Scars Of His Ruthless Contract Pregnancy

The crystal chandelier above Denice Copeland's head cast fractured light across the white tablecloth, each prismatic shard reflecting a different angle of her forced smile. She kept her hands folded in her lap, fingers digging crescents into her palms, while Arthur Fletcher droned on about his yacht in Long Island Sound.

"Thirty-two feet, custom teak deck," Arthur said, his tongue wetting his lower lip. He reached across the table, his hand hovering over hers. "You should see it in the summer, Denice. The sunset-"

She shifted her hand to the water glass, ice clinking against crystal. The cold numbed her fingertips. "That sounds lovely, Arthur."

His eyes dropped to her collarbone, then lower. She felt the weight of his gaze like oil sliding down her skin. The salmon on her plate had gone gray at the edges. She hadn't touched it.

The maître d' stood at the entrance of Le Bernardin, his spine rigid, hands clasped behind his back. When the heavy mahogany doors swung open, a gust of November wind swept through the dining room. Conversations dimmed. Heads turned.

Denice didn't look up. She was counting the seconds until she could claim a migraine and escape to the subway, to her apartment that smelled of mildew and the neighbor's cooking.

Then she saw the shadow.

It fell across her table, long and angular, cutting through the fractured light. Black wool coat. Italian leather shoes that struck the marble with a sound like judgment. Her heart seized, a fist closing around the muscle, squeezing until her vision spotted at the edges.

She knew that walk. She knew the set of those shoulders, the angle of that jaw.

Jasper Garrison Montgomery stopped three feet from her table. The chandelier caught the planes of his face-Elek's face, but harder, carved from something colder than marble. The same green eyes, but where Elek's had held warmth, Jasper's held nothing. Ice over deep water.

Denice's water glass slipped. Her fingers had gone numb, trembling, the surface rippling in concentric circles that matched the chaos in her chest. She couldn't breathe. The room had lost its oxygen.

"Mrs. Montgomery." Jasper's voice was low, pitched for her ears alone. He didn't look at Arthur. He didn't look at the room. His gaze pinned her to the chair like a specimen under glass. "I have news about your son."

Arthur cleared his throat, sitting straighter, his chest puffing with indignation that smelled of expensive cologne and insecurity. "Excuse me, this is a private dinner-"

Jasper's eyes flicked to him. One look. That was all it took. Arthur's patronizing smile froze. He recognized the man-Jasper Montgomery, a name that carried the weight of a warning in this city. He opened his mouth, trying to salvage some semblance of pride, but under Jasper's glacial stare, the words died in his throat. He prudently snapped his mouth shut, sinking back into his seat as his posture shifted from arrogant display to rigid self-preservation.

Jasper leaned forward, both hands flattening against