Page 1 of Million Dollar High

1

No. No, no, no.

“Fuck no.”

Time suspended, then kicked into slow motion. Noah waited for the denial. Waited for the nightmare that flashed across his vision to subside. A muffled whimper came from beside him.

Leia Michaels. The most important thing in his life right now stood next to him. The one person he had woken up this morning thanking his lucky stars for. The one he should be looking at. Taking care of. Hanging on to so she wasn’t dragged into this bedlam.

But he couldn’t look at her. Couldn’t force his gaze from Ashley Maitland, the woman sitting cross-legged on his living room sofa. The woman whose lips parted, ready to utter words he knew would change his life forever.

“Oh yes. One hundred percent, yes. You are going to be a father, Noah.”

“Dear God. Ashley, what… why?”

“Why? Because you’re supposed to be my husband and the father of my children,” she said with the same unapologeticassurance that stated the world owed her a living. A trait he’d once thought sexy.

Bitterness coating his mouth, he sliced a hand through his hair, resisting the urge to pull the damn strands out. The grenade she’d detonated in his life had done more than enough to unbalance him. The last thing he intended to do was grant her the satisfaction of knowing she’d turned his life inside out.

“We’re no longer together, Ashley.” He sucked in a deep breath, struggling for a civil tone in the face of her ridiculous assertion. “I’m no expert on pregnancy—that is if you really are pregnant—but I think baby brain is supposed to kick inafteryou have the baby. Unless you’re claiming amnesia on top of everything else that you’re making up right now?”

Her features tightened for a second before settling back into the serene look she liked to present to the world. Noah hadn’t noticed how creepy that transformation was before now.

“Why would I make up something that you can check in two minutes? I may be many things, but I’m not stupid. This is happening. I get that you need to take a moment, but Noah… it’s happening.”

Her gaze slid to Leia and back to him. The clear smugness in her eyes made him swallow hard.

Jesus. If she was telling the truth…

He was going to be a father. With the one woman he detested more than any other in the world.

His vision clouded for several seconds. He concentrated on getting air into his lungs and his brain. He needed to, so he could wrap his head around the insanity of the situation.

But even though the facts were clear, he couldn’t believe the enormity of the transgression.

He forced his hands into his pockets, to resist striding across the room and strangling her with them. “So let me get thisstraight. You used my sperm without my permission and got yourself knocked up so what… we could play happy families?”

Her smile widened, a shoulder lifting in a careless shrug. Despite her outwardly relaxed impression, Noah caught a dart of apprehension in her eyes. “You should never have left me. What happened two years ago was just to bring you to your senses. Even after you left, I thought you’d come back. We weren’t supposed to be apart for this long. You’ve dragged things out too far. It’s time for us to be together again.”

The choked sound came from beside him again. Head spinning, he glanced at Leia. Her face was ashen, her beautiful eyes a dark, haunted grey that stared back at him in bleak resignation.

No.

He moved toward her.

She took a step back.

His heart clenched. “Don’t do that. Don’t retreat from me,” he pleaded. With everything going to shit around him, he couldn’t take a world without Leia. He took her hand and, thankfully, her fingers closed around his.

From the corner of his eye, he saw movement. Warren Snyder—Leia’s ex-guardian and the other unwanted equation in this whole despicable debacle—rose to his feet. Again, the slimy bastard’s eyes slid to Leia in a way that made Noah want to cause him serious and permanent damage.

A tiny frozen part of him was quite impressed at how his two nemeses had orchestrated this meeting. Hell,hecouldn’t have planned it better.

That didn’t alter the fact that they were seriously messing with the one thing in the world most precious to him.

Leia.

He turned to her as she pulled her hand away. She foldedher arms across her midriff the way he’d come to recognize as a self-preservation tactic. This time he didn’t stop with one step. He took her arms, pulling her close, crowding her. When she refused to look at him, he captured her nape and forced her to face him.

---