He Promised Her My Unborn Baby

I had always known my fianc kept a woman on the side.

She was his executive assistant, but in our insulated, high-society circles, she was notorious as the ultimate corporate pass-around. A woman who weaponized her own body, willingly hosting various industry titans to secure lucrative deals for Pete.

They used each other. It was transactional.

I never asked questions.

But recently, during a high-stakes dinner with a major client, she was pushed to drink until she miscarried. The damage was permanent; she would never be able to have children.

In a fit of supposed righteous fury, Pete forfeited a billion-dollar tech acquisition and beat the client who forced the drinks down her throat until the man was hospitalized with severe trauma.

Now, beside her hospital bed, Pete was on his knees, shedding tears of repentance.

And he was promising her that any child I birthed in the future would call her mother.

I was standing right outside the door while Pete put on his tragic, desperately-seeking-forgiveness performance.

Separated by a single slab of wood, his absurd words drifted clearly into my ears.

"I'm so sorry, Violet. I promise you, any child Brandy has will be yours..."

Pete Samuel was on both knees, his eyes brimming with endless remorse.

Violet Gaines just kept her head bowed. She didn't say yes, but she certainly didn't say no.

The sycophants filling the VIP hospital room exchanged uneasy glances.

In the dark, twisted history of old money, everyone knew of wives who were forced to raise a husband's illegitimate child to avoid scandal. But taking the legitimate heir born from the lawful wife and handing it over to the mistress? That was a brand-new flavor of depravity.

As if terrified Violet wouldn't believe him, Pete hurriedly added, "Don't worry. I have the Davenport accounts in a chokehold. Brandy won't dare say no. Ours is just a corporate merger. Other than getting her pregnant for the heir, I swear I will never touch her."

His entourage of trust-fund friends chimed in right on cue.

"Yeah, come on, Violet. Just forgive him."

"Pete called us all here today just so we could be witnesses to this promise."

Only then did Violet lift her tear-streaked face.

"I've always wanted a daughter. What if she has a boy?"

Pete grabbed her hand, squeezing it tight. "Then I'll make her keep having them until she drops a girl."

Hearing that, Violet smiled.

Pete smiled.

The vultures in the room smiled.

Even I smiled.

And harmonizing perfectly with their laughter, I raised my foot and kicked the heavy hospital door wide open.

Bang!

The laughter died instantly.

A room full of people who had just been doubled over in amusement now stared at me with wide, comical expressions of horror.

I stepped into the room, my gaze sweeping over the sterile space before locking dead onto Pete.

"Why did everyone stop laughing?"

Brooks was the first to snap out of his shock.

Our families were old friends. We had practically grown up at the same country clubs.

He took a quick step forward, instinctively trying to block my view of Violet.

"Brandy... what are you doing here?"

I shifted my weight, leaning slightly to peer past his shoulder at the woman in the bed.

"Just dropping by to check on your other sister-in-law."

Brooks's face drained of color. He scratched the back of his neck, suffocating in the awkwardness.

I shoved him aside and stepped right up to the bed, looking down at Violet.

"Miss Gaines. If you want to play God with my uterus, shouldn't you at least run it by me first?"

Violet didn't even flinch. She had played this game a long time.

"Miss Davenport. We were just joking around. If it offended you, I apologize."

She had been Pete's fixer for years. She handled confrontations like breathing.

To be honest, I knew exactly who Violet was long before Pete and I got engaged. Ivy League educated, she threw away her dignity to trail after Pete without a title, willingly throwing herself to the wolves to grease the wheels of his empire.

I had always assumed they were just utilizing each other.

Exactly like my arrangement with Pete.

For the stock prices. For the market share. For the power.

But I genuinely hadn't expected her to be doing it for love.

I took a half-step back, gesturing to the floor beside me.

"If you really want to apologize, get out of that bed, get down on your hands and knees, and press your forehead to this linoleum three hundred times."

If she was willing to do earth-shatteringly stupid things in the name of love, surely groveling three hundred times for love wouldn't be too much of a stretch.

Violet stared at me in sheer disbelief.

"Excuse me?"

"I said, press your head to the floor three hundred times, and I'll pretend I didn't hear a damn thing."

Pete lunged forward and grabbed my wrist.

He had finally recovered from the initial guilt of being caught and slipped right back into his default arrogance.

"Brandy, do not push your luck"

Smack!

Without a single micro-expression of warning, I slapped him across the face.

In our world, keeping up appearances was everything.

You leave a way out; you smile while twisting the knife. Whatever the conflict, you never resorted to physical violence.

They considered striking someone to be animalistic. Crass. Low-class.

I fundamentally disagreed.

All I knew was that if I didn't slap the taste out of his mouth right now, I wasn't going to be able to sleep tonight.

"You... you hit him?"

Violets voice hit an octave of utter shock, even louder than before.

The Samuel family held immense power. Pete was worshipped wherever he walked. This was probably the first time in his thirty years that someone had laid a hand on him.

Violet scrambled up in the bed, looking far more hysterical than the man who had actually taken the hit.

She pointed a trembling finger at me and shrieked, "Brandy! Yours is just a business arrangement! So what if he gives me the child? Go ask your father if he dares to tell Pete no!"

"I suggest you recognize your place in the pecking order, or you'll lose your ticket into the Samuel family entirely!"

Her delusion actually made me laugh.

She spoke of the Samuel family like it was the Pearly Gates and everyone was dying to get in.

But...

"If I don't get in, what makes you think you will?"

Violets mouth snapped shut.

Of course she wouldn't.

If she could, there never would have been a need for me.

She choked on her silence for a few seconds before her eyes went red. "Youyou know nothing about what we mean to each other! We"

I couldn't let her finish.

"You're right. Your sick, twisted little romance is entirely beyond my comprehension. I just can't fathom the kind of epic love that requires you to spread your legs for other men to get your boyfriend a contract."

I pointed past her, straight at the gallery of trust-fund lackeys pretending not to watch. "If my memory serves me, you were in his bed just last month."

Violet froze, her eyes darting frantically to the men behind her.

Filthy.

Two people this deeply soaked in filth didn't deserve to utter the word love.

"Enough!"

Pete finally snapped out of the shock of the slap.

He yanked Violet behind him, shielding her.

"Brandy, do you want to destroy your family? Do you honestly believe I won't make one phone call and have your father and brother strip you of everything?"

Pete was vile, but he was incredibly vain.

That vanity was the exact reason I felt perfectly safe walking into this room alone. He cared too much about his image to hit a woman back.

The worst he would do is throw empty threats.

Which made things incredibly simple.

Smack!

I delivered a second slap, just as hard as the first.

"I almost forgot to mention. That billion-dollar AI contract you botched because you couldn't control your temper? I secured it. As of today, I am the one running Davenport."

Walking out of the hospital, I felt fantastic.

The bone-deep exhaustion of seventy-hour work weeks just melted away.

But the moment I slid into the back of my car, my phone buzzed. It was my father.

"Get your ass home right now!"

I exhaled a slow, steady breath.

It seemed Pete wasn't the only one who hadn't realized there was a new regime in town.

It had been seven days since Pete put Arthur Caldwell in the ICU.

In those seven days, I had aggressively reshuffled the entire board of Davenport Corporation.

I went from an easily ignored regional director to the majority shareholder. Armed with the exclusivity contract I had just signed with Caldwell Tech, I leveraged my way to the CEO's chair.

Meanwhile, my father, my brother Colby, and his tacky wife had been vacationing in Dubai.

Their flight had been delayed by a sandstorm, and they had just landed today.

The Davenport estate in the Hamptons was ablaze with lights.

As if right on cue for the melodrama, a cold, stinging drizzle began to fall.

I kept my heels clicking sharply against the marble, humming softly to myself as I walked through the grand double doors.

In the sunken living room, my father and brother were seated rigidly on the custom leather sofas.

I couldn't tell if they were just tanned from the Dubai sun or purple with rage, but their faces were terrifyingly dark.

My sister-in-law, Tiffany, looked rather pleased, though.

She had a fresh stack of chunky Cartier bracelets lined up her forearm. She deliberately adjusted her sleeve to make sure they caught the light as I walked in.

Crash!

A bone-china teacup shattered into shrapnel inches from my stilettos.

"You ungrateful bitch! Who gave you the authority to buy up the shadow shares and call an emergency board meeting?! I'm the laughingstock of Wall Street! Overthrown by my own daughter!"

I stared down at the porcelain shards glittering near my toes. I didn't say a word.

If I hadn't paused for half a second, that cup would have split my forehead open.

Taking my silence for submission, Colby stood up, puffing his chest. "Brandy, what the hell does a woman know about running an empire? You are going to call the board tomorrow, step down, and transfer all those voting rights to me and Dad. If you really want to play businesswoman, I'll let you manage Tiffany's boutique spa."

I slowly lifted my chin. A genuine, incredulous smile crept onto my face.

Even now, cornered and outplayed, the sheer, breathtaking audacity of his entitlement was a marvel.

"Colby. Stop dreaming."

The silence in the cavernous room was instantaneous and suffocating.

Tiffany practically stopped breathing, shooting me a terrified, sideways glance.

In this house, I had always been the designated punching bag. The quiet one who absorbed the blows and never once said no.

She must have been wondering what kind of ghost had possessed me.

"What did you just say?" Colby snarled.

I enunciated every syllable. "I said, stop dreaming, Colby. Davenport belongs to me now. Every division, every subsidiary. If you want equity, you can buy it at market price. Like everyone else."

Colby lunged. He raised a heavy hand, fully intending to strike me across the face.

I simply pivoted, stepping lightly out of his trajectory.

He stumbled, whipping around to point a furious finger at my chest.

"You little psycho! Have you lost your damn mind?"

Mind?

Oh, if he wanted to see losing my mind.

I grabbed his outstretched forearm, snatching a silver fruit knife off the coffee table with my other hand, and drove it hard into the meat of his wrist.

"AGGGGHHH!"

Watching his face contort in sheer, unadulterated agony, my smile only widened.

"Colby," I whispered. "This is what losing your mind looks like."

Hearing the screams, my mother rushed out from the parlor.

She shoved me away with a desperate shove.

She stared at me, eyes wide with horror. "Brandy! Do you have any humanity left in you at all?"

I bent down slightly, bringing my lips right next to her ear, and let the words drip like acid.

"When you drugged your own daughter's wine and handed her over to a room full of men, did you?"