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Prologue
Nova Ellis lay in misery on the small leather couch in her boyfriend’s office and prayed for death. Anything—the horror of a firing squad, the terror of being snared in a noose, even contracting some flesh-eating bacteria—had to be better than this.
Roiling waves of nausea that suggested she’d somehow gone from the rock-solid streets of New York City to the high seas of the Atlantic mere hours before a hurricane hit assaulted her system with ruthless abandon. At the mere thought of a wavy ocean her stomach rolled once more and Nova held tight to the couch, praying she’d be allowed to keep what little was left in her stomach.
Like its lining.
Because that was all that was left, and after the past three weeks of abject afternoon sickness she was even starting to wonder about that.
It was her fault. Realistically, she knew that. The bagel smothered in whitefish salad she’d inhaled that morning had tasted great at the time but the fish had had its revenge. So had the tapioca pudding she’d snagged at the deli on her walk over to Ferdy’s office. And the small bag of gummy bears she’d dug out of the bottom of her purse—shocked and grateful when she’d found that prize—had been the last thing to seal her fate. She’d even eaten the lime-flavored ones, something she’d avoided her entire life.
Who even liked lime?
Why did they even make lime?
That hateful flavor she should have avoided, as lime-flavored whitefish made a rather unpleasant combination when one couldn’t keep anything down.
She closed her eyes, willing the dancing images of gummy bears and bagels out of her head and vowing that all she needed was a few more minutes. She’d come to tell Ferdy the good news of her pregnancy and she wanted to look nice when she told him.
She wanted him to be as excited as she was.
Even if the small voice that kept whispering he wasn’t going to be excited seemed to be winning as of late.
r /> Oh, sure, it wasn’t the most ideal time. They’d only been dating a few months but their relationship had been a whirlwind from the start, and she knew he was looking toward having a family of his own. He’d told her as much on their first date. He wasn’t a man trying to play games or keep diving into the dating pool.
He wanted a future and he was seeking a woman who wanted the same.
They’d talked about everything that first night. Their love of music and movies, their dreams and aspirations, and their equally challenging childhoods—his with parents who couldn’t seem to make up their minds between overbearing and absent, and hers with a mother whose idea of encouragement and support was shopping on the Champs-Élysées to solve any problem.
Ferdy had seemed to understand and she’d been so happy to find that in her significant other. Even if he hadn’t shown the same understanding since then, his own behavior oddly like that of the father he spoke of with disdain. He seemed to be overbearing or absent far too often.
But could she blame him? He had a busy job and was often out for days at a time working on real estate deals. And it wasn’t like she’d been totally honest with him, either. It wasn’t a complete lie that her father had died, but it wasn’t totally true, either.
The dead man she’d always called “Dad” wasn’t actually her real father. She’d spent most of her life believing Paul Ellis was her father and her mother’s deathbed confession—that Allegra Ellis had gone out and found a more attractive man after her ill-fated relationship with another had resulted in the pregnancy with Nova—couldn’t change that.
Even if it had changed everything.
But no, she wouldn’t give in to that line of thinking. There might be some man named Colton all the way out in Arizona who was her biological father, but he hadn’t been her real father. Hadn’t been the person who’d raised her. Her mother might have believed she was getting her revenge on the man by never telling him that she was pregnant, but Nova couldn’t see how. Now that she was pregnant with a child of her own, she understood the difference.
A door opened in Ferdy’s outer office and she mustered up a wan smile to herself, thinking of his face when she told him. She’d settled on surprising him in his office, taking some strange comfort in her mind’s eye that there would be others nearby. Of course, because he’d be so excited he’d want to share his joy.
Of course it would be excitement.
His dark brown eyes would crinkle at the corners, before his strong lips pursed in thought. He was always like that, considering the world around him before he let his emotions come through.
Before his dazzling, bright white smile would take over his face and he’d pull her close in happiness at the news he was going to be a father.
She struggled to sit up, desperate for the sweet image in her mind to will away the nausea that still had her stomach quaking. Slowing her movements, she gingerly laid her head back against the thick leather cushions.
Just a few more minutes with her eyes closed... That was all she needed.
Nova had no idea how long she’d been out, drifting on the blessed wings of sleep, when she heard a heavy crash from the outer office. Was that a glass? One of the pretty crystal tumblers Ferdy kept on his credenza?
“Come the hell on, Ferd. I expected that shipment three days ago!”
“Port’s on lockdown, Gino. My contacts there can’t do nothing about it.”
Eyes popping open, Nova struggled to sit up. She didn’t know all the ins and outs of Ferdy’s business but she knew enough to know that something wasn’t right. He worked in real estate, not shipping. And she’d never heard that terse tone in his voice before.
It was...nasty, somehow. Dark.
An involuntary shiver ran down her spine, the blessed cool of the room she’d reveled in a few minutes earlier suddenly making her skin clammy.
“My business partners and I trusted you with that shipment!”
“And I’m telling you I can’t do a damn thing until the Feds ease up their sniffing around the docks. It was bad luck all around the Russians lost that shipment a few weeks back. Got the Feds on high alert, especially after they found a thousand kilos of smack nestled inside all those cheap nesting doll souvenirs.”
The nausea that had coated her stomach like battery acid changed in that moment. The roiling upset was still there, but something had changed. Fear coated her tongue, leaving a bitter, metallic taste behind that had nothing to do with lime-flavored gummies.
Ferdy was a real estate developer. Yet from the sounds of it, he knew how shipments came in and out of port and which ones held drugs or other illicit substances.
Scrambling off the couch, she grabbed her purse and ran to the private bathroom off the side of his office. When he came in she’d claim she’d gotten sick off her lunch and had been huddled in there feeling miserable. For the first time since arriving twenty minutes ago, she was grateful for her pasty white visage and bloodshot eyes.
She just might convince him she had food poisoning.
And if he thought she’d been in the bathroom he wouldn’t know what she’d heard through the door.
It would buy her some time to figure out what to do. And would give her a small window to plan her next step.
The door to his office clicked open and she heard voices grow louder as Ferdy walked into the room with the man he’d been talking to. Nova was tempted to peek through a crack in the door but she stayed where she was, convinced things would go easier if she was discovered huddled over the toilet instead of watching through the door.
Thick footsteps traversed the outer office, moving around as the conversation continued. More talk of shipments and an “expected delivery” and estimates of when issues at the port would calm down.
Each word more damning than the last.
And each syllable like a bullet to the chest, convincing her that the man she’d believed herself in love with—the man whose baby she carried even now—was a liar and a cheat.
And a drug dealer.
Good Lord, who had she taken up with?
She laid a protective hand over her stomach, suddenly grateful she hadn’t had a chance to share her news of the baby.
Once again, footsteps came perilously close to the bathroom door before the shrill ring of a cell phone filtered through the partially closed door.
“Adler,” Ferdy snapped out.
Nova heard a few mumbled yeses, noes and even a “not my fault,” before she heard the distinct sound of his phone hitting the glass top of his desk. The string of curses that followed suggested the call hadn’t gone as planned, but it was the added taunt from the other faceless voice she’d heard that had her wincing.
