Pregnant And Hunted By The Billionaire

They didn't just throw her back to the wolves. They delivered her to hell.

Chloe Carlisle spent eighteen years surviving an abusive foster home, dreaming of the day her real family would finally come for her. When the wealthy Carlisles did, she thought she'd been saved. Instead, her jealous sister drugged her and locked her in a hotel room with a stranger-a trap designed to destroy her reputation forever.

The next morning, the Carlisles handed her a few hundred dollars and dumped her right back on her foster parents' rotting doorstep. She was disowned. Erased. A problem to be disposed of.

Within hours, her foster parents made a new plan: sell her to Cletus Cobb, a man with two dead wives and a taste for young girls. "Yeah, the face is still good," her foster father said. "Cletus will like it."

She had one chance to run. A rusty window. A twisted ankle. The dark.

The only thing she carried was a black card-sleek, nameless, left behind by the stranger from that hotel room. A man whose face she never saw, but whose ice-gray eyes she couldn't forget.

Now she's penniless. Hunted. And carrying that stranger's child.

When her beloved professor's life hangs in the balance, Chloe is forced to swipe the black card-knowing the transaction will light up on his screen like a beacon.

He finds her in a hospital hallway, standing frozen outside the OB-GYN wing, a crumpled pamphlet in her hand.

She looks up into those same ice-gray eyes.

"I'm here to collect what's mine."

...

The black sedan hadn't even stopped moving when Chloe saw her. Seraphina Carlisle, her supposed sister, was parked at the town line in a pearl-white Mercedes, leaning against the hood like she was posing for a magazine cover. She had driven six hours from Greenwich to watch this-six hours, just to see Chloe thrown away like garbage with her own eyes. As the sedan crunched over the gravel, Seraphina raised a champagne flute in a mocking toast. The smile on her face was a slash of victory, bright and cruel.

The irony of the "Welcome to Havenwood" sign was a bitter taste in Chloe Carlisle's mouth.

Her hand moved before she could stop it, pressing flat against her stomach-a gesture that had become habit over the past several weeks. She caught herself and forced her hand back to her lap. Not here. Not now. No one could know.

Chloe's fingers turned white, her short nails digging deep into the soft flesh of her palms. She focused on the sting, a small, sharp pain to distract from the crushing weight of humiliation pressing down on her chest, making it hard to breathe.

Six months. That was how long she had been a Carlisle. Six months since they'd found her in this godforsaken town and brought her to New York like a rescued stray-proof of the family's benevolence, good for a few headlines and a society magazine spread. Six months of trying to fit into a world that had never wanted her. And now, six hours in a car to be returned like defective merchandise. The Carlisles hadn't just discarded her. They had delivered her back to hell and sent an escort to make sure she arrived.

Mr. Abernathy, the Carlisle family's butler, sat beside her, his face a mask of professional indifference. He held out a thin white envelope. "Mr. Carlisle asked me to give you this."

Inside, she knew, were a few hundred-dollar bills. A final insult. Severance pay for a daughter they had cast off.

"Mr. Carlisle also said," Abernathy continued, his voice as sterile as a hospital room, "that from this day forward, you have no connection to the family."

Chloe stared straight ahead, her voice a raw whisper. "I didn't do anything."

"It doesn't matter," he replied, without a flicker of emotion. He took her worn canvas bag from the seat and shoved the envelope inside. The gesture was dismissive, final.

The car slowed to a stop in front of a dilapidated single-story house. Its once-white siding was gray with grime, and the porch sagged like a tired old man. Abernathy exited the car and opened her door, the motion as practiced and impersonal as if he were opening it for a sack of groceries. "Miss."

The front door of the house burst open. Frank and Debra Hicks, her foster parents, rushed out, their faces plastered with greasy, hopeful smiles.

Then their eyes landed on Chloe, alone on the curb. The smiles vanished, replaced by masks of pure fury.

"Where's our money?" Debra shrieked, her voice high and shrill. She directed her venom at Abernathy, who was already retreating to the safety of the car. "The Carlisles promised us money!"

Abernathy paused, his hand on the car door. "The arrangement has been terminated."

He slid back into the sedan without another word. The engine purred to life, and the car pulled away, leaving Chloe in a cloud of dust and the toxic glare of her foster parents.

Frank's hand shot out, his thick fingers clamping around her upper arm like a vise. The force of it made her stumble.

"You useless thing!" he roared, his breath sour with the smell of cheap beer. "You ruined our chance to finally get paid!"

From the neighboring yard, a curtain twitched. Martha Gibbs, the town's most notorious gossip, poked her head out. Her eyes lit up with malicious glee. Behind her, more curtains moved. More faces appeared in doorways. The whole street was watching now-the town's favorite spectacle, the girl who had dared to escape and been dragged back.

"Look, everyone!" Martha shouted to anyone who would listen. "The little crow who thought she was a phoenix got her wings clipped and sent back to the dirt!"

A smattering of cruel laughter drifted from other porches. Fingers pointed. Whispers slithered through the humid afternoon air.

Heat flooded Chloe's cheeks, a burning tide of shame. She tried to wrench her arm free from Frank's grip, but he only squeezed harder.

Debra lunged from behind, snatching the canvas bag from Chloe's shoulder. She turned it upside down, dumping its meager contents onto the muddy ground. A change of clothes, a worn toothbrush, and a few paperback books tumbled out.

Debra's eyes latched onto the white envelope. She ripped it open, her fingers fumbling as she counted the bills. A sneer twisted her lips. "Is this it? A few hundred bucks? What is this, charity for beggars?"

Chloe's gaze fell on the scattered books. One of them, a detailed medical atlas with anatomical illustrations, lay open, its pages exposed to the filth. It was her most prized possession.

Frank didn't wait for an answer. He dragged her toward the house, his grip bruising. The front door slammed shut behind them with a deafening bang, sealing her in.

The air inside was thick and suffocating, a foul mix of stale cigarette smoke, spilled alcohol, and the damp scent of mildew.

He shoved her hard. She lost her balance and fell, her elbow cracking against the rough, splintered floorboards. A sharp, radiating pain shot up her arm.

She pushed herself up, her vision swimming. A figure emerged from one of the back rooms. Her foster brother, Dale Hicks. His eyes, small and predatory, raked over her, a greasy smile spreading across his face.

Chloe's stomach churned with a familiar dread.

"Well, she's worthless to the rich folks now," Debra said, kicking at one of Chloe's books. "But that pretty face might still be worth something to someone around here."

Frank's gaze moved over Chloe, slow and calculating, as if he were assessing livestock at an auction.

A cold fist of terror squeezed Chloe's heart. This was worse. This was so much worse than being rejected by the Carlisles.

She instinctively curled into herself, her arms wrapping around her midsection, a desperate, unconscious gesture to protect the one secret she held. The secret growing inside her, the one she hadn't told a single soul.

Frank and Debra's voices dropped to conspiratorial whispers. They were talking about Cletus, a man from the next county over, an old bachelor known for his money and his heavy fists.

The whispers grew louder, weaving a net around her. The cold tide of despair she'd been fighting all day finally rose up, pulling her under, drowning her in its icy depths.