FORTUNE SECRETS WITH THE BILLIONAIRE

The pregnancy test clattered into the bathroom sink at 6:47 a.m., two pink lines sealing Ivy Monroe's fate.

She gripped the chipped porcelain, knuckles white, staring at her reflection in the water-spotted mirror. Twenty-six years old, dark circles under her green eyes, honey-blonde hair still damp from the shower she'd rushed through between her night shift at the Rothschild estate and her morning shift at the Morrison penthouse. And pregnant. Pregnant with Carter Blackwood's baby after one stupid, reckless night three weeks ago when she'd actually believed his lies about leaving his fiancée, about wanting something real.

"Ivy? You almost done in there?" Her mother's weak voice drifted through the thin apartment door. "I need my medication."

"Coming, Mom." Ivy shoved the test into her pocket, schooled her features into calm competence, and opened the door to their cramped studio. The morning light filtering through the single window illuminated her mother's gaunt face, the way cancer had hollowed out the vibrant woman who'd raised her alone after everything fell apart.

Ivy handed her the pills with water, watching her struggle to swallow. Stage four pancreatic cancer. Six months, maybe, without the experimental treatment that insurance laughed at covering. The treatment that cost thirty thousand dollars a month.

"You look tired, sweetheart." Her mother's thin hand squeezed hers. "You're working too hard."

"I'm fine." The lie came easily. Ivy had been lying for five years, ever since she'd fled her old life and become someone new. Someone invisible. Someone safe.

Her phone buzzed. A text from her supervisor at the Morrison house: *Don't bother coming in. Mrs. Morrison found out about you and Carter. You're fired.*

Ivy's stomach dropped. That was two thousand dollars a month, gone. She had three hundred dollars in her account and rent due in a week.

"I have to go to work," she said, kissing her mother's forehead, tasting the salt of her own panicked sweat. "I'll be back tonight."

She fled the apartment before her mother could see her fall apart, taking the stairs two at a time down five flights because the elevator had been broken for a month. The October morning bit through her thin jacket as she emerged onto the Queens street, the Manhattan skyline mocking her from across the river. All that money, all that power, and none of it for people like her.

The Rothschild estate loomed in the distance, but Ivy's phone buzzed again before she'd made it two blocks. Unknown number.

"Hello?"

"Miss Monroe?" A male voice, smooth and cold as winter steel. "This is James Crawford, personal attorney for Damien Blackwood. Mr. Blackwood would like to meet with you this morning. A car is waiting at the corner of your street."

Ivy froze mid-step. Damien Blackwood. Carter's uncle, the CEO who made grown men cry in boardrooms, who'd built Blackwood Industries into a twenty-billion-dollar empire through sheer ruthlessness. She'd seen him exactly once, at a family dinner she'd been serving, and he'd looked through her like she