Chapter 1 - “Please tell me this isn’t what I think it is.”
“If there’s even a chance that child is mine…”
Elila Smith made 2 devastating discoveries on the same day. The 1st was that she was pregnant. The 2nd was that the father was her boss.
Not just any boss. Andrew Leprince, billionaire, founder and CEO of Leprince Corp, and the most powerful man in the food industry. The same man she had spent 1 unforgettable night with 3 weeks earlier, when she had no idea who he really was.
Now she was on the laboratory floor, unconscious, with pregnancy tests scattered beside her purse.
When she woke, the blue eyes she had been avoiding for weeks were watching her.
“Is it mine?” was his 1st question.
I had no idea that a single night could completely destroy my professional life before it even began, but that was exactly what happened when I accepted the 3rd lemon drop Koko insisted on ordering to celebrate my acceptance into the internship of my dreams.
The bar was too crowded for a Thursday. Ambient music barely competed with the noise of conversations and laughter. I was trying to look confident and adult, pretending I was not dying of nerves about starting at Leprince Corp the following Monday.
Koko had just gone to the bathroom when he sat down on the stool beside me. The 1st thing I noticed was his scent, something between wood and spices, something that made my stomach do a strange, involuntary flip.
“I’m sorry. Was this seat taken?”
His voice was deep and polite, with the tone of someone used to being heard without needing to raise it. I looked to the side and nearly choked on my drink.
The man beside me was not just handsome in the conventional sense. He was the kind of attractive that made a person momentarily forget how to form coherent sentences. Dark hair, slightly messy. A sharp jawline. Absurdly light blue eyes that seemed to see more than they should.
“It is now,” I managed, trying to sound casual while my heart decided this was the perfect moment to try to escape my chest. “My friend just went to the bathroom.”
He smiled in a way that made me feel as if we had already shared some private secret, ordered a whiskey neat from the bartender, then turned to me with genuine curiosity in his gaze.
“Celebrating something? You seem too happy to be alone in a bar on a Thursday.”
“I got an internship,” I said.
I did not know why I told him that. Normally, I was not the type to tell my life story to attractive strangers in bars. But the words were already out.
“At my dream company, actually. I start Monday.”
“Dream company,” he repeated, as if testing the words in his mouth. “What makes this company so special?”
That was when we really started talking.
Talking to him was absurdly easy in a way it should not have been. He asked about my degree in food chemistry, and instead of making the bored face most people made when I started explaining it, he leaned closer, genuinely interested.
“Molecular chemistry applied to gastronomy,” I explained, my enthusiasm growing along with the effects of the alcohol. “It’s about understanding the chemical reactions that happen when you cook. Why a soufflé rises, how proteins bind, the exact temperature that makes sugar caramelize perfectly.”
His eyes lit with something that looked like amusement mixed with fascination.
“You’re passionate about this.”
“Completely obsessed,” I admitted, laughing. “My friends hate me because I can’t just eat something without analyzing the molecular structure of the dish.”
“What do you do?” I asked, realizing he had let me talk for so long without saying anything about himself.
He hesitated for a fraction of a second, took a sip of whiskey, and answered in a casual voice that seemed to hide something.
“Business. Food industry.”
“Really?” I got even more excited because the coincidence felt absurd. “Like restaurants? Distribution? What?”
“A little bit of everything,” he said.
I noticed he was not exactly lying, but he was definitely not elaborating.
“But I want to hear more about you,” he continued. “About this passion for molecular food. What’s the last thing you created?”
So we continued for hours that felt like minutes. He asked intelligent questions that showed he truly understood the subject. I responded with an enthusiasm Koko always said scared men away, but he did not seem scared. With each passing minute, the space between us naturally decreased, as if some magnetic force was pulling us closer together.
I started to forget the reason I had gone to that bar in the 1st place.
When Koko finally came back from the bathroom an eternity later, she gave me a look that clearly said, Girl, what is happening here? But I was too busy trying not to think about what it would be like to kiss the mouth that would not stop smiling at me.
“I should go,” he said eventually, and my stomach sank with disappointment. “But before I do, can I have your number?”
My heart raced again. I was already grabbing my phone when he placed his hand over mine.
The touch was warm and firm, making my skin tingle in a way that should have been illegal.
“Or you could leave here with me now.”
The way he said it was not exactly a request. It was an invitation loaded with possibilities that made all the air leave my lungs at once.
I looked at Koko. Her eyes were wide, but she was discreetly gesturing for me to go, clearly thinking this was the most romantic thing she had ever seen.
Then I looked back at those blue eyes, promising a night I probably should not have.
“Okay,” I whispered.
The smile he gave me was slow, devastating, and absolutely dangerous.
His apartment was the kind of place that appeared in architecture magazines, minimalist and elegant, with huge windows showing the lit city below. I barely paid attention to the décor because as soon as the door closed behind us, he pressed me against it with a contained urgency that made my entire body come alive.
“I thought about this all night,” he murmured against my mouth, his voice husky and low, making every nerve ending in my body ignite. “Thought about what it would be like to kiss you.”
Then he kissed me.
Slowly at first, almost reverently, before deepening the kiss in a way that made my knees weaken and my mind shut down completely. His hands were on my waist, pulling me closer, and I was lost in that sensation, in his warmth, in the way he touched me as if I were something precious and desired at the same time.
The night became a sequence of moments I recorded in my memory with sensory details impossible to forget. The way he whispered my name between kisses that took my breath away. How his hands knew exactly where to touch me to make me lose control. How he alternated between devastating gentleness and an intensity that left me breathless and completely addicted.
Each touch seemed calculated to dismantle me.
It worked perfectly, because when I finally fell asleep in his arms, I was already dangerously close to falling in love.
When I woke the next morning, sunlight was invading the room through open curtains. It took me a few seconds to remember where I was and process that it had actually happened.
He was sleeping beside me, his face relaxed in a way that made him look younger, less intimidating, and my heart did that stupid thing of squeezing with tenderness.
I grabbed my phone from the nightstand, trying to be quiet so I would not wake him. That was when I saw Koko’s messages asking if I was alive and telling me to send her the guy’s full name so she could make sure he was not a serial killer.
“Good morning.”
His voice, still hoarse with sleep, made me jump. When I looked over, he was watching me with blue eyes that seemed even lighter in the morning, a small smile on his lips.
“Hi,” I said, my cheeks heating because I was completely naked under his sheet and the reality of what had happened was starting to hit hard. “I should go. You probably have things to do, and I don’t want to get in the way.”
“Stay,” he said, his hand finding my waist over the sheet in a way so natural it seemed as if we had done it 1,000 times already. “Have coffee with me. At least that.”
I stayed because it was impossible to say no when he looked at me that way.
We had coffee together in his ridiculously modern kitchen. He wore sweatpants and no shirt, showing abs that should have come with a danger warning. I wore his shirt from the night before, which smelled of that addictive scent already becoming too familiar.
“Can I call you today?” he asked when it was finally time for me to leave.
He handed me my phone after putting in his number and saving the contact simply as Andrew.
“Sure,” I said, already half in love and completely terrified of what that meant.
He kissed me at the door, a long and sweet kiss that promised continuity, that said this had not been just 1 night and nothing more.
I left floating, butterflies in my stomach and an idiotic smile on my face that I could not control no matter how hard I tried.
It was only in the taxi on the way to my apartment that Koko called, demanding all the details with that morning energy of hers that normally made me laugh.
“What’s his full name? I need to stalk him on social media. It’s basic best-friend safety protocol.”
“Oh, it’s Andrew,” I answered, looking at the number saved on my phone and feeling that pleasant squeeze in my chest. “But I didn’t ask for his last name. We didn’t really talk much about bureaucratic things.”
“Girl, you slept with a guy and don’t know his full last name?”
Koko sounded horrified and amused at the same time.
“At least give me the number. I’ll figure out who he is. Google is my best friend.”
Out of pure curiosity, and because Koko was insisting as if my life depended on it, I put his number into Google while still in the taxi. I expected maybe a LinkedIn profile, something basic. Nothing major.
What appeared on the screen made all the air leave my lungs, and my heart stopped for a full second.
Andrew Leprince, CEO of Leprince Corp, leads $2 billion empire in food industry.
My phone almost fell from my hand. I read the headline 3 times to make sure I was not hallucinating or seeing some bizarre Google algorithm error.
I clicked on the 1st image with trembling hands.
There he was. The same man who had made me breakfast half an hour earlier, wearing an impeccable suit and posing for a business magazine with a serious, powerful expression that made him look like a completely different person.
“Shit,” I whispered, panic rising up my throat like bile, the taxi seeming to shrink around me. “Shit. Shit.”
I had slept with my future boss.
“What happened?” Koko’s voice went shrill on the phone, immediately detecting that something was very, very wrong. “Did you find out he’s married? Serial killer? Corrupt politician? Cult member? What?”
The phone started vibrating in my hand before I could answer. His name appeared on the bright screen, and my stomach turned violently.
He was calling, probably to set up that date he had mentioned, completely oblivious to the fact that I had just discovered our incredible night was actually an epic professional disaster that could ruin my career before it even started.
I rejected the call with hands shaking so badly I almost pressed the wrong button and accidentally deleted the entire contact.
He called again 10 seconds later.
Persistent.
I rejected the call again, feeling tears begin to burn behind my eyes while the taxi driver looked at me through the rearview mirror with growing concern.
“Elila, answer me,” Koko was practically screaming now. “What happened? You’re scaring me.”
“He’s my boss, Koko.”
My voice came out thin and hysterical, breaking at the end of the sentence.
“I slept with my future boss. Andrew Leprince. The owner of Leprince Corp, where I start working on Monday. The billionaire CEO of my dream company.”
The silence on the other end lasted 3 eternal seconds before Koko exploded in a scream so loud I had to pull the phone away from my ear.
I spent the rest of the weekend locked in my room, alternating between crying into my pillow, ignoring Andrew’s increasingly frequent calls, and obsessively reading every article about him I could find online.
I discovered he was 32 years old. He had built Leprince Corp from scratch, transforming a small startup into a multibillion-dollar empire. He was known for being brilliant and ruthless in business. He had recently ended a relationship with a socialite named Phoebe Wittmann.
Monday came too fast, bringing with it a sense of dread that settled in my stomach like molten lead and would not let me eat breakfast.
I was in the Leprince Corp lobby at exactly 8:00 a.m., wearing my impeccable white lab coat, my hair pulled back in a bun so tight it gave me a headache, and carrying an iron determination to remain completely invisible for the entire internship period.
The lab was exactly as I had imagined during all those months I had daydreamed about this moment. It was equipped with the most modern technology, with that characteristic scent of clean chemicals mixed with something slightly sweet from the recipe tests happening at neighboring stations.
The team welcomed me well. My supervisor, Dr. Ramos, showed me my workstation with evident pride, explaining the ongoing projects. For a few blessed hours, I actually believed I could get through the entire internship without running into Andrew.
Then I heard that voice in the hallway, and all the blood in my body froze while my heart raced in panic.
“This is our new research center, completely renovated last year with a $15 million investment.”
His voice echoed, professional and distant, so different from the intimate and husky tone he had used with me in his apartment.
“Testing capacity tripled, and we managed to reduce product development time by 40%.”
I immediately lowered my head, practically diving into the beaker I was holding, pretending to be completely absorbed in the chemical compounds in front of me as if they were the most fascinating thing I had ever seen.
“Impressive,” someone said, probably an investor or business partner touring the company. “And the team? Do you manage to retain the best talent in the field?”
They were approaching my station. I could feel it even without looking. Each step seemed to echo louder than all the other sounds around me, my entire body on maximum alert.
“We have the best chemists and researchers in the field working here. Our new line of molecular gastronomy products is being developed in this lab by a team we personally selected from the best university programs in the country.”
Don’t look up. Don’t look up. Don’t look up.
I repeated it mentally like a desperate mantra while pretending to write something extremely important in my notebook.
Then his voice changed completely, losing all professional formality and gaining something between absolute surprise, relief, confusion, and disbelief.
“Elila.”
Complete, total, and absolute disaster.
I raised my head in slow motion, forcing a neutral expression I hoped looked professional, while my heart tried to exit through my throat and jump onto the floor.
He was there, a few meters away, wearing a dark gray suit that made him look even more intimidating and powerful than he had at the bar. His blue eyes were wide with pure shock, as if I were a ghost that had materialized in front of him.
“Hi,” I managed, my voice strangely high-pitched and too artificial.
He took a step toward me, completely ignoring the investor at his side and the dozen people watching us with growing curiosity.
“Where have you been? I tried to call. I have to—”
I did not let him finish. I was already getting up from the chair, tripping over my own feet in my rush to escape.
“Sorry. Emergency. I need to—”
Then I literally ran.
Yes, ran from the laboratory as if fleeing a fire, hearing his voice call me but not having the courage to stop and face the situation. My footsteps echoed through the hallway as I practically flew toward the nearest bathroom, my heart pounding so hard it felt like it was going to explode.
When I finally locked myself in a stall in the women’s bathroom and could breathe again, I heard voices outside and immediately recognized Andrew speaking to someone in the nearby hallway.
“Who is she?”
His voice was carefully controlled, but I could detect something tense and urgent beneath the professional surface.
“New intern. Smith,” Dr. Ramos answered with the evident pride he always showed when talking about the team. “Very talented, I must say. Specialist in molecular chemistry applied to gastronomy. Her grades were the highest we’ve seen in candidates for the program in the last 5 years.”
There was a long, loaded pause. I could perfectly imagine Andrew’s expression as he processed that information, connecting all the dots from our conversation at the bar about my dream internship.
“I see,” he finally said, his voice even lower and more controlled. “She knew who I was. That’s why she disappeared.”
The following weeks became an elaborate and exhausting game of hide-and-seek that would have been comical if it had not been completely pathetic.
I learned Andrew’s schedule with military precision worthy of a secret agent. I memorized his preferred routes through the company hallways, identified the elevators he usually used, learned the times of all his recurring meetings, and became an absolute expert at avoiding him completely.
When I saw him leaving the main elevator at 9:00 in the morning, I took the stairs, even if it meant 5 floors and my lungs begged for mercy.
When he had lunch in the company restaurant at noon, I changed my schedule and ate religiously at 11:00 or 2:00, sacrificing convenience for the safety of not running into him.
When I heard his voice approaching through the hallways, I hid in empty rooms, pretended urgent phone conversations, or literally went into supply closets until he passed.
“You can’t run from him forever,” Koko told me on the phone on a Wednesday night after I reported another successful escape that involved hiding behind a cart of chemicals like a cartoon character. “Eventually, you’re going to have to talk. Elila, you work at the same company.”
“I can try,” I argued stubbornly, lying in my bed with my arm over my eyes as if that could block out reality. “If he fires me, my career is over. No one will want to hire the intern who got fired from Leprince Corp for having an affair with the CEO.”
“Why would he fire you?” Koko sounded genuinely confused by my distorted logic.
“Because I slept with him. It’s inappropriate. Harassment. I don’t know. There are company policies about this, for sure. Conflict of interest, fraternization, all those things I signed without really reading on the 1st day.”
“Honey, you’re the one harassing him,” Koko said with her usual brutal honesty. “Running from him all over the company like he’s a psycho stalker. He probably just wants to talk like a normal, functional human being.”
“Talk?” I gave a hysterical laugh that sounded a bit manic even to me. “Hi, remember that night? Now you work for me. I will literally die of embarrassment just imagining that conversation.”
“You’re being dramatic.”
“I’m being professional,” I corrected with conviction, even knowing I was blatantly lying to both of us and probably fooling no one.
But inside, in the quietest hours of the night when I could not sleep and stared at the ceiling of my tiny room, I missed him enormously.
I missed the way he had looked at me that night, as if I were the most interesting person in the world. I missed how he had laughed at my nerdy jokes about chemistry. I missed his touch, which had been both gentle and intense.
He had been special. Really special, in a way I rarely found.
And I had ruined everything with my panic and my inability to handle adult situations maturely.
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But admitting that, admitting that I was running not out of professionalism but because I was terrified of falling even more in love with him and making everything infinitely more complicated, was something I was simply not ready to do.
So I kept running. I kept hiding. I kept pretending this was sustainable while my heart ached a little more each time I saw him from afar in the hallways and forced myself to go in the opposite direction.
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