Sold To My Ex's Billionaire Uncle

Kelsey Costa stared at her son Leo's face, so pale and small against the hospital pillow. The white of the pillowcase swallowed him up.

The doctor's number was still ringing in her ears. Six figures. It hit her like a punch to the chest, stole her breath clean out.

Her heart slammed against her ribs so hard she thought they might crack.

She stumbled out of the room and her back hit the hallway wall, cold and flat and unforgiving. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead and her vision swam, everything tilting sideways. Her stomach dropped like she'd missed a step on a staircase.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket.

Text from Judith, her stepmother.

"Kelsey, if you want to save your son, do as I say. Tristan is waiting for you at The Plaza, suite 3909. This is your last chance."

The name Tristan made her stomach turn. Her fiancé. A man she couldn't stand to look at.

But "save your son" burned into her brain like a hot brand.

She bit down on her lower lip so hard she tasted blood. Her nails dug into her palms, left little half-moon marks in her skin. For Leo. She'd do anything for Leo. She never had a choice, not really.

"OK," she typed back. Her thumb shook over the screen.

Then she deleted the whole message thread. Gone. No proof. No way back.

Kelsey pulled herself together. She shoved the hurt down into a place she couldn't feel it. She talked to the night nurse, voice steady even though her hands were shaking, made sure Leo would be looked after. She leaned over her sleeping son, listened to his breathing, that tiny rhythm she'd die to protect. She kissed his forehead and forced herself not to sob.

She called an Uber.

New York lights streamed past the window, bright and uncaring. Every light was someone else's life, someone else's story. She'd never felt more alone.

The Plaza rose up in front of her, all gold and glitter. A world she was supposed to marry into but never belonged to. She tugged at the collar of her cheap jacket, felt like a fraud just standing there.

The lobby hummed with quiet money. Crystal glasses clinking. Voices low and smooth. Lilies and expensive perfume in the air. She kept her head down, moved through it like a ghost.

The elevator took her up to the 39th floor in silence that pressed against her ears. The hallway carpet was so thick it swallowed every sound, even her heartbeat.

Suite 3909. Brass numbers gleamed cold under dim lights.

Here it was. Point of no return.

She sucked in a breath and slid the key card Judith had sent her. It beeped, flat and wrong. Red light.

Panic clawed up her throat. Had she come all this way for nothing?

She pushed the door. Just to try. Just one last desperate try.

It swung open. Unlocked. Left ajar.

A warning screamed in her head. Wrong. All wrong.

But Leo's pale face flashed in front of her eyes.

She stepped inside.

The room was pitch black except for the Manhattan skyline blazing through floor-to-ceiling windows. A blanket of lights, scattered diamonds.

The air smelled like expensive whiskey and sharp cologne. Power. Dominance. Not Tristan's scent. Tristan smelled sweet and weak.

Her internal alarm went from screaming to full-blown sirens. She had to get out.

She spun around, reached for the door.

"Since you're here, where do you think you're going?"

The voice came from the shadows near the sofa. Deep. Cold. It pinned her in place like a nail through her foot.

Her blood turned to ice. She couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.

A tall shape rose from the darkness, backlit by the city glow. A predator unfolding. A giant of a man who made Tristan look like a child.

Fear finally broke her frozen limbs. She scrambled backward, her heel caught on the rug edge, and she gasped as she fell.

She never hit the floor.

An arm like steel hooked around her waist and yanked her forward. She slammed into a wall of muscle, heat radiating off him like a furnace. His presence overwhelmed her, shorted out every thought in her head.

A face descended toward hers. Shadows and moonlight carved his features. His lips, cool and firm, came down on hers.

It wasn't a kiss. It was a claim. An invasion. A punishment.

And Kelsey Costa's world went completely white.

She woke with a pounding headache and a heavy arm draped across her stomach. Silk sheets tangled around her legs.

She turned her head slowly.

The man beside her was not Tristan.

This man was terrifyingly beautiful. Sharp jaw like a blade. Straight nose. Dark hair fell across his forehead. Even asleep, his face radiated ruthless power.

A strangled sound caught in her throat. She clamped a hand over her mouth, eyes wide with horror.

She slid out from under his arm, limbs trembling, moving as slow as she could. Grabbed her clothes off the floor where they'd been tossed. Shame burned hot on her skin.

She had to get out. Now.

In the living area, her eyes landed on a stack of magazines on the glass coffee table.

The cover of the top one featured the man sleeping in the bedroom.

Her blood went cold.

The headline screamed: Burleigh Mckay IV: The Cold-Blooded Emperor of Wall Street.

Not Tristan.

His uncle. The head of the Mckay family. The man whispered about in terrified tones. The man violently averse to being touched. The man rumored to be completely asexual.

Her stomach dropped out.

She grabbed her purse and ran. Not walked, not tiptoed. Ran like the devil himself was on her heels. Fled the suite, the hotel, the life she thought she knew, and the catastrophic mistake that would now define it.

As the suite door clicked shut, Burleigh Mckay IV's eyes opened.

He sat up slowly. Stillness possessed him. It wasn't the woman's scent on his sheets that shocked him.

It was the complete absence of the familiar, agonizing rash on his skin.

He stared at his own hand, ran it over his chest. Nothing. For the first time since childhood, a woman's touch hadn't triggered the violent revulsion that was his curse.

The realization hit him like a physical blow.

Who the hell was she?