I struggled to turn again as I heard the words "I owe you." The sharp pain in my stomach worsened and the last thing I saw before the darkness completely swallowed me was Richard Jones's composed billionaire mask shattering into a look of pure unadulterated terror. He was lunging across the table for me while his glass of expensive wine shattered on the floor, completely forgotten.

When I got around, the wall was white and smelled of antiseptic. The steady beep... beep... beep of a heart monitor was the only sound in the room. I tried to sit up but a hand firmly but gently pressed against my shoulder to put me down on the hospital bed.

"Hey! Take it easy," Richard said. He was sitting in a plastic chair by the bed, his tie loosened, his hair disheveled, and he looked more human than I had seen him. "The doctors said you're suffering from extreme exhaustion and dehydration," he explained.

"I need to go back to work, I rasped with a rising panic. If I miss a shift, I lose the job and if I lose the job....." I couldn't complete the remaining sentence. I looked desperately around the hospital room like I was searching for an exit.

"That is not a problem, I've already spoken to the manager and your job is very safe. In fact, you're on paid leave," he said. I knew that 'paid leave' meant he had written a check that could buy the whole restaurant and cover my pay for as long as it could.

"I don't want your charity, Richard," I snapped using his first name for the first time.

"It's not charity but a necessity. You have been working twenty-hour double shifts, Oma. Why? What are you running away from so fast that you're willing to kill yourself to stay ahead of it?" he asked, his eyes squinted and his brow squeezed.

I looked away, staring at the intravenous drip, but I couldn't tell him. How could I tell this man, this powerful and perfect man, that I was the "disgraced" girl? That I was a high school graduate with no friends, no family, and a baby fathered by a ghost.

"I just need to take care of myself," I whispered a response.

"You're doing a poor job of it, don't you think?" he countered. He leaned closer, his dark eyes searching for mine: "I've spent my life reading people, Oma. You have the integrity of someone ten times your age, but you are living like a fugitive. Let me help you, just one dinner with no strings attached. Let me be a friend. You saved me from an accident that would have probably ended my life and I owe you."

For a moment I almost gave in. I wanted so much to lean into him and tell him everything, but then I remembered my father's face. I remembered Tasha's laughter and I concluded that men like Richard Jones didn't want friends like me. They wanted puzzles to solve and once the puzzle was finished, they moved on.

"I can't," I finally said, my voice breaking. "Anybody could have done what I did, given the circumstances. Please just leave me alone. I didn't know you when I saved you, but it's fine. I'm glad you are alive."

He stood up, looking hurt but resolute. "I'll leave for now, but I'm not giving up on you Oma Johnson."

He walked out of the room, leaving a heavy silence behind. Seconds later, a doctor walked in flipping through a clipboard. "Ah, Miss Johnson, you're awake. That is very good, we've stabilized your fluids, but we need to discuss the ultrasound. With the stress your body is currently going through, the pregnancy is at a high risk."

I didn't notice that the door hadn't fully closed. I didn't see Richard standing in the hallway, his hand still on the doorknob, freezing as the doctor's words echoed into the corridor.

The doctor's words hung in the air like a guillotine. "High-risk," my heart plummeted as I took in the words. But the real shadow fell across the room when the door swung wide open again, and Richard Jones stepped back inside, his face as pale as the hospital sheets.

"Pregnancy?" Richard asked, his voice just above a whisper, but it carried the weight of a thunderclap.

The doctor looked from me to Richard, obviously confused. "I am so sorry, I assumed the father knew..." he said.

"He's not the father," I blurted out, the shame I had been hiding for months finally boiling over. I pulled the thin hospital blanket up to my chin, desperately wishing I could disappear into the mattress. "He's... he's just a customer from the restaurant where I work. He was already leaving," I concluded, looking away.

The doctor, sensing the sudden atmospheric shift, cleared his throat. "Alright, I'll give you two a moment." He scurried out, closing the door firmly this time.

Richard didn't move. Rather, he stood at the foot of the bed, his eyes fixed on my stomach, as if he could see through the layers of fabric. "How far along are you Oma?"

"Four months," I answered impulsively.

"And the father?"

"There is no father," I said, my voice hardening and gaining strength. "There's just me, and I'm going to be fine. I don't need a billionaire lawyer to swoop in and fix a situation he doesn't know anything about. Please go away," I grumbled.

Richard walked toward me, but he didn't stop at the chair. He sat on the edge of the bed and forced me to look at him. "Oma, now I can see; this is why you've been working yourself to death? This is why you won't let anyone in?" he asked with concern in his tone.

"My father threw me out," I confessed, the words finally tumbling out in a broken rush. "My best friend and my boyfriend... they set me up. It was a joke, a prank on them, to see if I'd keep my integrity. They drugged me, Richard, and I don't even know his name. My father told me never to come home until I found him. So, you see? There is no happy ending here. I'm just a girl who was a punchline to a joke."

I expected him to look disgusted, expected him to leave, but instead, his jaw tightened, and a terrifyingly cold anger settled into his features, but it wasn't aimed at me.

"A prank," he repeated, his voice vibrating with a predatory edge. "They violated you, took your home, and left you on the street to starve to death for a joke?"

"It doesn't matter now," I choked as all the unshed tears rushed down like a broken tap. I didn't try to stop it, there was no need to as I felt so exposed and naked that nothing made a difference again at the moment.

"It matters to me," Richard said. He took my hand and this time, he didn't let go. He leaned in until our foreheads were almost touched. "I have spent my career protecting people who don't deserve it Oma. For the first time, I want to protect someone who does. You aren't going back to that restaurant, and you aren't going back to that shelter."

"What are you saying?" I asked, my heart hammering in my chest.

"I am saying that a woman who instinctively saved my life cannot be under this condition and I would do nothing. I owe you my life, and you need to tell me how to pay you back.

I kept quiet and thought for a while. "The only reward I need from you is to leave me alone, Mr. Jones." I said finally.

"Richard's face dropped. "Really, Oma? But I'll have you know that it's not an option."

"Why do you care?" I asked, my brown eyes searching his steel-blue ones.

I felt frustrated by his insistence instead of relief. "You are Richard Jones; you have a merger, an engagement, a life of affluence, while I'm a scandal waiting to happen, don't you get? We don't belong to the same circle."

"You know what? I actually care Oma, because for the first time in twenty-eight years, I met someone who looked at me and didn't see a bank account," Richard said. "And because I don't believe in coincidences. I think I found you again for a reason."

I was deeply touched by this gesture within me but I still tried to put up a fight because of shame, a sob escaped my throat as I reflected again on what my life has become.

My father threw me out Richard; he said I was a disgrace. I came here to start over, to cut off from everyone, begin anew and struggle for survival, to be a lawyer like you, but... I'm just a girl in a basement now.

Richard reached out, and this time, he didn't hesitate. He took my hand in his with a warm skin and a steady grip. "You are not a disgrace, you are definitely not going back to the basement and as for being a lawyer, it's possible if you mean to." He stated.

An hour later, Richard was signing the discharge papers. He had already made a call to his close friend Ned.

"Ned, have the guest suite at my penthouse prepared. Fresh linens, high-protein groceries, and get a stylist to drop off some comfortable clothes; simple, soft clothes and nothing corporate." He demanded.

"Richie," Ned said, leaning against the hospital's granite pillar. "You need to think seriously about this, Nora is already suspicious and your father is monitoring your every move. Bringing a pregnant waitress into your home is like throwing a grenade into a glass house, the result will not be pleasant for either party."

Richard turned to his friend, his jaw set in the "pointed jawline" the tabloids loved to photograph. "Then let the glass break, Ned. I've spent my life being the perfect son and I'm done. She's alone, she's carrying a child, and she's the only person who has made me feel alive in a decade. I'm not letting her go."

As Richard walked back to Oma's hospital room to help her into the wheelchair, he felt a strange sense of peace. He knew the war was coming, that Nora and his father would do anything and everything to destroy him. But as he looked at Oma's fragile but fierce figure, a weak girl who had fought to survive a new city on her own, he realized she was the strongest person he had ever met.

"Ready to go?" he asked.

I looked at him, my heart fluttering with a mix feeling of fear and hope. "Where are we going?" I whispered.

"Home," Richard said.

He didn't say my home. He said home. And as he wheeled me out toward the waiting car, I felt the first true warmth of a Californian summer.

The drive to Richard's estate was spent in a comfortable, albeit silence. I watched the city skyscrapers melt into the lush, rolling greenery of the suburbs.

When the massive wrought iron gates swung open to reveal a winding drive way lined with ancient oaks, I felt a familiar pang of intimidation because the environment in front of me represented the world I had spent some time serving from the outside.

As the car pulled up to the front of the limestone manor, Richard climbed out and hurried to the side where I was, to open the door for me before the driver could even switch off the engine.

When the private elevator chimed and the doors opened directly into the living room, I froze. I felt so small, my thrift-store sneakers leaving faint marks on the polished white floors.

"Welcome home Oma," he said softly.

"This is too much," I whispered, my voice reverberating in the vast space.

Richard noticing my reaction said "It's just a house, Oma," and stepping behind me, he gently took the small backpack that contained all my worldly possessions. He put it aside and held my hand, his thumb grazing my knuckles "And for now" he continued, "it's your safe space; no one comes in here without my permission. Not the press, not my parents, and certainly not your 'friends' from Oakhaven."

He led me to the guest suite on the second floor that overlooked the gardens. It was a room draped in shades of soft cream and sage green; calming, grounded and expensive with a large family-sized bed and floor-to-ceiling windows. On the center of the bed was a small beautifully wrapped box as well as a row of high-end prenatal vitamins, organic skincare products, and a stack of new, soft cashmere lounge wear neatly arranged on the bedside table.

"What are all these?" I asked sounding overwhelmed with what I saw.

"I asked Ned to handle a few basics," Richard said, looking slightly awkward. "I didn't know your size, so he guessed; I hope you don't mind. And the small box, you can open it"

The small box contained a pair of hand-knitted wool baby booties and a key. I looked at him as I realized the content without saying a word.

Richard hurried to explain. "The booties are because I passed a shop near the hospital while you were sleeping; I saw it and figured that you may need it. And the key is to the terrace. I know you would love the fresh air. I want you to know that you are not a prisoner here, you are the mistress of this house."

I turned to him, my eyes glassy. Why are you doing this, Richard? You barely know me. In your world, people don't do things for free. What's the catch?.

Richard walked toward me, stopping just a foot away. The "Ice Prince" persona had completely liquefied and was replaced by something raw and searching.

"The catch is that I'm selfish, Oma. My life has been a series of choreographed moves. Corporate meetings, mergers, closing contract deals, Nora, and the likes... it's all fake. But with you, the world feels real. I'm not protecting you because I am obliged to do so. Instead, I am doing it because, for the first time, I want to."

I felt a flutter in my chest, not the baby, but a spark of something I hadn't

felt in a long time, it was hope that after all there may be light at the end of the tunnel.

"Thank you Richard" I said.

"For what?" he asked and kissed my forehead.