Bound to the Billionaire’s Brother

"Make me pregnant. Please."

When Yvonne Lind stumbled into the master suite on the second floor of the west wing, the room’s owner had just stepped out of the adjoining bath.

He was unclothed, save for a charcoal-gray towel slung precariously low on his hips. Droplets of steam-heated water clung to the sharp, defined lines of his collarbone, tracing down the rigid planes of his chest and disappearing beneath the damp terry cloth.

Hearing her absurd, frantic plea, Lindsay Vance didn't flinch.

His dark, hooded eyes narrowed, surveying her shivering form for a fraction of a second before a slow, dangerously playful curve touched his lips. It was a look of cold, calculating amusement.

"Yvonne," Lindsay murmured, his voice a low, gravelly baritone that vibrated in the quiet room. "Three years of silence, and you break into my private wing just to demand my bed?"

He took a slow step forward, the scent of cedarwood and wet slate radiating from his warm skin. "Let me guess. My beloved older brother still refuses to believe you. He’s called the federal prosecutors, hasn't he? He’s going to testify that you pushed Jane Snow off the Larchwood cliffs."

Yvonne's breath hitched. Her hands, cold and trembling, clenched into fists at her sides.

A month ago, Jane Snow—Gifford Vance's protected "first love"—had plunged from the rain-slicked cliffs of Larchwood Bay.

One cliffside. Two women. One fatal fall.

Yvonne had been the only witness, which naturally made her the prime suspect.

She had explained to Gifford a hundred times that she didn't do it. She had even been lured to the cliffs by Jane under Gifford’s name. At first, her husband had played the part of the comforting spouse. He promised he believed her, promised he would withhold the security footage from the police. He had only one condition: sign the divorce papers to fulfill Jane's dying wish, and he would let the matter slide.

But it was all a trap.

The ink on the divorce papers was barely dry today when Gifford brought her to Vance Manor, locked the heavy oak doors from the outside, and left to fetch the state marshals.

She had banged on the doors until her knuckles bled, screaming her innocence into the empty, echoing halls of the manor, only to hear the man she had loved for a decade speak cold, venomous words from the other side of the mahogany.

"You forced my hand three years ago when you used your family's leverage to make me marry you, Yvonne. If it weren't for my grandfather's pressure, I would have never looked at you. My heart has always belonged to Jane. The child she carried was mine. You killed them both, and I will see you burn for it."

It was a lie. All of it.

Yvonne closed her eyes as the sickening realization washed over her. On their wedding night, Gifford had claimed a medical impotency to avoid touching her. For three years, she had endured a sexless, sterile marriage, protecting his fragile masculine pride by keeping his secret from the world.

And all the while, he had been sharing a bed—and fathering a child—with Jane.

How utterly pathetic she had been.

But she had no time for tears now. As a seasoned defense attorney, Yvonne knew the grim reality of the state's judicial system. With Gifford’s wealth and fabricated evidence, a capital murder charge would almost certainly end in a lethal injection.

Her only legal shield, her only way to defer a swift trial and immediate maximum-security detention, was the gestation deferral loophole.

A pregnant woman could not be subject to capital punishment, nor could she be held in pretrial maximum-security confinement.

She had to survive.

Her mother was clinging to life in a cardiac ward, and her teenage brother, Julian, was months away from his university entrance exams. They had no one else. She had to stay alive to find the evidence, to clear her name, and to tear Gifford Vance's empire to the ground.

And Gifford had made one fatal mistake in his perfect plan.

His estranged younger brother, Lindsay, had returned from London the night before and was staying in the locked-down manor.

"Yes," Yvonne said, her voice shaking but her spine rigid as she met Lindsay's piercing gaze. "Think what you want of me, but I didn't kill her. She tried to push me, lost her footing, and slipped."

Lindsay tilted his head, his dark eyes reflecting the dim amber light of the hearth. "I know."

Yvonne froze, stunned by his immediate answer. "You... you believe me?"

"I'll help you get pregnant," Lindsay ignored her question, his voice dropping an octave as he moved closer, his towering frame casting a shadow over her. "But I don't do charity, sister-in-law. I have one condition."

A glint of hope flared in her chest. "Name it."

Lindsay reached out, his long, warm fingers wrapping gently but possessively around her wrist, pulling her forward until her chest pressed against his bare, warm torso. The heat of his body was overwhelming, contrasting sharply with the freezing rain outside.

"I know the law as well as you do, Yvonne," Lindsay whispered against her ear, his breath hot and intoxicating. "Once the trial is deferred, most women quietly terminate the pregnancy. But not you."

He leaned in closer, his grip tightening just enough to let her know she was trapped.

"If I put my child in you, Yvonne... you are going to carry it to term, and you are going to give it to me."

It was Yvonne’s first time, and the barrier of her innocence made the initiation anything but smooth.

Under the crushing weight of panic and survival, her body was rigid, her fingers clawing desperately into Lindsay’s shoulders and back, leaving a row of jagged, red scratches on his pale, hard skin.

"D*mn it, Yvonne, relax," Lindsay growled, his voice strained and thick with a dark, suffocating heat.

The madness of the night had pushed them both to the edge. Lindsay was not gentle, his raw, unrefined movements matching the desperation in her eyes. When the final boundary was crossed and the reality of their union became irreversible, a quiet sob broke from Yvonne's throat.

Tears spilled from her flushed eyes, and Lindsay leaned down, his lips tracing her warm cheeks to kiss them away, one by one.

"Do you regret it?" he muttered, his voice gravelly and dark, vibrating against her ear like a phantom promise.

She was in too much pain to speak, her fi