Page 78 of Filthy Rich Silver Foxes
I don’t bother looking up. "Come in."
Dom steps inside, a manila folder in hand, his expression a mask of calm. That’s the first warning. Dom is steady under pressure, but he’s not emotionless. When he goes blank, it means he’s carrying something he knows won’t sit well.
He places the folder neatly in front of me, then takes a step back without a word.
I drag the folder toward me, flipping it open with two fingers. Genevieve St. Claire.
For a moment, the room around me fades, replaced by the brutal memory of her standing between Max and Silas, their bodies close enough to crowd her, their hands brushing against her skin with a familiarity that makes me sick to my stomach.
She was radiant, glowing under the ballroom lights, but all I could see was the betrayal splintering across her face when her gaze locked with mine. The way the blood drained from her cheeks, the way her body stiffened, told me everything I needed to know before she even opened her mouth.
Jealousy isn’t an emotion I indulge in. I control. I acquire. If I want something, I take it. There’s no room in my life for the petty, useless sting of wanting what I walked away from. Yet seeing her there—flushed, trembling, standing so close to men who know exactly how to get under my guard—felt like a blade slipping beneath my ribs and twisting until it found something soft.
The anger had been immediate. Blistering.
At her. At them. At myself.
A woman I barely knew six weeks ago should not have had the power to get under my skin. She shouldn’t have been able to crack through the armor I spent years building. But Genevieve is different.
I force the memory down, back into the cold, locked place where it belongs, and refocus on the folder in front of me.
Her face stares back at me from a clipped passport photo stapled to the corner of the first page. Genevieve’s life spills out in neat, clinical reports. I skim the first few pages—background, education, finances, bank records, travel logs, employment history. All of it checks out. No debt. No scandals. No skeletons in the family closet worth chasing. She's not a gold digger. Not a social climber. Every time she looked at me with those wide, trusting eyes, she wasn’t playing a game. She was exactly who she said she was.
But that can’t be true. I’m missing something. I must be. I know Dom. He wouldn’t bring me a folder for something I already know. There’s something deeper. Something worse.
I keep turning pages until I hit something that forces my hand to go still.
Medical report.
Pregnant.
Ten weeks.
I reread it once, then again, as if repetition will change the reality printed in sterile, detached language.
The math isn't complicated. Ten weeks is before Max. Before Silas.
Before everything burned to the ground between us.
Mine. The baby is mine.
The slow, seething burn that coils through my chest is heavier than anger, sharper than betrayal. It's rage—cold, suffocating, absolute. Rage at her for not telling me. Rage at myself for walking away. Rage at the reality pressing down, tighter and tighter, until it feels like breathing takes too much effort.
The breath I take is controlled, measured, but the world around me seems to tilt anyway. A low roar fills my ears.
I flip the folder closed with deliberate care, trapping the words inside as if that will change them, and look up at Dom, who hasn’t moved an inch.
"You’re sure."
It’s not a question. It’s a command for confirmation.
"Positive," he replies. "I verified it myself. Her last appointment was three days ago.”
I sit back in my chair, hands braced on the arms to keep myself still. Movement would be dangerous right now. I can feel the tight pull of my muscles, the way adrenaline wants to push me out of the chair, out the door, across the city to where she is.
She didn’t tell me. She didn’t try hard enough to make me listen.
Or maybe she did. Maybe I made it impossible for her to reach me.
