Georgia jolted awake with her heart trying to pound its way out of her chest and a scream trapped in her throat, choking her.
Her hands flew to her chest immediately, searching frantically for the bullet wound that should have been there, for the blood that should have been soaking through her clothes, for any proof that she'd just died on a hospital floor while her baby was stolen and her husband watched with eyes as empty as a doll's.
There was nothing.
No wound. No blood. No pain beyond the phantom ache of memory.
Just smooth, unblemished skin beneath her trembling fingers.
She sat up slowly.
Breath came in short, panicked gasps that she couldn't seem to control.
The room around her swam into focus gradually from the haze of confusion that crashed over her in relentless waves.
But something was wrong. Very wrong.
Her entire body ached in ways that made her freeze and her breath catch for entirely different reasons than the phantom pain of death.
A deep, intimate soreness she recognized with growing horror. The kind of soreness that came from...
Georgia's eyes darted around the room, taking in details with mounting dread.
This wasn't any place she'd been in the past nine months of running, hiding and desperately trying to survive.
This was a hotel room.
Expensive, luxurious, with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city skyline, with silk sheets tangled around her naked body.
The masculine scent lingering on the pillows, mixed with something unmistakably intimate.
And she was alone.
The other side of the bed was empty, the sheets rumpled and still slightly warm, evidence that someone had been there recently. Very recently.
Georgia's mind reeled as recognition slammed into her.
She knew this room. She knew this exact moment with clarity that felt like a knife between her ribs.
The Celestial Grand Hotel.
The most prestigious hotel in the city, where rooms started at five thousand dollars a night and the penthouse suites were reserved months in advance by billionaires and foreign dignitaries. The hotel where every member of high society vied for the privilege of hosting their events, where being seen was almost as important as breathing for the city's elite.
The hotel where Arlo had hosted the Wellington Foundation's annual charity gala just last night.
Her phone buzzed insistently on the nightstand, making her jump.
With trembling hands, she reached for it and her heart stopped when she saw the screen lit up with multiple notifications.
Twelve missed calls. Fifteen text messages.
All from Mrs. Davies, the kind elderly woman who managed the orphanage Georgia had been funding.
The messages had started hours ago, around midnight.
'Mrs. Wellington, please call me when you can. Little Emma is having trouble breathing.'
'Mrs. Wellington, we've called an ambulance. Emma's allergic reaction is getting worse.'
'We're at St. Mary's Hospital. Emma is asking for you.'
'Mrs. Wellington, where are you? Emma needs you.'
The most recent message was from twenty minutes ago: 'Emma is stable now, thank God. But she was so scared. She kept asking why you didn't come.'
Georgia's stomach churned with guilt and confusion as memories from two different timelines crashed together in her mind.
In her previous life, she'd woken up late in the morning to find only one message from Mrs. Davies saying Emma's allergic reaction had been resolved.
She'd been so panicked, so desperate to make sure Emma was okay, that she'd rushed straight to the orphanage without even going home first.
She'd driven there in her wrinkled evening gown, not caring how she looked, only caring about the little girl who'd been asking for her.
But she'd woken up in the middle of the night, seen all the messages as they came in. And the memories of what would happen from now — the memories of her death and her stolen child — were crashing over her in waves that threatened to drown her.
Also, Georgia realized she'd been drugged.
Someone had put something in her drinks at the gala last night, made sure she was disoriented and vulnerable. Someone had brought her to this room. Someone had been with her in this bed.
And while she'd been unconscious, while someone had been using her body, a little girl who loved her had been fighting for her life and crying out for her.
The thought of her son hit her like a fist to the sternum.
The pregnancy that would result from this night had given her the only good thing in her entire marriage. Her beautiful baby boy with those striking eyes that had never quite looked like Arlo's, now that she thought about it.
The child she'd loved more than life itself. The child she'd died trying to protect.
The child who wasn't Arlo's at all.
'And as for your baby's real father? Well, that's a secret you'll never find out.'
Stella's words from her deathbed echoed in her mind, taking on new, terrible meaning.
They'd known. Somehow, they'd known all along that the baby wasn't Arlo's. That's why they'd been so confident taking him, so sure they could get away with it. That's why Arlo had watched with such cold detachment as she'd bled out on that floor.
Because the child had never been his to begin with.
Had Stella orchestrated this? Had she arranged for someone to bring her to this room while maintaining her own alibi beside Arlo at the gala?
The thought made Georgia's skin crawl.
Stella had been at Arlo's side all evening… she'd seen it herself. Which meant someone else had executed the plan. Someone Stella trusted enough to hand Georgia over to.
But why? What purpose would getting her pregnant by a stranger serve?
Unless the stranger wasn't a stranger at all. Unless the father was someone specific. Someone whose child would be valuable. Someone whose connection would serve a larger purpose.
The questions multiplied faster than Georgia could process them.
She looked down at her body, at the evidence of what had happened just hours ago. This was the night. Right now, at this very moment, her son had just been conceived. The child who would be born nine months from now, the child who would be stolen from her arms, the child whose fate she now had the power to change.
If she could figure out who his father really was.
If she could unravel the conspiracy before it destroyed her again.