The morning after the Gala, the A-Side studio was buzzing with the hangover of scandal. Victoria sat in the green room, clutching a bottle of ginger water, her skin clammy. The smell of hairspray and stale coffee from the craft services table hit her like a physical blow.
She bolted.
She barely made it to the private restroom down the hall before her stomach rebelled. She retched dryly, clutching the porcelain sink, trembling from the exhaustion of the pregnancy she was hiding from the world.
“Victoria?”
The voice was low and masculine. She froze. The door, which she hadn’t locked in her haste, pushed open. Dominic Valerius stood there. He didn’t look disgusted; he looked intently observant. His eyes swept over her pale face, the hand on her stomach, and the distinct lack of fever symptoms.
He stepped inside and locked the door behind him.
“You’re not sick,” Dominic said, his voice dropping to a whisper. “You’re expecting.”
Victoria straightened, wiping her mouth with a trembling hand. “Dominic, you can’t–“
“Does he know?” Dominic cut in, moving closer. He reached out, not to touch her, but to block her exit, creating a cocoon of privacy.
“No,” Victoria breathed. “And he can’t know. If William finds out, he’ll never let me go. He’ll use the baby to trap me in that house with her.”
Dominic studied her, his shark-like gaze softening into something fiercely protective. “Then he won’t know,” he vowed. “I have the best security team in the city. I will bury this secret so deep William would need a shovel and a map to find it. But you need to eat. You look like you’re going to faint.”
He placed a hand gently on her shoulder to steady her. Victoria looked up at him, relief flooding her features.
At the end of the hallway, William turned the corner. He had come to apologize, to explain the stock crash, to tell her he had nuked his legacy for her.
He stopped dead.
Through the frosted glass of the restroom door, he saw two silhouettes. He saw Dominic leaning over Victoria. He saw Victoria looking up at him with what looked like adoration. He saw them whispering, conspiring, intimate in a way that had nothing to do with business.
William’s hand clenched into a fist at his side. He didn’t see a woman with morning sickness. He saw a wife replacing her husband.