📖 The Story Continues
The story doesn't end here.Continue reading the full story adaptation below and discover what happens next.
Pregnant and Spoiled by the Billionaire – Episode 2
Leo had barely finished telling his mother that he would recognize the right woman when he met her, and now a determined stranger stood between him and the elevator doors. Her cheeks were flushed from running, loose strands of brown hair framed her face, and she held a battered notebook like a shield. She looked nothing like the polished heiresses his mother kept placing across dinner tables from him.
“Mr. Preston, I know you don’t really do interviews,” she began before he could dismiss her, “but I only need ten minutes of your time.” Her breath came quickly, yet her gaze never wavered. Leo glanced at his watch, expecting her confidence to falter beneath his silence. Instead, she stepped into the elevator beside him.
Amelia knew she was violating every rule of professional access, but this was the opening she had spent eight visits trying to earn. “I’ve already spent three minutes,” she continued as the doors closed, improvising faster than her nerves could stop her. “And I can walk with you to lunch. That’s another seven. Please, just ten minutes?”
The corner of Leo’s mouth shifted, almost becoming a smile. Most reporters approached him with practiced flattery or aggressive demands; this young woman offered arithmetic as if she could bargain time out of him. Her cheap canvas bag and campus press badge made it clear she was not backed by a powerful network. Persistence alone had brought her this far.
“Five minutes,” he said. Amelia’s face brightened, but he raised one hand before she could thank him. “Starting now.” He stepped out when the elevator opened, setting a pace designed to test whether she could interview him while keeping up. To his surprise, she fell into stride without complaint.
Amelia opened her notebook as they crossed the executive floor. Five minutes was half of what she had requested and five minutes more than anyone expected her to get. She pushed aside the awareness of his broad shoulders, his subtle cologne, and the curious employees watching them pass. This was her chance to act like the journalist she hoped to become.
“You’ve recently donated over a hundred million dollars to your alma mater,” she said, “and you’ve built an impressive empire in renewable energy.” She intended to ask how those two choices reflected his view of corporate responsibility. Before she could reach the end of the carefully constructed question, Leo interrupted her.
“To what do I owe my success?” he supplied, his tone dry. The assumption irritated her, partly because it reduced her research to the sort of shallow question he must have heard countless times. She stopped walking long enough to stare at him. “Seriously? I wasn’t done yet.”
Leo turned back, openly amused now. Senior journalists rarely corrected him, and executives with decades more experience measured every word in his presence. Amelia Gates, according to the badge swinging from her neck, apparently had no such instinct for self-preservation. “What’s your next question?” he asked, granting her another chance.
She hurried to catch up, annoyed that his brief smile had unsettled her more than his interruption. Leo Preston was supposed to be a difficult subject, not a man whose attention made warmth spread beneath her skin. She focused on the blank page before her. “You rarely agree to interviews. Why is that?”
“I value my privacy.” His response came without hesitation, polished by years of refusing the same request. It was true, but deliberately incomplete. Privacy protected him from strangers who viewed his life as public property and women who were more interested in a headline than in him.
Amelia heard the wall in his answer. A safer interviewer would have moved on, grateful for whatever quote the billionaire offered, but safe questions did not reveal character. She tilted her head and studied him. “Is that the only reason?”
Leo slowed. “Not the reason you want?” he asked. The challenge in his eyes made her pulse quicken. He had recognized that she was circling the rumors surrounding his personal life, and instead of ending the interview, he seemed curious whether she had the nerve to say them aloud.
They reached the corridor outside his office, where his staff moved with quiet efficiency behind glass walls. Amelia could feel the five-minute window narrowing. If she softened the question, he would give her another polished answer and disappear into a meeting. If she asked it directly, he might throw her out—but at least he would remember her.
“Well, there are some rumors about you,” she said. Her fingers tightened around her pen, though she kept her voice even. Leo stopped at his office door and turned until his full attention rested on her. It was a strangely intimate sensation, as if the crowded floor had emptied around them.
“Such as?” he prompted. His expression revealed nothing, but Amelia sensed that he was testing her in return. The interview had become a contest, each of them waiting to see who would retreat first. She reminded herself that she had not spent eight days in his lobby to become timid now.
“You’re married to your work,” Amelia said. That much was documented in every profile written about him. Leo worked impossible hours, controlled a global company, and appeared at social events only when business required it. No serious relationship had ever survived the attention that followed him.
He gave a faint shrug, neither confirming nor denying the description. Amelia should have stopped there. She had enough material to shape a respectable campus article, and provoking the man who had granted her a rare interview was professionally reckless. Yet the more composed he appeared, the more she wanted to see what existed beneath that control.
She lifted her chin. “And people say you’re not interested in women.” The words landed between them with startling boldness. Two assistants nearby pretended not to listen, while Amelia’s confidence began to crumble under the weight of Leo’s unreadable stare.
For one long moment, Leo said nothing. Then he stepped closer, reducing the polite distance she had maintained and making her acutely aware of the attraction she had tried to ignore. His dark eyes held hers as though the next answer would be intended for Amelia alone, and she realized she might have asked a question far more dangerous than anything in her notebook.
