orry that once loomed over their lives had started to clear while Adriana resumed her daily habits; making tea in the morning, taking quiet

a strange admiration for the way she had carried herself with dignity in a moment of desperation? Whatever the reason was, he texted often, and maintain simple check-ins that s

his phone's screen, he reread the message hoping he had misread it but

his personality over years in business. He had seen deception before, had been surrounded by people who sought t

ough to say for sure, but

e popping up in headlines about his growing empire, and if word got out that he was caught in a pregnancy scandal, the consequences could be severe; millions of dollars were on the line and I

and with no dramatic plea for attention, and it was not the kind of message that screamed manipulation, but even if she was telling the truth, the risk was too great to handle this casually, and he

ybe a year during which they would keep up appearances for the press. They would present a united front, while avoidi

d need to iron out. He typed his response carefully, with his words precise and deliberate "Adriana, I wasn't

she had already agreed to a transaction once before; one night for the money she

this was just another calculated move, another de

w deep down in his heart that th

woman he had expected to forget had become someone he could not ignore, and