ONE WILD NIGHT
She's lying," he tells the cameras. But the truth in his eyes says otherwise.
Struggling on scholarship and multiple jobs to support her family, she never expected one night to change everything. But when a pregnancy test confirms her worst fears, the father, a billionaire's heir, publicly denies her claims to protect his own future.
Now she's fighting a battle on two fronts: keeping her scholarship while raising a child alone, and facing down one of the most powerful families in the country.
In a world where money talks and reputations can be bought, she has only one weapon, the truth.
But when lies have billion dollar consequences, will the truth be enough to survive?
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Chapter 4
I almost made it.
Three weeks passed without mistakes. My plan was running smoothly. I filled my days with extra tutoring sessions, worked double shifts at Romano's that left me with almost no time to sleep, and kept a pile of scholarship applications for single mothers under my mattress. I even started taking pregnancy vitamins, mixing them in with my normal pills. Zoe knew and worried sometimes, but I tried not to let it show too much.
The morning sickness had become something I could manage. Crackers before getting out of bed, ginger tea between classes, bathroom breaks timed during lectures. I handled it the way I handled everything quietly, carefully, and with Zoe's steady support when I needed it most.
"You're glowing," Mom said during our weekly video call, her voice weak but warm from her hospital bed. "Are you using a new face cream?"
I forced a laugh, hoping the laptop camera didn't catch the guilt in my eyes. "Just the natural glow of too much school stress."
"Don't work too hard, sweetheart. You're already doing more than enough."
If only she knew. But I'd gotten good at dividing myself into pieces, being exactly what each person needed me to be. Strong daughter. Responsible sister. Perfect student. And now secretly ,the woman carrying Alexander Stone's child while he prepared to marry someone else.
It was Tuesday morning when my carefully built world shattered.
I had just left British Literature, running through my afternoon tutoring schedule in my head, when my phone started buzzing nonstop. Call after call. Text after text. I frowned, expecting the usual mix of clients and work reminders.
Instead, Zoe's name flashed across the screen.
"Maya, where are you?" Her voice was breathless, panicked.
"Just left Morrison Hall. Why? What's wrong?"
"Don't go back to the dorm. Don't go anywhere crowded. Find somewhere private and call me back."
"Zoe, you're scaring me"
"Maya, it's everywhere. The photos, the story... Oh God, how did this happen?"
The line went dead.
I froze in the middle of campus, students brushing past me like water around a rock. Photos? What photos?
With trembling hands, I opened my browser and typed in my name.
The first headline made my knees weaken:
STONE HEIR'S SECRET BABY SCANDAL
Beneath it, a grainy hotel security shot: Alex leaving the elevator, shirt wrinkled, hair a mess, watch in hand, looking like a man who'd had a very good night.
Timestamp: 6:47 a.m.
The second photo was worse me, wearing Zoe's black dress, stepping into the same elevator twelve hours earlier.
Timestamp: 7:23 p.m.
A gossip blogger, Marcus Chen, had connected the dots that would unravel my life:
Stone heir Alexander spotted leaving mystery suite after overnight stay. Same evening, unidentified woman enters hotel. Sources confirm woman is Maya Collins, 22, Westfield University student. Collins recently seen visiting Hartford General's maternity ward. Connect the dots, people...
My phone lit up with notifications,Twitter mentions, Instagram tags, Facebook messages from people I hadn't heard from in years. The story was spreading like fire.
I ducked into an empty classroom, heart slamming so hard it hurt. This couldn't be real. Those photos were weeks old,who had held onto them, and why release them now?
The phone rang. Unknown number.
"Maya Collins? This is Jennifer Walsh from Entertainment Tonight. We'd love to hear your side"
I hung up. It rang again.
"Ms. Collins, David Morrison from People"
I switched it off, but the damage was already everywhere.
Through the window, I saw news vans rolling up outside campus. Reporters were spilling onto the quad with cameras and microphones.
A campus alert buzzed through anyway:
Media presence on campus. Avoid main entrances. Contact police if harassed.
They were here. For me.
I slipped out the back door, but even the quiet paths weren't safe. A photographer jumped from behind the library.
"Maya! Maya Collins! How long have you been involved with Alexander Stone?"
I ran.
By the time I reached my car, three more cameras had caught me. My phone showed forty-seven missed calls.
I drove to the only place I could think of;St. Catherine's Chapel, the tiny church near campus. Silence. Stained glass. Empty pews.
But my phone wouldn't stop buzzing. I answered only when Jake's name lit the screen.
"Maya, what the hell is going on?" His voice shook with fear. "Reporters are calling the house. They're asking Mom about you and some billionaire. She's freaking out."
My heart broke. "Where is she?"
"In bed. The nurse gave her something, but Maya... she keeps asking what you did. She thinks you're in trouble."
I closed my eyes, pressing my forehead to the wooden pew. My sick mother didn't deserve this.
"Jake, listen to me. Take care of Mom. Don't let her see the news. Don't let her go online. Promise me."
"Maya... are you really pregnant?"
The air in the chapel became s
"Yes."
"And the father... it's really that Stone guy?"
"Yes."
Silence. Then, softer, stronger than his fifteen years: "Are you okay?"
The question cracked me open. "I don't know."
"Do you want me to come?"
"No. Stay with Mom. I'll handle this."
But even as I said it, I didn't know if it was true.
The reporters weren't leaving. The scandal was too big,that I couldn't handle,rich heir, poor student, secret baby. The story told itself, and it painted me as the villain.
Another call. Unknown number. Against my better judgment, I answered.
"Maya Collins? Elena Rodriguez, Channel 7. I know you're overwhelmed, but right now people are calling you a gold-digger. Don't you want the chance to tell your truth?"
Gold-digger. The word burned through me. I never asked him for anything.
"Then say that. If you stay silent, others will tell your story for you."
Her words echoed long after she hung up.
And she was right. Someone had told Marcus Chen to connect me to Alex, even to the maternity ward. Someone who knew details that only a handful of people could know.
The last call came from Westfield University.
"Ms. Collins, this is Dean Morrison's office. The Dean would like to meet regarding the media attention on your... situation. Can you come at three?"
My scholarship. My future. Everything was suddenly in danger.
As I sat in the chapel, colored light washing over me, one thought chilled me more than the flashing headlines and snapping cameras:
Someone had betrayed me. Someone had sold my secret.
But who-and why?
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7.4
Forced into an unwanted marriage, quiet schoolteacher Delina Brooks is bound to Andrew Kingsley.He is a ruthless billionaire musician, cold and arrogant, and he hates Delina from the moment they wed.
But Andrew's world is not just his own. His glamorous ex-girlfriend, Camilla Laurent, and his manipulative sister, Veronica, are determined to destroy Delina-and reclaim Andrew for themselves. Surrounded by lies, secrets, and relentless enemies, Delina must fight for her dignity, her family, and her future.
As fate twists and turns, one question remains: Will the woman he despised become the only one he can't live without?
9.6
Areli was the hardest-working medic in the Blackridge Clan, but her efforts only earned her the title of a useless burden.
Her supposed lover, Eugene, and her senior mentor, Gloria, lured her to the edge of the deadly Blackwind Cliff and shoved her straight into the abyss.
She miraculously survived the freefall, only to return and find Gloria standing before the entire clan, wearing a mask of fake sorrow.
"Look! The traitor is back! She eloped with wild males!" Gloria shrieked.
Eugene stepped up, looking heartbroken, and publicly accused her of betraying his love.
The crowd erupted, raining hisses and boos upon her, completely ignoring the horrific, life-threatening bruises that covered her battered body.
They blindly believed the lies, treating her like garbage while Gloria secretly plotted to poison her water and destroy her completely.
Areli felt a chilling sense of betrayal. How could the man who claimed to love her watch her fall with such cold eyes?
To make matters worse, her modern biochemist instincts revealed a terrifying truth: she was unexpectedly pregnant with the child of a savage Warlord she had encountered in the wild.
In this brutal, primitive world, showing any weakness was an absolute death sentence.
But she wasn't going to cower or run away.
Refusing the Warlord's offer to simply rescue her, Areli calmly placed a highly toxic herb on her drying rack and left her tent flap open.
The bait was set. Now, she just had to wait for the screams.
7.7
The Cameron family clinic smelled like lemon polish and impending death. For three years, I'd been a vessel in a cold, forced marriage to Underboss Kade Cameron. But today, the doctor's words would shatter everything.
"No heartbeat," Dr. Finch declared, then, "Stage IV gastric cancer. Terminal." A double death sentence. As the world tilted, a news alert flashed: Kade, my husband, parading his mistress, Carla Shaw, across Europe-"a love that defies family lines."
Dying and carrying his dead child, I overheard nurses gossip Kade wanted me gone for his "true love." I chose to feel the D&C agony, cleansing him from my soul. Stumbling out, Kade accused me of killing his child, then rushed Carla, feigning illness, to OB/GYN, ignoring my bleeding and dying state.
Back at the mansion, I vomited blood, my body failing. Kade watched with disgust, dismissing my terminal diagnosis as a "performance." He called me "collateral," a "debt payment," then left me for his mistress. The last shred of loyalty shattered, replaced by chilling clarity.
I signed the divorce papers he dismissed as a "tantrum," leaving his ring. No longer a Cameron, no longer his possession. With Fluffy, I made one call, choosing to die on my own terms, finally free.
7.0
Five years after my ex, Clay, traded me for power, we met again at an exclusive summit. He and his new fiancée, Destany, publicly humiliated me, calling me a trespasser and a thief for looking for my son's lost locket.
Then, my three-year-old son, Justus, ran to me, crying "Mama!"
In a horrifying move, Destany snatched him from my arms.
She shrieked to the powerful crowd that I was a low-born commoner who had kidnapped a child of noble blood. The room erupted, calling for my arrest.
Clay, the man I once loved, watched with cold satisfaction as guards pinned my arms back. He ordered them to take my son away and deal with me. I screamed that Justus was mine, but my pleas were drowned out by their accusations.
How could this be happening? The man who once promised me everything was now helping to rip my child away from me, branding me a criminal.
But just as they were about to drag me away, an immense power slammed into the room, forcing everyone to their knees. A tall, imposing figure appeared, his golden eyes blazing with fury. My husband, Damien, had arrived.
7.3
Seven years ago, my fiancé, Don Dante Moretti, sent me to prison to take the fall for my adopted sister, Chiara. He called it a gift-a way to protect me from a worse fate.
Today, he picked me up from prison only to abandon me at my family's estate. His reason? Chiara was having another one of her "episodes."
My parents then informed me I'd be staying in the third-floor storage room, so as not to disturb the fragile girl who stole my life.
They celebrated her "recovery" with a lavish dinner party, while I was treated like a ghost. When I refused to join, my mother hissed that I was ungrateful, and my father called me jealous.
They assumed I couldn't understand their venomous whispers. But prison was my university. I learned Spanish. I understood every word.
It was then I realized I wasn't just a sacrifice; I was disposable. The love I once felt for all of them had turned to ash.
That night, in the dusty storage room, I logged onto an encrypted channel I'd set up years ago. A single message was waiting: "The offer stands. Do you accept?" My hands, scarred and steady, typed back, "I accept."
7.6
I was kneeling on the cold concrete of an abandoned warehouse, staring at a ticking timer while a masked man held a knife to my throat. My fiancé's nephew, Preston, finally burst through the door, but he wasn't alone. He was clutching my stepsister, Felicia, both of them looking frantic.
The kidnapper gave Preston a brutal choice: the bomb was rigged to the door, and he could only take one woman with him. The other would stay behind to burn.
Without a single second of hesitation, Preston grabbed Felicia's hand and turned his back on me.
"I'm sorry, Annelise," he said, his voice flat and devoid of any real regret.
He slammed the heavy iron door shut, leaving me to scream in the darkness as the flames began to roar. He didn't just leave me to die; he did it to protect his inheritance, treating me like a piece of trash that was finally being cleared from his path.
Later, in the hospital, he didn't even offer an apology. Instead, he raised his hand to strike me, threatening to finish what the fire started if I dared to speak a word about his cowardice. His stepsister laughed, trying to pour scalding coffee on my face while calling me a pathetic loser who should have stayed in the warehouse.
I sat there, cowering and shaking like a broken girl, letting them believe they had won. I watched their cruelty with wide, watery eyes, wondering how they could be so blind to the monster they were provoking.
What Preston didn't know was that the entire kidnapping was a performance I had choreographed myself, and every second of his betrayal was recorded in 4K.
Now, I've successfully moved into the manor of the real king-his uncle, Francesco Lancaster. He thinks he's rescued a wounded bird, but he's actually invited a world-class predator into his home. The game is no longer about survival; it's about total destruction.