Pregnant By My Husband In Disguise

Chloe Parrish fastened the clasp of the diamond necklace.

The stones were cold against her skin.

In the mirror of the vast Upper East Side dressing room, a stranger stared back. A beautiful woman, her face a perfect, lifeless mask. Her gown, a whisper of silk worth more than her mother's house, felt like a shroud.

Her phone lit up on the marble vanity.

A notification from Page Six. The headline was a punch to the gut.

Billionaire Alistair Sinclair's Roman Holiday with Hollywood Starlet Isabelle Valmont.

Her fingers trembled as she tapped the screen. A high-resolution photo filled her vision. Her husband-her legal, contractual husband-was smiling at Isabelle. Not his usual tight, public-relations smile, but a genuine, relaxed curve of his lips she hadn't seen in years. In the background, the Trevi Fountain sparkled.

He looked happy.

Below the photo, the journalist's words dripped with pitying scorn, mentioning Alistair's "mysterious, forgotten wife back in New York."

A wave of heat washed over her, a familiar, suffocating humiliation. It started in her stomach, a tight, nauseating knot, and climbed up her throat. Her breath hitched.

She ripped the necklace off.

The diamonds scratched a thin, red line across her collarbone. The sting was sharp, real. It was a relief.

She stormed into her walk-in closet, a room larger than her childhood bedroom. The couture gown came off in one violent tug, pooling on the floor like a dead thing.

From the very back, buried in a storage box, she pulled out a pair of ripped jeans and an old, faded band T-shirt. The cotton was soft, worn, familiar. It felt like her own skin.

Her phone rang. Carina.

"Chloe, don't do anything stupid," her best friend's voice was urgent. "I know you saw the news. Just go to the gala. Smile. Wave. Maintain the peace. It's only a few more years."

Chloe looked at her reflection. The girl in the ripped jeans, with smudged eyeliner and a defiant glint in her eye, was someone she almost recognized.

"To hell with peace," she whispered, and hung up.

She walked out of the apartment, ignoring the doorman's startled expression. She didn't take the waiting town car. Instead, she hailed a yellow cab, the city lights blurring past the window.

"Greenwich Village," she told the driver, giving him the address of a place she hadn't been to since before the contract was signed.

The jazz bar was dark, loud, and crowded. The air was thick with the smell of whiskey and saxophone notes. It was perfect.

She found a spot at the bar and ordered the strongest whiskey they had.

The first sip burned. The second warmed her. By the third, the tight knot in her stomach began to loosen. The crushing weight of being Mrs. Alistair Sinclair, the invisible wife, started to feel distant.

But the alcohol also carved out a hollow space inside her. A profound, aching loneliness.

Her eyes drifted to the end of the bar. A man sat with his back to her. All she could see was a pair of broad shoulders in a well-fitted black shirt and dark hair.

Another drink. And another.

The world softened at the edges. Her inhibitions frayed.

She slid off her stool and walked toward him. The empty seat next to him felt like an invitation.

He turned his head as she sat down. The light was dim, casting his face in shadow. She saw a sharp jawline, stubble that looked like it would be rough to the touch, and eyes that were deep, dark pools in the gloom.

"Alone?" he asked. His voice was a low rumble, magnetic, nearly lost in the thrum of the bass guitar.

A reckless laugh bubbled up from Chloe's chest. "Not anymore."

They didn't talk much. They didn't need to. They drank. Their eyes met over the rims of their glasses, a dangerous, silent conversation.

His hand covered hers on the cool, damp surface of the bar. His skin was warm, the touch sending a jolt straight through her. It wasn't gentle. It was possessive.

He leaned in, his lips brushing her ear. "Let's get out of here."

In that moment, all thought ceased. The two years of silent dinners, of sleeping in separate wings of the penthouse, of being a ghost in her own life-it all culminated in a single, desperate need to feel something. Anything.

Chloe nodded.

He led her through the throng of bodies. The cool night air hit her face, a brief moment of clarity she chose to ignore. This was a mistake. A glorious, terrible mistake.

He took her to a boutique hotel nearby, to a suite on the top floor.

The moment the door clicked shut, he had her pinned against it. His mouth was on hers, a brutal, demanding kiss that tasted of whiskey and something unapologetically male. It wasn't a question. It was a statement.

Her mind went white. The pent-up frustration, the humiliation, the loneliness-it all erupted into a single act of self-destruction. She kissed him back with all the fury she couldn't show her husband.

The morning sun was a blade against her eyelids.

Her head throbbed. A groan escaped her lips as she rolled over.

She was alone.

The space beside her in the vast, unfamiliar bed was empty. Cold, even. He was long gone.

Panic, cold and sharp, pierced through the fog of her hangover.

Then she saw it. On the bedside table, a piece of hotel stationery. A phone number was scrawled across it in a bold, masculine hand.

And below it, a single line.

For services rendered. Pay market rate.

The blood drained from Chloe's face. The room tilted.

She hadn't just cheated on her husband.

She had cheated with a male escort.

A wave of nausea and self-disgust washed over her. She scrambled to remember his face, anything about him. But all she had was a blur of shadow, the feeling of rough stubble, and the scent of whiskey. A faceless mistake.

A sob caught in her throat. She grabbed her clothes from the floor, her hands shaking so badly she could barely pull on her jeans.

She fled the hotel room like a criminal, not looking back, running from a night she knew would haunt her forever.

A block away, sitting in the back of a black town car, the man from the bar watched the hotel entrance on a small monitor. He watched her run out, her face pale with panic. He closed the laptop. The dim light from the screen illuminated a sharp jawline and cold, pale blue eyes. Alistair Sinclair leaned back against the leather. The game, he thought, had just begun.