Faking My Death With His Baby: The Billionaire Burned My Wedding

I faked my death while carrying his child. For three years, I buried Sienna Hayes and became Elena L'Argent — a Parisian jewelry designer, a mother, a woman who no longer flinched. My son Leo, born at thirty weeks, four resuscitations, barely two pounds — survived without his father ever knowing he existed. Arthur loved us both. Arthur was safe.

Then Declan kicked down my bridal suite door. He'd annihilated Arthur's family fortune overnight. Scissors buried in his own chest, a custody warrant in his pocket, he gave me one choice: cancel the wedding or watch Arthur lose everything.

I chose to protect the man who saved me. I signed Declan's contract. I returned to the gilded cage I'd once burned to escape — this time with my son's life as the lock on my door.

***

Sienna's POV

I was tracing the last delicate curve of the band with my diamond-tipped bur when the studio door swung open. The ring lay nestled in a velvet cradle—rose gold, with a hidden helix of our initials woven into the filigree. Something only Declan and I would know was there.

My smile lifted toward the doorway without my permission.

Declan’s frame filled it entirely. Broad shoulders, dark suit, the elegant architecture of his face locked into a stillness I’d never seen. Behind him, Vanessa hovered. Her blouse was a shade too sheer, her manicured hand clutching a manila report like a sacrament.

She offered it to him. He didn’t look at her. His eyes never left mine.

The report hit my cheek before I registered his arm moving. Paper edge sliced a hot, thin line near my cheekbone. A sting so precise it took a full breath for the pain to blossom. I blinked against the blur of shock, my hand hovering near the cut but not touching it.

The pages scattered across my workbench. One slid over the velvet cradle, smearing the faint fingerprints I’d left on the rose gold.

My eyes found the bold print before I could stop them.

...previous miscarriage history: three years ago, in October.

The words were ugly and clinical. My throat closed.

Vanessa’s voice cut the silence. “Ms. Sienna, your body is so badly damaged, how will you bear an heir for the president in the future—”

“Get out.” Declan’s voice didn’t rise. He didn’t turn. The single syllable shoved her backward through the door she’d barely cleared. Her heels clicked a hasty retreat.

Then the lock clicked. And we were alone.

The silence was worse than the slap.

He moved toward me with the economy of a man who never had to chase. The sofa met the back of my knees.

I sat hard. His knee pressed the edge of the cushion, pinning the fabric of my skirt in place, and then his hand closed on my chin, tilting my head back until the overhead light burned in my eyes.

“Three years ago, in October.” His voice was hoarse, scraped raw at the edges. “I picked you up then. And in the compartment of your suitcase, I found Caleb’s metal lighter.” His grip tightened a fraction. “You’ve had a crush on him since you were eighteen. So—that aborted child was his.”

A sound crawled out of my chest. Not a denial. A splintered thing halfway between a sob and a plea. My fingers curled around his wrist. The skin was hot. Rigid.

“It’s not what you think.” My tongue felt thick. “But I can’t—”

His thumb pressed into the soft pocket beneath my jaw, silencing me. The truth was a massive, dangerous secret crammed behind my teeth, and if I let it out, it would incinerate more than this moment. More than us.

So I said nothing else.

Declan’s breath came in controlled surges, like a man fighting not to shatter something in his hands. His pupils had swallowed the grey of his irises.

I chose the only exit I had left. My left hand dropped to my ring finger. The band he’d given me the night we’d signed the partnership contract—designed by my own studio, but laid on my palm by him—felt suddenly obscene. I twisted it toward the knuckle.

His other hand caught mine. The ring was halfway off. He shoved it back.

Metal scraped over bone. The joint screamed. A bright bead of chafed skin welled up beneath the band.

“Cancel?” He leaned close. His lips brushed the shell of my ear. The word was a smirk. “You owe me, Sienna, and you’ll pay it back slowly over this lifetime.”

My lungs forgot how to pull air.

Then his mouth covered mine.

Not a kiss. A claiming. Teeth and pressure and the faint taste of his fury, salt-sharp. My spine arched before I could think. A helpless little sound bled from my throat into his mouth. My hands fisted in his lapels. I could have pushed. I didn’t.

His fingers slid from my chin to the nape of my neck, fisting in my hair. He angled me back over the arm of the sofa. The position was vulnerable. Exposed. My skirt rode up my thighs.

Declan’s free hand found the top button of my blouse. He didn’t bother with the others. A sharp yank popped them free. One pinged against the side of my workbench and vanished. Cool air hit my lace. My nipples pebbled hard against the cups of my bra.

“You think I’d let you walk away?” He dragged his mouth down my throat, teeth scraping the tendon where my pulse kicked frantic. “You’ll stay right here and take what I give you.”

“Declan—” His name snapped into a gasp as his hips pinned mine. The ridge behind his trousers ground into the ache already building between my legs. My hips lifted. Traitors.

I should stop this. I knew the shape of the lies standing between us. But his hand was shoving my skirt higher, and his thumb found the damp cotton of my panties, and the sound he made—low, guttural, satisfied

—unspooled the last thread of my protest.

“Soaking through them already,” he murmured, not kind. Not gentle. His thumb circled. “Tell me you don’t want this.”

“Don’t—” I tried. He pressed harder, a slick drag over my clit, and the denial fractured. “Don’t stop.”

His laugh was a dark, private thing. He ripped the panties aside. Two fingers pushed inside me, stretching me open with a thrust that made my vision flicker. The wet sound of it filled the silent studio. My heels scrambled against the sofa cushion, seeking purchase.

“Look at you.” His forehead dropped to mine. His breath came ragged now. “You’d take my fingers on this couch while your wedding ring’s still slick with your blood.” He twisted his wrist, crooking deep into a spot that made my inner walls clutch. A high, desperate noise I didn’t recognize left my mouth. His thumb rode my clit in tight, punishing circles.

The edge came fast. Too fast. My thighs clamped around his forearm. The flash behind my eyes was white and obliterating. I shuddered against his hand, every muscle seizing, and he didn’t relent. He fucked me through it until I was whimpering, over-sensitized, quaking.

He withdrew his fingers glistening. Held them to the light. Met my eyes as he licked them clean.

Then his belt was clinking open. The sound of his zipper echoed off my design walls.

He flipped me onto my stomach. My cheek pressed into the cool leather of the cushion. The paper cut stung.

He yanked my hips up, folded me over the armrest, and the blunt heat of him nudged my entrance from behind.

“Tell me again you can’t say,” he gritted out, and then he filled me in one merciless stroke.

I cried out. The stretch bordered on pain and bloomed into a fullness that stole every thought. He didn’t pause to let me adjust. He withdrew and snapped his hips forward again, deep enough that I felt him in my stomach. The rhythm he set was punishing, a cadence of anger and ownership and something else buried beneath.

My nails clawed into the leather. “Harder—please, Declan, harder—”

His grip tightened on my hip bones. Bruises for tomorrow. The slap of skin on skin grew louder, wetter. He leaned over my back, one hand sliding into my hair, twisting, pulling my head back so the column of my throat arched.

“Who do you belong to?”

“You.” The word came out broken and immediate. “Only you.”

He thrust into that admission with a guttural sound that poured heat straight to my core. My second climax hit without warning—unspooling from somewhere deeper than the first, ripping through me in a cascade of clenched muscles and short, fractured breaths. His own release followed a half-dozen strokes later, pulsing hot and thick inside me as he groaned into the crook of my neck.

For three heartbeats, we didn’t move. His weight braced above me. The stillness was terrible and sweet.

Then he pulled out. The loss was jarring. Chill air hit my slick thighs. I heard him tuck himself away, belt buckle jangling with methodical precision. When I pushed up onto trembling arms, he was already straightening his cuffs.

His eyes had gone empty. The fury was banked into something worse.

“Starting tomorrow,” he said, not looking at me, “leave your studio. After the wedding, you’ll stay home obediently and be a worthless trophy wife.” He adjusted his tie. The gesture was mechanical. Final. “You don’t deserve a wedding. You don’t deserve blessings.”

The lock clicked again as he let himself out.