The next morning, the penthouse was quiet. Bronson had left for the New York office early.
Eloise knelt on the rug and pulled the baby shoe box from beneath the sofa. She smiled, her fingers brushing the silver ribbon.
She walked into her closet and put on a fitted burgundy dress. She applied a light coat of lipstick and headed out the door.
The driver dropped her off at the towering glass headquarters of Ortega Technologies. Eloise took the private executive elevator straight to the top floor.
The elevator doors chimed open. Alex Cole looked up from his files, his polite smile stiffening for a fraction of a second when he saw Eloise. He immediately stood up, his body language projecting a courteous but firm barrier.
"Good morning, Mrs. Ortega," Alex said smoothly, though his eyes briefly flicked toward the closed doors of Bronson's office. "The boss is in a highly classified video conference right now. I'm afraid I cannot let you in."
Eloise noticed his tension but assumed it was just corporate stress. "That's fine, Alex. I'll just wait in his private study."
Alex stepped into her path, his hands twitching. But he was just an employee. He couldn't physically restrain the CEO's wife. Defeated, he rigidly opened the heavy oak door to the study.
Eloise walked in and placed the gift box squarely in the center of Bronson's massive mahogany desk.
She needed a pen and paper to write a card. She scanned the pristine desktop. Nothing.
She walked around the desk and pulled open the bottom drawer.
Instead of office supplies, there was a small, biometric steel safe bolted to the inside of the drawer. It had a digital keypad.
Driven by a strange impulse, Eloise typed in their wedding anniversary: 0512.
The safe emitted a sharp beep. The light turned green. The heavy steel door popped open.
Inside, there was no corporate data. Just a thick manila envelope bearing the logo of a premier reproductive medical facility.
Eloise frowned. She pulled the envelope out and slid the thick stack of papers onto the desk.
The bold, black letters on the first page screamed at her: COMMERCIAL SURROGACY NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT.
Eloise's lungs forgot how to process oxygen. Her eyes locked onto the signature at the bottom of the page. Bronson Ortega.
Her hands began to shake violently. She flipped to the second page. It was a medical profile.
Surrogate: Joni Blake.
Attached was a photo. It was the blonde woman from the paparazzi picture.
Eloise flipped to the third page. A black-and-white ultrasound printout fell onto the desk. The date was printed at the top. The medical notes read: Gestation: 7 Weeks. Fetal heartbeat strong.
The air in the room turned to lead. A sharp, agonizing cramp twisted Eloise's lower abdomen. She grabbed the edge of the mahogany desk to keep from collapsing.
Seven weeks. He had been building a child with another woman while holding her, while watching her cry over negative pregnancy tests, while swearing his absolute loyalty last night.
Acid burned the back of her throat. She wanted to vomit.
Heavy footsteps echoed in the hallway outside. Bronson's voice, deep and commanding, drifted through the wood. The meeting was over.
Adrenaline flooded Eloise's veins. She shoved the ultrasound, the profile, and the contract back into the envelope. She jammed it into the safe, slammed the steel door shut, and kicked the drawer closed.
She stumbled backward, collapsing onto the leather sofa just as the brass doorknob turned. Her hands flew to her lap, her fingers digging so hard into the burgundy fabric of her dress that her knuckles turned white.
