Accidentally Pregnant With The Billionaire Heir

*** ALISTAIR ***

The heavy wooden door of the walk-in closet acts as a solid acoustic barrier, completely sealing me off from the silence of the master bedroom. The rich scent of cedar wood and expensive leather surrounds me, but my mind remains entirely focused on the encrypted phone pressed against my ear.

"If she didn’t leave the perimeter and she wasn’t attacked, then the threat came through a digital channel," I state, my voice dropping into a harsh, demanding whisper. I drag my hand through my hair, the residual exhaustion from the Aurora City trip entirely burned away by a sudden, protective adrenaline. "Did Julian Thorne attempt to contact her? Did her father manage to bypass the block list on her phone?"

I wait, my jaw clenching as I anticipate the answer. If Julian Thorne or Arthur Vance managed to harass her while I was away, I will personally ensure they never touch a communication device for the rest of their miserable lives.

"I cannot provide a definitive answer to that, Mr. Wolfe," Leo replies. The veteran operative’s voice remains rigidly professional. "Her primary device shows zero incoming traffic from the Vance family or the Thorne estate. However, if they utilized untraceable burner phones or encrypted messaging applications, the digital footprint would be completely masked. I am running a deep diagnostic on her network traffic now, but currently, there is no hard evidence of contact."

I let out a slow, frustrated breath. A lack of evidence is not proof of safety. It just means the enemy is learning to hide.

"There is one additional variable you need to be aware of," Leo continues, shifting the tactical briefing. "It pertains to the art student she recruited for her commercial enterprise. Jessie."

"The girl drafting the architectural blueprints," I confirm, picturing the file Leo sent me earlier. "What about her?"

"Her legal name is Jessica Hayes," Leo reports smoothly. "She is the granddaughter of Jonathan Hayes."

I freeze. My eyes narrow, staring at the row of tailored suit jackets hanging neatly on the cedar racks.

Jonathan Hayes. The name commands absolute respect in the highest echelons of Vanguard City. He is a legendary architectural titan and a ruthless real estate magnate. He controls half the commercial development firms on the eastern seaboard. For his granddaughter to be playing the role of a struggling, nervous art student in a dusty, vacant brick building is a massive contradiction.

"Does Emily know?" I ask sharply.

"Negative," Leo says. "Jessica is actively concealing her lineage. She operates under the guise of an ordinary university student."

I process the tactical advantage of this information. Emily relies heavily on absolute trust. If she discovers her new lead designer is secretly the heir to a massive real estate dynasty, she will immediately suspect corporate espionage. She will tear the startup team apart.

"Keep that information entirely buried," I instruct Leo, making the executive decision. "Emily is building her own empire. She needs that team to function organically. If Jessica Hayes wants to play the role of a civilian, let her play it. Do not tell my wife."

"Understood."

I sever the connection and slide the heavy encrypted phone back into my pocket.

I lean back against the mahogany shelving, crossing my arms over my chest. I stare at the closed door, my mind returning immediately to the image of Emily thrashing on the silver silk sheets. She was screaming for her mother with a level of raw, unadulterated agony that physically twisted my gut.

Emily Vance is not a fragile, delicate flower. She is forged from iron and shattered glass. This is a woman who stood in a pizza shop and pressed a loaded Nightblade pistol against a local syndicate boss without blinking. This is a woman who manipulated a billionaire CEO into a legal marriage contract to secure her own survival.

She is absolutely not the type of person who would suffer a total psychological breakdown over a standard, ordinary bad dream.

That wasn’t a nightmare. That was a memory.

A sharp, violent wave of restless anxiety crashes over me. I am a man who controls global tech conglomerates and commands lethal shadow syndicates. I thrive on having absolute, total information. I hate blind spots. And right now, the woman sleeping in my bed is a massive, impenetrable blind spot. I cannot fathom her thoughts. I cannot decode the trauma hiding behind her dark eyes, and the inability to read her mind is driving me to the edge of madness.

I need a distraction. I need to wash the grime of Aurora City and the suffocating tension off my skin.

I turn away from the shelves and walk toward the frosted glass door connecting the walk-in closet directly to the master en-suite bathroom. I reach out and press down on the heavy steel handle.

The handle stops with a harsh, metallic click. It doesn’t yield.

I frown, pushing my weight against the frosted glass. The door remains completely stationary. The deadbolt on the inside of the bathroom is firmly engaged.

I stand in the quiet closet, staring at the locked handle. The realization washes over me with absolute clarity.

A few weeks ago, before I left for my business trip, I walked into the hidden armory without knocking. I accidentally caught her changing her clothes. The sudden, blinding image of her bare shoulders, the smooth curve of her spine, and the soft, flawless skin of her back flashes through my mind with the violent force of a lightning strike.

She locked the bathroom door from the inside before she went to sleep. She deliberately severed this access point to ensure I could never suddenly walk in on her again. She is enforcing the physical boundary between us with ironclad precision.

My pulse spikes. A heavy, undeniable heat settles low in my abdomen. The sheer memory of her bare skin triggers a visceral, biological reaction that completely bypasses my logical control. I grip the locked handle, my knuckles turning white.

I shut my eyes tightly, forcing my jaw to unclench. I ruthlessly suppress the rising heat.

It is just a physical reaction, I tell myself, grinding the thought into my brain like a mantra. It is basic, mammalian biology. Two humans occupying the same space. It is territorial instinct. It has absolutely nothing to do with love.

I do not do love. Love is a massive, fatal vulnerability that gets people killed. I am protecting an asset. That is all.

I let go of the locked handle. I turn around, walk out of the cedar closet, and step back into the dark, freezing master bedroom.

*** EMILY ***

I lie perfectly still beneath the heavy silver silk duvet.

The soft, metallic click of the bathroom door handle rattling echoes faintly through the quiet bedroom. I hear the distinct sound of Alistair’s heavy footsteps retreating from the closet. I keep my eyes wide open, staring blankly at the dark, geometric shadows cast across the vaulted ceiling.

I know he tried the door. I know he realized I locked it.

I pull the silk fabric tighter around my shoulders. The air conditioning in the room is freezing, but my skin still feels entirely too warm where Alistair’s hands gripped me earlier.

The nightmare refuses to fully dissipate. Every time I close my eyes, I see the Vanguard City rain turning crimson on the pavement. I see the grotesque, plastic smile of the clown mask. I smell the burnt gunpowder. It is a memory I buried so deep inside my subconscious I thought it was completely eradicated, but the intense stress of the commercial lease negotiation dragged it right back to the surface.

I press my hand flat against my chest, feeling the frantic, uneven beating of my heart.

When I woke up screaming, Alistair was right there. The cold, ruthless billionaire completely dropped his icy facade. He held me against his chest, his large hands anchoring me to reality with a fierce, protective desperation I had never experienced from another human being.

That warmth is incredibly dangerous.

I cannot rely on him. I cannot let his sudden kindness soften my armor. If I learn to depend on his embrace to chase away my monsters, I will become a helpless, pathetic liability. I have to build my own empire. I have to be my own shield.

I listen to the rustle of the sheets on the far side of the massive king-sized bed. Alistair slides under the covers, maintaining a vast, rigid distance between us. The mattress dips slightly under his heavy weight.

I turn my head just a fraction of an inch against the soft pillow. I can barely make out the broad silhouette of his shoulders in the darkness. He is lying flat on his back. He isn’t moving.

We lie there in the pitch-black room, separated by a vast ocean of silk and unspoken secrets.

The silence is deafening. I know he is awake. I can feel the intense, restless energy radiating off him from the other side of the mattress. He wants to interrogate me. He wants to rip my trauma out into the open and dissect it like a corporate acquisition. And I am fiercely determined to take my secrets to the grave.

Hours drag by. The Vanguard City traffic hums faintly outside the thick glass windows.

Neither of us closes our eyes. We simply stare into the dark, completely trapped in the heavy, suffocating weight of our own thoughts, both fighting a silent, desperate war we refuse to let the other see.