a whole list of them had been building, a list of roles it seemed I was only partially aware of or was always the last to know about.
Of course, if I was going to be a mother, that implied another title as well: Nick was going to be a father. Nicholas Hunter, the Big Apple’s shining prince and a renowned playboy, suddenly a daddy. He was the man who had notoriously bedded at least one member of every royal family still left in Europe, yet he was about to become a parent too.
Or...maybe not.
I really couldn’t imagine even telling him about it. Somehow, it felt as if that would be a colossal betrayal. We had finally earned our freedom, finally taken our future back into our own hands, only for it to be taken away by my little secret.
I remembered every minute detail, every vivid nuance of the look on his face. I recalled the overwhelming, beaming euphoria when we realized we’d successfully cut the puppet strings, clipped every rope that had been holding us down. For so long, we’d been imprisoned by those twisted chains, but we’d finally, finally cast off every mitigating factor.
“I am so impossibly happy right now,” he said to me, practically glowing with excitement. It was a contagious feeling, a warmth we both felt, as if the sun had come out for the first time in three months, and we wanted nothing more than to bathe in its brilliance.
No, I can’t tell him, at least not for a while, I concluded, rubbing my hand across my belly as I traversed the gorgeous beach, not until I knew where things stand. After all, I wasn’t even sure at that point how I felt about things myself. There were things I still had to figure out, but I was finally able to admit that I was falling for the man I’d been waking up to every morning, falling for him fast and hard. For the first time in my life, I, too, was incandescently happy.
Now, though, that seemed to be in danger. I feared it could all vanish in the wake of a single thought, that thought that kept looping through my mind: I’m going to have his baby, going to be a mom.
The sun was just starting to set in Peru. While I wasn’t quite sure of the time difference, I was certain the horizon had already swallowed it up in Manhattan, so it was a done deal. That’s it, the famous merger, signed and complete, I surmised. The bulbs have flashed, and the champagne is flowing. Mitchell Hunter is finally free to open the celebratory bottle of scotch he’s been having. Either that, or he’ll celebrate by cheerfully murdering his son. Either way, he’s gonna need that scotch.
A faint grimace flickered across my face as I turned to face the sparkling water. That was the one thing I felt bad about, the solitary New York concern I’d been unable to fully leave behind. The rest of the people on my inconvenienced individuals list would be able to shake it off. The quest
ions would die down, and most lives would quietly return to normal as newer scandals and stories took over the entertainment tab on the news tickers. One life, though, would likely never be the same again.
What the hell is Nick thinking right now?