Weeks passed. The morning sun filtered through the sheer curtains of the master bedroom.

Haleigh stood beside the bed, mechanically massaging Fabian's right arm. The hormone injections made her constantly nauseous. Her face was pale, but her eyes were focused on the task.

She moved to his chest, pressing a warm, damp towel against his skin. Her fingertips accidentally brushed against the hard ridges of his abdominal muscles.

Suddenly, the muscle beneath her palm twitched violently.

Haleigh pulled her hand back. She reached for the call button, thinking it was another reflex.

A hand clamped around her wrist like a steel trap.

Haleigh gasped. The towel dropped to the floor. She looked down.

Fabian's eyes were wide open.

At first, his gaze was cloudy, darting around the ceiling as if trying to piece together where he was. Then, slowly, the fog cleared. The dead, empty stare from that night was gone. His black eyes focused on her, sharp, alert, and burning with the violent rage of a territorial predator waking up to a threat.

His jaw worked, muscles twitching as he struggled to command his own body. His lips cracked as they parted. He forced out a few garbled, breathless syllables before his vocal cords finally obeyed. A low, gravelly voice, weak but laced with venom, scraped out of his throat. "Who... are... you?"

Haleigh's heart stopped. She couldn't breathe. Her vocal cords paralyzed. She just stared at him, her lips parting but no sound coming out.

Fabian's face twisted in pure disgust. He violently shoved her arm away, throwing her backward as if she were covered in disease.

He tried to sit up. His muscles, weak from the coma, caused his torso to sway. Haleigh instinctively reached out to catch his shoulder.

"Don't touch me!" Fabian roared. His eyes slashed at her like knives. "Get away!"

The sheer force of his voice made Haleigh stumble backward. Her hip slammed into the nightstand. The glass pitcher of water tipped over and shattered loudly against the hardwood floor.

The noise triggered the security alarms.

Within sixty seconds, the heavy doors flew open. Bodyguards, the medical team, and Berneice rushed into the room.

Berneice stopped dead in her tracks. Tears flooded her eyes. "Fabian," she sobbed, running toward the bed with her arms open.

Fabian turned his head sharply, avoiding his mother's touch. His eyes scanned the room like a radar, taking in the guards, the doctors, and the medical equipment.

The doctors swarmed him, checking his pulse and shining lights into his pupils, muttering in shock about his miraculous neurological recovery.

Fabian ignored them. He reached over and ripped the IV needle out of the back of his hand. Blood dripped onto the white sheets. He pointed a shaking, furious finger at Haleigh, who was pressed against the wall.

"Why is this cheap woman in my bedroom?" Fabian demanded, his voice hoarse but dripping with absolute authority.

Berneice wiped her face. She looked nervous. "Fabian, please calm down. This is Haleigh. We arranged a marriage for you while you were asleep. To bring good luck. She is your legal wife."

The temperature in the room plummeted to zero.

Fabian's face darkened with a rage so pure it made the doctors step back. "Wife?" he spat. "Has this family fallen so low that we are resorting to human trafficking for luck?"

Haleigh stood by the broken glass. Her fingers gripped the fabric of her shirt. The humiliation cut into her skin.

Fabian turned his head to the lead bodyguard. He issued his first command since waking up from the dead.

"Throw this stranger out of my house," Fabian ordered. His voice lacked any trace of human warmth.

The bodyguard hesitated. He looked at Berneice. The room was dead silent.

"Fabian, please," Berneice tried to intervene. "She has taken care of you every day. She-"

Fabian grabbed the heart monitor off the bedside table and hurled it at the wall. It smashed into pieces. "I said, get her out!"

Haleigh flinched. Her hands instinctively dropped to cover her lower stomach. The man she was pregnant with looked at her like he wanted her dead. Absolute despair washed over her.

The eviction was halted by the doctors. Fabian's blood pressure had spiked to dangerous levels, and they warned that too much stress could cause a fatal hemorrhage.

An hour later, Haleigh was escorted by two guards into a sterile recovery room that had been converted into a temporary study.

Fabian was sitting in a velvet recliner. A new IV line was taped to his hand. He waved his assistant out of the room as Haleigh walked in. The only other person left was the family's chief lawyer.

Fabian's eyes dragged slowly over Haleigh from head to toe. He looked at her like she was trash that had blown in through the window.

"Sit," he commanded. His voice was still rough, but the arrogance was suffocating.

Haleigh sat in the chair opposite him.

The lawyer slid a thick stack of papers across the desk. "These are Annulment documents," the lawyer said.

"I will never acknowledge this circus of a marriage," Fabian said coldly. "Sign the papers. You get ten million dollars to keep your mouth shut, and you leave today."

Haleigh looked at the number. Ten million. It wasn't even close to the fifty million she needed to keep her father alive.

She kept her spine straight. "I cannot sign this right now. I need to speak with your mother first."

Fabian's eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. He hated being manipulated, especially using his mother as leverage.

He leaned forward. The physical pressure radiating from him made it hard for Haleigh to pull air into her lungs.

"Do not think I am stupid," Fabian said softly. "I know exactly what the old woman wants. She wants an heir to secure the board."

Fabian stared directly into Haleigh's eyes. "If you try any dirty tricks to get pregnant, I will personally drag you to a clinic and have that bastard scraped out of you."

The word "scraped" hit Haleigh like a physical punch to the gut. All the blood drained from her face. Her hand shot to her stomach, pressing hard against her abdomen.

Fabian's eyes snapped down to her hand. His gaze sharpened. "Are you already pregnant?"

Haleigh's heart hammered frantically against her ribs. Cold sweat broke out across her back. She forced herself to look back into his terrifying black eyes.

"No," Haleigh lied. She forced a bitter smile. "I ate something bad this morning. Besides, who would want to have a child with a monster?"

The insult landed. Fabian's jaw clenched. He grabbed the bone-china teacup next to him and hurled it at the floor near her feet.

The cup shattered. Boiling hot tea splashed across Haleigh's bare ankle. The pain was sharp and immediate, making her leg jerk involuntarily as the scalding liquid burned her skin. But she bit her inner lip so hard she tasted copper, forcing herself to remain seated. She refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry out.

Fabian glared at her. "Add an NDA to the stack," he snapped at the lawyer. "If she ever speaks of this marriage, sue her for a hundred million dollars."

The lawyer quickly produced the Non-Disclosure Agreement and handed Haleigh a pen.

Haleigh knew if she didn't sign something, she wouldn't leave this room. Her hand trembled as she signed her name on the NDA. But she pushed the annulment papers back.

"Legal procedures take time," Haleigh said, keeping her voice steady. "I need one week to pack my things and find a place to live."

Fabian closed his eyes in disgust. He waved his hand dismissively, like he was swatting away a fly. "Get out of my sight."

Haleigh turned and walked out the door. The second the heavy wood clicked shut behind her, her knees buckled. She leaned against the hallway wall, gasping for air.

She pressed both hands against her flat stomach. She was in terrible danger. She had to get the blood test results from the clinic today. If she was pregnant, she had to run before Fabian found out.

The next morning, Haleigh walked to the top of the grand staircase.

A horrible, desperate scream echoed up from the foyer.

Haleigh looked down. Fabian sat in a wheelchair at the base of the stairs. Two massive bodyguards had Cleon pinned face-down on the marble floor.

Fabian's assistant was reading from a tablet. "Embezzlement of corporate funds. Attempted bribery of board members during Mr. Blackburn's coma."

Fabian's face was carved from ice. "Freeze his trust accounts. Cancel all his credit lines."

Cleon thrashed on the floor, crying hysterically. "Uncle Fabian, please! I'm sorry! Don't cut me off!"

Fabian looked down at him with absolute disgust. "Break his leg. Throw him out the front gates."

One of the bodyguards raised a heavy steel baton and brought it down hard on Cleon's right calf.

The loud, wet snap of bone breaking echoed through the massive hall. Cleon shrieked in agony.

Haleigh's stomach lurched. She gripped the wooden banister to keep from falling. She hated Cleon, but watching Fabian dispense brutal, lawless violence terrified her to her core.

Fabian slowly turned his head. His dark eyes locked onto Haleigh standing on the stairs.

The corner of his mouth twitched up into a cruel, warning smirk. He was showing her exactly what happened to people who crossed him.

Haleigh looked away, her whole body trembling. She hurried down the back stairs and slipped out the side door of the estate.

She took a taxi straight to the boutique clinic in Manhattan. She sat in the VIP waiting room, aggressively flipping the pages of an old Vogue magazine just to give her shaking hands something to do.

Dr. Payne walked in. He closed the door and locked it. His face was grave.

He pushed his gold-rimmed glasses up his nose. "Your HCG levels have doubled beautifully. The IVF was a complete success. You are pregnant."

The word "success" hit Haleigh like a bolt of lightning. Her brain short-circuited.

She took the thin sheet of paper from him. The positive result glared up at her.

Fabian's voice echoed in her head: I will personally drag you to a clinic and have that bastard scraped out of you.

Haleigh shot up from the chair. The legs scraped harshly against the floor. "You have to terminate it. Right now. Schedule the abortion."

Dr. Payne looked shocked. "Mrs. Blackburn, I cannot do that. This embryo is incredibly valuable. Mrs. Berneice gave strict orders-"

"If I have this baby, that man will kill me!" Haleigh hissed, her voice cracking with panic.

Dr. Payne looked at her with deep pity. "Haleigh, look at your chart. Your uterine lining is dangerously thin. If we perform a surgical abortion right now, the scarring will be severe. You will likely be infertile for the rest of your life."

The medical truth acted like a bucket of ice water over Haleigh's head. The frantic need to destroy the evidence vanished.

She fell back into the chair. She buried her face in her hands. Hot tears leaked through her fingers and dripped onto her lap.

Taking away her right to ever be a mother was a punishment worse than death. She realized, with a sickening drop in her stomach, that she couldn't kill the life inside her.

Haleigh aggressively wiped her tears away. Her eyes hardened. She looked up at the doctor. "You cannot tell anyone about this."

"The system automatically updates the family portal," Dr. Payne said nervously.

"Under HIPAA law, I am your patient. You work for me, not Berneice," Haleigh demanded, her voice turning lethal. "Change the system status to 'Pending' or I will have your medical license revoked."

Dr. Payne sighed and nodded. "I can hide it for now. But your stomach will grow. You can't hide it forever."

Haleigh folded the real lab report and shoved it deep into the hidden zipper of her purse. It felt like she was carrying a live bomb.

She walked out of the clinic. The cold Manhattan wind hit her face. She needed a plan. She needed cash. She had to run.