The next day, Eloisa pulled the strings of her oversized gray hoodie tight. The fabric swallowed her frame, hiding a stomach that was still perfectly flat. She kept her head down, her sneakers hitting the concrete path of the campus quad at a fast, desperate pace.

She just needed to get to the clinic.

"Eloisa!"

A body stepped directly into her path. Eloisa gasped and stumbled back, Her arms instinctively crossed over her stomach in a tight, defensive shield.

It was Isla. Her roommate was grinning, holding two iced coffees.

"Oh my god, you finally left the cave!" Isla laughed. "I was just coming to find you!"

Eloisa forced her arms down to her sides, her heart hammered against her ribs.

"I'm just going to the library," Eloisa lied. Her voice sounded thin and reedy.

Isla rolled her eyes. "Stop faking. Kurtis Branch has a massive surprise waiting for you."

Eloisa's brow furrowed. Kurtis, he was a linebacker on the college football team. He had been aggressively pursuing her for three months, and she found his loud, performative personality exhausting.

Before Eloisa could tell Isla she didn't care, a roar of cheers erupted from the fraternity lawn fifty yards ahead.

Eloisa looked up.

Kurtis Branch was standing in the middle of the grass. He was surrounded by a dozen massive, metallic red heart balloons. Above his head, a small drone buzzed angrily in the air, dragging a white vinyl banner.

The banner read: ELOISA, BE MY GF!

A crowd of at least fifty students had already formed a circle. They had their phones out. They were cheering and whistling.

Kurtis spotted her. He grabbed a massive bouquet of red roses from a frat brother. He was wearing a custom t-shirt with a picture of his own face printed on it. He started marching toward her.

As he got closer, the smell hit her.

It was a thick, suffocating cloud of cheap body spray. It smelled like synthetic pine needles and rubbing alcohol.

The smell acted like a physical switch inside Eloisa's body.

The nausea she had been fighting all morning exploded. Her stomach violently contracted. The color drained from her face so fast she felt dizzy.

Kurtis dropped to one knee right in front of her. He flashed a practiced, arrogant smile.

"Eloisa, from the first second I saw you..."

Eloisa couldn't hear the rest of his sentence. The blood was rushing in her ears. She slapped both hands over her mouth. She tried to swallow down the thick, bitter bile rising in her throat.

Kurtis stopped talking. He looked at her hands over her mouth. His smile grew wider. He thought she was crying. He thought she was overwhelmed with joy.

"Say yes! Say yes!" the crowd started chanting.

Eloisa's chest heaved. She couldn't hold it back anymore.

She violently shoved Kurtis backward. He fell onto the grass. Eloisa sprinted three steps to a nearby metal trash can, leaned over the edge, and threw up.

She retched loudly, her body shaking with the force of it.

The chanting stopped instantly. The entire quad fell into a dead, horrifying silence. The only sound was the wet, humiliating noise of Eloisa vomiting into the garbage.

Kurtis scrambled to his feet. His face went from bright red to a furious, dark purple. He looked around at the students filming him.

"Are you... are you serious right now?" Kurtis yelled. He threw the bouquet of roses onto the concrete. "You're a freak!"

He turned and stormed away, pushing through the crowd.

A wave of cruel laughter rippled through the students. They pointed their phones at her.

Eloisa gripped the rim of the trash can. Black spots danced in her vision. She wiped her mouth with the back of her trembling hand. She had just become the biggest joke on campus.

Isla took a hesitant step toward her.

Eloisa held up a weak hand. "Don't. Just... leave me alone."

Before Isla could say another word, a massive shadow fell over them.

A black Lincoln Navigator rolled silently to a stop right next to the curb. There were no license plates on the front. The windows were tinted so dark they looked like solid obsidian.

The rear door clicked open.

An older man stepped out. He wore a perfectly tailored charcoal suit. His hair was silver, and he wore crisp white cotton gloves. Two massive men in identical black suits and sunglasses stepped out behind him. They looked like secret service agents.

The older man walked straight to Eloisa. He did not look at the vomit. He did not look at the crowd. He stopped two feet away and offered a slight, formal bow.

"Miss Eloisa Williams?" his voice was smooth, flat, and completely devoid of emotion. "We have been expecting you."

Eloisa's spine stiffened. The nausea was instantly replaced by a cold spike of adrenaline.

"Who are you?" she asked, taking a step back.

The man reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a heavy, cream-colored card. He held it out to her.

Eloisa took it. There was only one word printed in embossed black ink in the center.

Wilkinson.

Beneath it was a phone number.

"My employer wishes to speak with you," the man said. He gestured toward the open door of the SUV. "Please get in the car."

It was not a request. It was a command.

The inside of the Lincoln Navigator was dead silent. The engine was a barely perceptible hum beneath the heavy floorboards.

Eloisa sat stiffly on the leather seat. She clutched her backpack tightly against her chest, inside the front pocket was the plastic pregnancy test. It felt like it was burning a hole through the canvas.

She turned her head to look out the window, but the dark tint turned the passing streets into a murky, unrecognizable blur.

She looked at the older man sitting across from her.

"Where are we going?" Eloisa asked. Her voice shook. "This is kidnapping."

Mr. Pembroke did not blink. He kept his hands folded neatly in his lap. "Rest assured, Miss Williams, you are perfectly safe. We are simply going to a location where we can have a quiet conversation."

Eloisa pulled her phone out of her pocket. She tapped the screen.

No Service.

Her stomach dropped. There was a signal jammer in the car, she was completely cut off from the world. A cold sweat broke out on the back of her neck.

The car drove for what felt like an hour. Finally, it slowed down. Eloisa heard the heavy metallic clank of iron gates opening, the SUV rolled onto a smooth, gravel driveway.

Through the tinted glass, she saw the sparkling water of the Potomac River in the distance. They were in the most exclusive, heavily guarded neighborhood in Washington D.C.

The car stopped in front of a massive, stone mansion, it looked like a museum.

Mr. Pembroke opened the door for her. "Welcome to the Wilkinson estate."

Eloisa stepped out. The sheer size of the property made her feel incredibly small. A massive stone fountain roared in the center of a perfectly manicured lawn.

Mr. Pembroke led her up the stone steps and pushed open the heavy oak doors.

They stepped into a foyer with gleaming marble floors. The ceiling was so high it made Eloisa dizzy.

In the center of the grand living room, sitting on a velvet sofa, was an elderly woman. She wore an elegant, tailored tweed suit, her silver hair was styled flawlessly. She held a delicate porcelain teacup in her hands.

Her eyes locked onto Eloisa. They were sharp, calculating, and cold as ice. Eloisa felt like a piece of meat being weighed on a scale.

Mr. Pembroke bowed. "Madam, Miss Williams has arrived."

The woman set her teacup down on a silver tray. The clink of the porcelain echoed in the massive room.

"Sit down, child," her voice was quiet, but it carried absolute authority.

Eloisa walked forward. Her legs felt like lead. She sat on the edge of the sofa opposite the woman. The cushions were so soft she felt like she was sinking into quicksand.

The woman did not waste time.

"I know you are pregnant."

The blood in Eloisa's veins turned to ice. Her mouth fell open.

"How..." Eloisa choked on the word. "How do you know that?"

The woman smiled, but the smile did not reach her eyes. "I am Eleonora Wilkinson. I know far more than that. My grandson's security detail reported the... incident at the party. We have been monitoring your situation since. Your appointment at the clinic merely confirmed our suspicions. I also know that the child growing inside your stomach is my great-grandson."

Eloisa felt like she had been struck by lightning. Her hands gripped the fabric of her jeans.

"No," Eloisa shook her head frantically. "No, that's impossible. You have the wrong person. I don't even know..."

Eleonora cut her off. "A month ago. A graduation party near Georgetown University. You drank too much."

Eleonora recited the details with surgical precision. Eloisa's face grew paler with every word.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Eloisa lied, her voice cracking. "I don't know your grandson!"

Eleonora's eyes softened into a look of cold pity. "Of course you don't. You probably don't even remember his face."

Eleonora raised two fingers. Mr. Pembroke stepped forward and handed Eleonora a sleek black tablet.

Eleonora slid the tablet across the glass coffee table.

Eloisa looked down. A video was playing. It was security camera footage, grainy and dark. But she could clearly see the corner of the frat house patio. She saw herself, stumbling, barely able to stand.

And she saw the man.

He was tall. He wore a dark shirt. His back was to the camera, but he caught her as she fell. He wrapped a strong arm around her waist and guided her away from the crowd, toward the guest rooms.

"My grandson attended that party briefly," Eleonora said, her voice drifting over the footage. "He despises those events. He left early. But clearly, before he left, an... incident occurred."

Eloisa stared at the screen. The blank space in her memory violently ripped open.

The smell of cedarwood. The weight of his hand. The deep, dark eyes.

It wasn't a dream. It was real.

The living room fell into a suffocating silence. Eloisa stared at the frozen frame of the video on the tablet. Her chest rose and fell in shallow, panicked breaths.

Eleonora Wilkinson glanced at the antique grandfather clock standing against the wall. She was calculating the seconds.

"It seems," Eleonora said smoothly, "you need to see it with your own eyes."

Eloisa looked up, her vision blurred with unshed tears. "See what?"

Heavy, measured footsteps echoed on the marble floor of the foyer.

Eloisa's heart kicked against her ribs. She turned her head toward the arched doorway.

A man walked into the room.

He was tall, with broad shoulders encased in a flawless, dark navy suit. He reached up with one hand and unbuttoned his suit jacket as he walked. The movement was fluid and elegant, but the aura radiating off him was freezing cold.

Eloisa stopped breathing.

She knew that face. Everyone in America knew that face. She saw it on the news channels playing in the campus coffee shop. She saw it on billboards lining the highway.

Senator Hilbert Wilkinson.

He was the youngest senator in the country. The golden boy of the Wilkinson political dynasty. And he was currently running for President of the United States.

Eloisa's pupils dilated. Her fingers dug into the velvet sofa.

It was him.

The blurry memory of the deep, dark eyes snapped into perfect focus. In the fragmented, drunken memory, his eyes had seemed dark, almost black. But here, in the cold, clear light of the mansion, she saw they weren't black at all. They were the color of slate-gray, like a stormy sky just before it breaks. They were the exact same eyes that stared out from the television screens. Cool, calculated, and entirely untouchable.

Hilbert walked past Eloisa without even glancing at her. He looked at the elderly woman.

"Grandmother," he said, giving a slight nod.

Then, he turned his head. For the first time, his slate-gray eyes landed on Eloisa.

He didn't look at her like she was a human being. He looked at her the way a mechanic looks at a broken engine. He was assessing the damage. There was absolutely zero emotion in his gaze.

Eloisa felt completely naked under his stare. She instinctively crossed her arms over her chest, trying to make herself smaller.

Hilbert spoke. His voice was deeper than it sounded on television. It was a low, gravelly baritone that sent a shiver down her spine.

"So. This is her."

The words were an ice pick to Eloisa's chest. This is her. She wasn't a person. She was a problem. A variable in an equation.

Eleonora tapped her wooden cane against the floor. "Hilbert, sit down. Now that everyone is present, we will discuss the solution."

Hilbert sat on the sofa opposite Eloisa. He crossed his long legs. He looked entirely relaxed, yet his presence filled the room with an unbearable pressure.

"My solution is simple," Eleonora announced. "The two of you will go to City Hall and register your marriage today."

Eloisa shot to her feet. "What? No! Absolutely not! You can't force me to do that!"

Hilbert didn't even look at her. He kept his eyes on his grandmother. He adjusted his pristine white shirt cuff.

"Grandmother, this is entirely premature," Hilbert said, his tone flat. "There are much simpler ways to handle this situation."

Handle this situation.

Eloisa felt a wave of nausea hit her again. Did he mean paying her off? Or did he mean getting rid of the baby?

Eleonora struck the floor with her cane again. The sharp crack made Eloisa flinch.

"Simpler ways?" Eleonora snapped. "Like writing her a check and praying she disappears? And then waiting for the media to discover that the leading presidential candidate has a bastard child hidden in the slums?"

Eleonora pointed a shaking finger at Hilbert. "This is the first heir of the Wilkinson family. He will not be born a bastard."

Eleonora turned her sharp gaze to Eloisa. "And you, Miss Williams. Do you truly believe a single mother, working at a coffee shop, can provide a safe life for a child with Wilkinson blood? The press will tear you to pieces."

The words hit Eloisa like concrete blocks. She imagined the paparazzi. She imagined the cameras shoved in her face. She imagined her parents being harassed.

The room spun. She fell back onto the sofa.

Hilbert remained silent. His jaw clenched tight. He knew his grandmother was right. A scandal of this magnitude, right before the primaries, would destroy his political career instantly.

Eleonora delivered the final blow. Her voice left no room for negotiation.

"This is not a debate. The decision is made." She looked at the butler. "Pembroke, call City Hall. Tell the judge to prepare the paperwork."