Initially, Gideon had considered hiring someone to be a surrogate, carrying his heir until it was born and then nannies could care for it. But then he considered how that would look to shareholders, clients, and even the well-connected and dangerous VIPs he worked for who were all about “family.”
So, he decided that a contract marriage would work better. There’d be no emotional mess involved, and both parties would get what they wanted—he’d get an heir, and his partner would get access to billions of dollars and the luxurious lifestyle that came with being the wife of one of the most powerful and wealthy men in the US.
One look at Kendra Little, though, and he knew that contracts and referendums and NDAs wouldn’t get him to thealtar as fast as a smile, a few charming words, and a few candlelight dinners would.
From the info Logan gathered, Gideon could read her like a book—the woman was a romantic; literature degree, thousands of romances in her Kindle library, hundreds of romantic comedies in her streaming history, and several slightly used dating apps on her phone all told him that she wanted the hearts in her eyes before she’d ever sign on the dotted line.
Which only made things easier for him.
BigMad: I’ll charm her. She’s easy.
Immediately, Logan replied.
MadLo: It’s never that easy.
Fuck, but that asshole was right.
Too bad it would take him losing her to figure that out….
Chapter One
Three Years Later….
Kendra Maddox stared down at the words on the five-by-eight sheet of white, printer-grade paper the doctor placed into her trembling hands, and let the tears roll down her face.
Pregnant.
Six weeks.
She was having a baby.
Finally.
Her voice barely a whisper, caught in her throat. “Thank you,” she croaked, wiping furiously at the tears with her hands, ignoring how they shook.
“You don’t need to thank me, Mrs. Maddox,” Dr. Nian Chaudry remarked, her dark brown gaze soft. She stood from the stool beside the exam table where Kendra was seated, fully dressed, holding that precious sheet of paper. “I’ll give you a minute. Once you’re ready, come out front, we’ll set up your first prenatal appointment for a month from now.”
Prenatal appointment.
Surreal.
It was unbelievable. Utterly, wholly, beautifully unbelievable.
But it was true.
After three years of monthly disappointment, anxiety, heartache, and a cold emptiness, she was finally pregnant.
Gideon would be ecstatic!
And she could finally meet his gaze without feeling like a failure as a wife. Not that he’d ever said that or even hinted at it, but she wasn’t blind. She could see how the eagerness in his striking green eyes had slowly shifted over the many months to disappointment, then frustration. And now, she couldn’t miss the way he didn’t even ask her anymore, how their nights of passion grew colder and colder, and how his face grew taut and his gaze turned wary when he knew her period was coming.
It hadn’t always been like that, though. In the beginning, he’d been sweet, affectionate, charming, thoughtful, doting. When he’d proposed only five weeks after they met, she was so overjoyed she wept. She had finally gotten the happily ever after she’d been dreaming of since she was a little girl.
When she’d first spied Gideon Maddox across the ballroom at the Singles in Business gala, she’d been struck utterly dumb. She’d seen him before on TV and in online publications about his rise to being the God of Manhattan; his power, his presence, his devastating good looks, his billions—all gaining him the attention of millions of admirers. She’d never seen him in person, though, and witnessing him and all his sensual, masculine glory, she couldn’t tear her eyes from him as he strode into the ballroom. Heck,everyeye in the room had been drawn to him—he was over six feet of hard work and discipline in a tailored suit. She knew from seeing his picture in magazines and on TV—standing with some A-list actress or model on his arm—that he had the most striking green eyes, a breathtaking contrast to the raven-wing black hair, which was only just graying at the temples.
At nearly forty years old, he’d looked better than any man her own age ever could.
And he still did, even three years later.
