“Where…?” Her voice came out scratchy.
“My apartment,” he said. “You collapsed outside Sullivan Tower.”
He wanted to touch her so badly his hands ached.
“What were you doing outside my building?”
She blinked, processing, and then something shifted in her expression. Fear. Determination. Resignation. All tangled together.
She pushed herself up on shaky arms, and Carter immediately moved to help, adjusting the pillows behind her.
She looked at him for a long moment. Those eyes—God, those eyes that had haunted his dreams—were full of something he couldn’t read.
And then she said it. Blurted it out like ripping off a bandage.
“I’m pregnant,” she whispered. “It’s yours. I spent all day waiting to tell you.”
The room tilted.
Carter heard the words, understood them individually, but together they formed a sentence his brain couldn’t quite process.
Pregnant.
Yours.
All day waiting.
His mind spun through possibilities, implications, every emotion at once until it all blurred into white noise.
She was pregnant with his child.
His immediate instinct was joy. Pure, uncomplicated joy that crashed through him like a wave.
He was going to be a father.
Natalie was here, carrying his baby, and everything in him wanted to pull her close and never let go.
But then another feeling rose up. Cold. Familiar.
Doubt.
Three years ago, a woman named Vanessa Hartley had shown up at his office with ultrasound photos and tears and a story about being pregnant with his child.
He’d believed her. Supported her. Started planning a future.
Until the pregnancy had ended at a very convenient time and it came out that there had never been a pregnancy at all—just forged medical documents and a woman who’d been paid by a rival company to destroy his reputation and distract him during a crucial merger.
The scandal had been brutal. The betrayal had been worse.
Carter looked at Natalie—sweet, kind Natalie, who’d disappeared for two months without a trace—and hated himself for what he was thinking.
But he’d been fooled before, lied to before, and he had two siblings depending on him now, a company to protect, a legacy to preserve.
“Why didn’t you contact me before today?” The words came out harder than he intended.
Something flickered in her eyes. Hurt.
“I tried,” she said hoarsely. “Today. Your receptionist wouldn’t let me in. She said you don’t see anyone without appointments.”
“So you waited outside all day without food or water?” The anger in his voice surprised him—at her, at the situation, at himself. He wasn’t sure.
