Hazel Rogers never imagined her mother’s failing heart would force her into the arms of a stranger. With hospital bills piling up and no time left, she signs a desperate contract— as a surrogate for a billionaire who she doesn’t know. Ace Milan is cold, calculated, and devastatingly powerful, a man who built his empire on control and keeps  his heart locked behind a fortress. Hazel is just a transaction to him. But when a scary accident forces her to move into his home, the lines blur. He becomes cruel, unpredictable—testing her limits with sharp words and colder actions. Yet beneath his ice is something else, something broken, watching her with eyes that never quite soften. As her pregnancy progresses, Hazel stumbles upon whispers of the woman who came before her—the first surrogate. The one who vanished. No one speaks of her, and Ace refuses to explain. But the house holds secrets. Locked rooms. Late-night phone calls. Half-truths wrapped in charm. And suddenly, the child inside Hazel becomes more than a contract—it becomes a target. Torn between protecting the life growing inside her and uncovering the truth about the man she’s starting to feel dangerously drawn to, Hazel is forced to make a choice. Walk away before she ends up like the last surrogate… or risk everything to unravel the darkness Ace has spent his life hiding. One thing is clear—nothing in this arrangement is what it seems. And some secrets are buried deep for a reason.

  I don't even know what I was looking for, not really. Maybe I just needed to hear someone else say they were scared. That I wasn't the only one who felt like everything around me was stitched together with lies.


  But reading her words again—"He said we'd be safe, but why does this place feel like a prison?"—made something rattle loose inside me.


  I shouldn't have taken it down from the shelf. Shouldn't have brought it to the reading chair. Shouldn't have left it open on my lap with the pages wide like that.


  And I definitely shouldn't have still been sitting there when I heard the front door open again.


  I jumped up so fast the diary almost slipped from my thighs to the floor. I caught it just in time, slammed it shut with shaking hands, and started toward the shelf—


Chapter 61 - Chapter 61