The apartment I shared with my brother was a graveyard of better days, smelling of cheap instant noodles and the sharp, metallic tang of his medication that never seemed to leave the wallpaper. It was a space defined by lack lack of light, lack of heat, and a desperate lack of time. I had exactly nineteen minutes before Silas Vane's world collided with my own, and I spent ten of them sitting on the edge of my bed, staring at my hands. They were the hands of a girl who scrubbed floors, balanced three waitressing shifts, and counted pennies for bus fare. They were cracked at the knuckles and stained with the reality of poverty. They didn't look like the hands of a woman carrying the heir to a multi-billion-dollar empire.
The knock at the door wasn't a request for entry; it was a tactical strike. When I opened it, a whirlwind of three people in black silk suits pushed past me, carrying garment bags that cost more than my entire life's worth of belongings. They didn't ask for my name or offer a greeting. They simply announced that Mr. Vane had sent them and that we were on a schedule that allowed for zero errors. I stood in the center of my small living room, feeling like a trespasser in my own home as they laid out their tools on my scarred wooden table.
One of them, a woman with hair pulled so tight her eyes looked perpetually surprised, stripped the clothes off my body as if I were a wooden mannequin. I felt the cold air hit my skin, a stark and immediate reminder of how completely I had surrendered my autonomy the moment I signed that contract. They shoved me into my cramped, rusted shower, scrubbing my skin with a loofah that felt like sandpaper. They were washing away the scent of the city, the smell of the diner, and the lingering traces of Elena Vance. They replaced it with a fragrance called Midnight Jasmine, a scent so heavy and expensive it felt like a physical weight on my pulse points. It was a scent that didn't belong to me. It belonged to the version of me Silas was currently manufacturing in a lab.
As they worked, my mind raced back to the cold stillness of his office. You will be pregnant, he had said. The audacity of the lie made my stomach churn with a mixture of dread and a dark, forbidden curiosity. It wasn't just a social deception; it was a biological claim. He was using my body as a shield against his past, a weapon designed to wound a woman I had never even met. I wondered if he realized that by claiming I was carrying his child, he was essentially telling the world he had touched me in ways we hadn't even discussed. The thought made a heat bloom in my chest that wasn't entirely made of anger, a realization that the lie would require a level of intimacy that made my heart hammer against my ribs.
They dragged me back into the living room, where a dress was draped over my sagging thrift-store sofa like a fallen star. It was silk, the color of a deep, bruised plum, nearly black but shimmering with a dangerous purple light when the overhead bulb flickered. The lead stylist told me to step into it. The silk felt like cool, predatory water sliding up my legs, settling against my hips with a precision that felt invasive. It was backless, the fabric held up by nothing more than two silver chains that crossed over my spine like a tether. There was no room for a bra, no room for secrets. The dress clung to my stomach, deliberately draped with extra layers of silk to create the illusion of a soft, maternal curve where there was only flat, nervous muscle. A faux-bump, engineered by the finest tailors in the world to deceive the sharpest eyes in the city.
I looked at myself in the cracked mirror above the sink. I didn't recognize the woman looking back. My hair had been pinned up in a complex, messy knot that looked effortless but felt like it was held together by sheer steel willpower. My lips were painted a dark, blood-red, making my skin look like pale marble. I looked like a queen, or perhaps more accurately, like a very expensive sacrificial lamb being prepared for an altar of glass and gold.
The stylist handed me a pair of silver stilettos with heels so thin they looked like needles. She informed me that Mr. Vane was waiting downstairs and that his patience was a finite resource that I had already begun to deplete. I stepped into the shoes, the four-inch height forcing my posture to straighten, my chest to tilt forward, and my vulnerability to be put on full display. I felt tall, fragile, and utterly fake.
I reached for my brother's medical file on the counter, a physical manifestation of the reason I was doing this, but the stylist intercepted my hand. She told me that Mrs. Vane didn't carry folders; she carried herself. She tossed the file back onto the table, and I watched the only thing that mattered to me disappear under a pile of discarded makeup wipes.
The walk down the three flights of stairs was a lesson in physical and emotional pain. My old building didn't have an elevator, and the heels weren't meant for crumbling linoleum or the smell of cabbage and stale cigarettes that drifted from my neighbors' apartments. By the time I reached the street, a black Maybach was idling at the curb, its tinted windows reflecting the grime of my neighborhood like a silent mockery of where I came from.
The door opened before I could reach for the handle, operated by a driver who didn't even look me in the eye. Silas was sitting in the back, the glow of his tablet illuminating the sharp, unforgiving angles of his face. He didn't look up at first. He just noted that I was thirty-seven seconds late and that the penalty for my tardiness would be added to my growing tab of debts.
I slid into the seat, the smell of his sandalwood cologne instantly wrapping around me, suffocating and intoxicating. The door clicked shut with a sound like a vault sealing, cutting off the noise of the city and locking us in a tomb of leather and luxury. The car pulled away from the curb, leaving my old life behind in a cloud of exhaust.
Silas finally turned his head. His eyes traveled slowly from my silver shoes, up the length of my silk-clad legs, lingering on the curve of the dress over my stomach, before finally meeting my gaze. For a heartbeat, the cold calculation in his eyes flickered. It wasn't warmth it was the look of a predator who had just realized his prey was more beautiful than he had anticipated, making the hunt that much more interesting.
He reached out, his thumb catching my chin and tilting my face toward the interior light. He told me I looked the part, but that looking it was the easy part. He said that once we stepped out of this car, I was to hold his arm as if it were the only thing keeping me upright in a storm. He told me that if anyone asked about the baby, I was to touch my stomach and smile with the secret of a woman who was cherished.
I asked him what would happen when the nine months were up and there was no child to show for it. I asked him how he planned to end a lie that grew larger with every breath I took.
He leaned in closer, his lips inches from mine, his voice dropping to a vibration that I felt in the marrow of my bones. He told me that in his world, a lie only dies when it's replaced by a bigger truth. He said that by the time the world realized I wasn't pregnant, I would be so deep in his debt that I would do whatever he asked to fix it. He let the implication hang in the air—the suggestion that he might decide to make the lie a reality if it suited his interests.
The car slowed down. Outside, the flashbulbs of the paparazzi began to pop like distant, rhythmic gunfire against the dark windows. Silas let go of my chin, his expression smoothing into a mask of arrogant, untouchable perfection. He reminded me of our deal. My brother's life for my soul.
The door opened, and the roar of the crowd and the blinding white lights rushed in. Silas stepped out first, extending a hand back to me. I looked at his palm—wide, strong, and the only thing standing between me and the wolves. I took it, my fingers disappearing into his. And as I stepped out into the light, I felt the first kick of fear in my womb, a phantom life born of a billionaire's cruelty and a sister's desperate love.