The Billionaire's Rescue novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Back Stairs
Halley tears up Lance's check on his hotel's service stairs; he shoves her down them, and a stranger on the landing says he saw everything.
Lance's text came in at 6:12, while I was pulling the last tray of cardamom buns out of the oven.
"Come to the Stroud Grand tonight. Staff entrance on Lower Wacker. We need to talk."
It was the first message I'd had from him in nineteen days.
I read it with flour on my thumbs and one hand on my belly.
I was twenty weeks pregnant.
I had told him in his kitchen, fourteen weeks ago, with the test still in my fist.
He had said, "I'll handle it," and kissed my forehead like he was closing a deal.
After that, nothing.
His phone went to voicemail, and his doorman told me he'd moved out.
So I put on the one good dress I owned, a green one from a thrift shop, stretched tight across my middle.
I took the train downtown with my heart going.
The guard at the staff entrance checked a clipboard and waved me through.
"Mr. Stroud said to expect you," he said, and he didn't meet my eyes.
I walked past the kitchen steam and the clatter of trays until I could see the ballroom doors.
A banner hung over them in gold script.
Celebrating the Engagement of Margot Hartwell and Lance Stroud.
I stood very still.
Beside the doors, on an easel, was a photo of Lance in a tuxedo with his arm around a tall woman in cream.
She had long dark hair and grey-blue eyes and a smile that looked tired.
He was smiling.
"Not in there," Lance said behind me.
He took my elbow and steered me through a steel door into a service stairwell.
It smelled like bleach and cold concrete.
The door shut, and the party noise dropped to a hum.
He let go of me and looked me over, and I saw him notice my belly and look away from it.
"You came," he said. "Good. Let's keep this simple."
He took a folded check from his jacket and held it out.
Fifty thousand dollars, made out to me.
"There's a clinic on Michigan Avenue," he said. "Eight a.m. tomorrow. It's paid for, and nobody will ever know."
I stared at the check.
I thought about my mother working nights at St. Anne's for thirty years so I could eat.
I thought about the heartbeat I'd heard on Tuesday, quick as a bird.
"You told me you'd handle it," I said.
"This is handling it."
"You got engaged while I was throwing up in a bakery sink."
"Halley, don't make this ugly."
I took the check out of his hand.
I tore it in half, then in half again, and I let the pieces fall on the landing between us.
"I'm keeping her," I said. "I don't need your money, and I don't need you."
His face changed.
The charm slid off it.
"You think you get to walk in there?" he said, low. "You think my mother won't bury you?"
"Then let her do it in front of everybody. I'm going in."
I turned for the door.
He caught my wrist and yanked me back, hard enough that I felt it in my shoulder.
"You're not going anywhere."
"Let go of me."
"Stop being stupid."
I twisted free and tried to get around him to the door.
He blocked it with his body, and my heels were on the top step.
I said, "I'll tell Margot myself."
Lance put both hands flat on my chest and shoved.
I felt the floor go.
My heel caught nothing.
I had one thought, and it was my arms, and they went around my belly.
I hit the steps with my hip and then my shoulder, and the concrete corners went into me as I rolled.
I slid the last few steps and stopped on the landing with my cheek against the cold floor.
For a moment I couldn't breathe.
Then I could, and the first thing I did was press my palm to the baby and wait.
A flutter.
Small and furious.
"Oh, thank God," I whispered into the concrete.
Above me, Lance's shoes came down one step and stopped.
"Halley?" His voice shook. "Get up. Come on, get up."
He wasn't coming to help me.
He was checking whether I would make a noise.
A door opened somewhere below, and heavy footsteps came up fast.
A man dropped to his knees beside me, a big man in a black tuxedo with a shaved head and a short dark beard.
He had a phone in one hand, already at his ear.
"Ambulance, Stroud Grand, back stairwell, pregnant woman fell," he said, flat and fast.
He hung up and looked at my face.
His eyes were grey, and he did not look away from my belly the way Lance had.
"Don't move. Where does it hurt?"
"My hip," I said. "My shoulder. The baby moved."
"Good. Stay down."
He pulled off his jacket and laid it over me.
Lance laughed, high and thin, from the stairs.
The color left Lance's face.
"Mr. Rask," he said. "Sir, I'm sorry, I don't know this woman. She's drunk, and she's been stalking my family for weeks. Call security."
I knew the name from the magazines at the bakery counter.
Torben Rask owned half the trucks in Illinois.
The big man stood up slowly.
He climbed three steps, until his chest was level with Lance's face.
"I was on the landing below with the door open," he said. "I watched you push her."
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