My Fiancé Cheated, So I Dated My Billionaire Boss

"I'm thirteen weeks pregnant."

Paige said it like a birthday wish. Grant kissed her temple.

Thirteen weeks.

I did the math before I could stop myself. Three months ago, Grant had sat beside me at the jeweler on Madison, turning a platinum band under the light.

"This one," he'd said. "It looks like you. Simple. Strong."

That same night we'd argued, laughing, over Lisbon or Santorini for the honeymoon. He'd picked Santorini. He'd kissed my shoulder and called me Mrs. Mercer in a fake British accent.

Thirteen weeks.

It wasn't one mistake. It wasn't wedding stress. It was a whole season of lies, running right alongside the life I thought we were building.

I looked down. My fingers had gone white around the champagne flute.

"Oh my God!" Aunt Denise, Paige's mother, shot up from her chair. "A baby! Everyone, glasses up! To the new family!"

Glasses lifted around the room. Somebody whooped.

Mom turned her head and found me. Her eyes were soft. Hopeful. Asking.

Smile, Audrey. Help us get through this.

I set my glass on the table. The base hit the wood harder than I meant it to.

"I hope the baby is healthy," I said. "I really do. But I won't toast to how you lied to me."

The noise in the room didn't stop all at once. It sank, table by table, like a tide pulling out.

Grant stepped forward, one hand raised like he was calming a horse. "Okay. Let's be fair here. Audrey and I were done long before any of this. Everybody knows we'd been struggling. Paige just helped me through a hard time."

Uncle Ray nodded slowly. A cousin near the bar gave Grant a sympathetic little wince.

I almost admired it. He'd rewritten five years in two sentences.

"Struggling," I said. "Then why did you text me last Tuesday to pay the honeymoon balance before the deadline?"

Grant's mouth stayed open.

"I still have the message," I added. "You used three exclamation points."

Uncle Ray stopped nodding.

Grant came closer and dropped his voice. "Audrey. Not here. Think about your father."

"I am thinking about my father."

Behind us, a chair scraped back.

Dad was standing at the head table. He didn't raise his voice. He never had to.

He waved at the waiter beside the dessert cart, where a small white cake sat with *Baby Mercer* piped across the top in pink.

"Take that away, please."

The waiter froze. "Sir?"

"The cake. Take it back to the kitchen." Dad looked straight at Grant. "This is my retirement party. Don't use my name to ask my daughter to swallow this."

The waiter wheeled the cart off. One wheel squeaked the whole way.

Paige's face crumpled. The tears came right on cue.

"I never wanted to take anybody's place." She reached across the table for my hand. "Audrey, please. We're family."

I pulled my hand back before she could touch it.

Her tears dried so fast it was almost impressive. Her eyes slid to Miles.

"Wow. Okay," she said. "So that's why you showed up with your boss a week later. You needed everyone to see somebody still wants you."

Grant jumped on it. He turned to Miles with a thin smile. "You do know she's just using you to get back at me, right?"

Heads turned. Aunt Denise. Two cousins. Mom.

They were all looking at me now, at the exact thing I'd been hiding under the navy suits and the clean contracts. The question I'd been asking myself all week.

Was I just trying not to be the girl who got left?

My throat closed. I waited for Miles to say something smooth. *We've been in love for months. She's the best thing that ever happened to me.* Some line built to win.

He didn't say any of it.

He moved half a step closer, until his shoulder was beside mine, and he spoke only to me.

"Do you want to stay," he asked, "or do you want to go?"

That was it. No speech. No story.

Just a choice, put back into my hands.

Something in my chest unknotted. I didn't have to win this. I didn't have to prove anything to a room full of people who'd already picked their seats.

"Go," I said.

I crossed to the head table. Dad opened his arms before I got there.

"I'm sorry, Dad. I'll take you to dinner next week. Just us. Your choice of steakhouse."

He held me tight. He smelled like the same cedar aftershave he'd worn my whole life.

"Kiddo," he said into my hair, "you're not the one who should be sorry."

---

The terrace doors swung shut behind us, and the party noise went muffled and far away.

They opened again ten seconds later.

"Audrey. Wait."

Grant. Of course.

He didn't even look at me first. He looked at Miles. "You really think a guy like him is serious about a woman who just got dumped a week before her wedding? Come on. You're a rebound with a corner office."

Miles didn't answer. He just watched Grant like he was a bad clause in a contract.

I turned around.

"You're married, Grant," I said. "You got married. You have a baby on the way. So why are you still chasing me outside to check if anyone loves me?"

He blinked. His jaw worked. Nothing came out.

For once in five years, Grant Mercer had no answer.

Miles lifted a hand toward a club attendant near the stairs. "Excuse me. Could you help this gentleman back inside? His wife is waiting."

The attendant nodded and stepped up beside Grant. "Sir. This way, please."

Grant shot me one last look. Then he went.

---

The wind off the harbor pulled my hair loose from its pins and whipped it across my face.

I pushed it back. I had a line ready. *Thank you. You held up your end. We're even.* It was what the deal said.

Miles stood a few feet away, hands in his pockets. Not close. Not touching me. He'd stayed that exact polite distance all night, unless I said yes.

I didn't say the line.

I reached out and caught his sleeve. The wool was cool under my fingers.

"I want to kiss you," I said quietly. "Not so he can see."

He went very still. His eyes searched mine, careful and serious.

"Are you sure, Audrey?"

"I'm sure."

He took his hands out of his pockets. One came up to my jaw, light, like he was giving me one more chance to step back.

I didn't.

He bent his head and kissed me.

Every line I'd rehearsed in the car, every fake-girlfriend smile, every rule on that phone note, all of it fell apart. His mouth was warm. My hand tightened on his sleeve and then slid up to his collar, and he made a low sound against my lips that I felt all the way down my spine.

When we finally pulled apart, I caught a flash of movement through the glass doors.

Grant stood just inside, staring at us. His face had gone blank with shock.

I didn't turn around.

Miles brushed his thumb along the corner of my mouth, wiping away a smudge of my lipstick. His voice dropped lower than the wind.

"There's one rule I need to change. Right now."

My stomach sank. Here it was. Rule four. Either of us can end it.

"Okay," I whispered. "Which one?"

He didn't let go of my face.

"I've wanted to kiss you," he said, "since long before we ever made a deal."