Chapter 2 - The Paparazzi Ambush
The quiet anonymity of Harbor Light Books shattered less than two hours later.
Emma had just flipped the "Closed" sign and locked the deadbolt when the first black SUV rolled to a stop outside the shop. Then came a white van. Then another car. Within minutes, a swarm of aggressive paparazzi and tabloid reporters had surrounded the small storefront. Camera flashes strobed through the rain-streaked windows, blinding and terrifying.
“Emma! Is the baby real?!” a man screamed, pressing his camera against the glass.
“Did Nathan pay you to hide?!” a woman yelled, banging on the door.
Emma backed away, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. She moved toward the back staircase that led to her apartment, but the sheer panic of the invasion was taking a severe physical toll. A vicious, agonizing cramp ripped through her lower abdomen, entirely different from the Braxton Hicks contractions she had been experiencing. This was real. And it was early.
She collapsed onto the bottom step, gasping for air, clutching her massive stomach.
Her phone buzzed. It was Nathan.
“Emma!” he shouted over the noise of a helicopter engine in the background. “I’m an hour out. I chartered a private medical flight. Are you okay? Tell me you’re safe.”
“They’re here, Nathan,” Emma sobbed, another contraction stealing her breath. “The reporters. They’re banging on the glass. And Nathan… the baby. It’s coming. It’s coming right now.”
The silence on the other end was terrifying, followed by a voice so dark, so cold, and so utterly ruthless it belonged to the billionaire she had once run away from. “Lock the stairwell door. Do not move. I am handling this.”
Ten minutes later, the chaotic screaming outside the bookstore abruptly changed in tone. Sirens wailed down the coastal highway. Emma dragged herself up the stairs and peered out the second-story window. Three black SUVs had violently swerved onto the sidewalk, cutting off the paparazzi vans. A dozen heavily armed private security contractors—Nathan’s elite corporate detail—poured out. They didn't just ask the press to step back; they formed an impenetrable physical wall of muscle and Kevlar around the building, aggressively pushing the cameras away from the glass.
Then, a massive medevac helicopter descended onto the nearby beach, kicking up a hurricane of sand and rain.
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The back door of the bookstore was kicked open. Emma screamed, but it was Nathan. He was drenched in rain, his suit jacket discarded, his eyes wild with terror and fierce, protective love. He didn't say a word. He scooped her into his arms, carrying her bridal-style out the back door, surrounded by a shield of his guards holding umbrellas to block the long-lens cameras.
“I’ve got you,” Nathan whispered into her hair, kissing her forehead as he rushed them toward the waiting helicopter. “I’ve got you, and I am never letting anyone touch you again.”
