Left to Freeze: The Billionaire's Fatal Choice
9.4
Rating
14
Chapters
25.5K
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Billionaire
Revenge
Thriller
Romance
When a blizzard halts the Thorne Resort gondolas, pregnant Nora and her best friend Harper are trapped in freezing winds. CEO Silas Thorne—Nora’s husband—diverts the only emergency power to save his fragile friend, Evelyn. Over the radio, he mocks Nora’s desperate cries as "jealous hysterics." Nora loses her baby; Harper loses her career. But when the ice thaws, Nora stops weeping. She’s about to burn his billionaire empire to the ground, and no apology will stop the avalanche.
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Chapter 1
The wind did not just blow; it screamed. It battered against the reinforced polycarbonate windows of Gondola 4 with the blunt-force trauma of a swinging hammer, sending the suspended metal box swinging wildly over the black, forested abyss of the Thorne Alpine Resort. Inside the cabin, the temperature was already plummeting, the meager overhead heater struggling against the historic blizzard raging outside. But the cold wasn't the worst part. The worst part was the sudden, tearing agony ripping through Nora Hayes’s abdomen. "Breathe, Nora. Just look at me. Keep your eyes on me and breathe!" Harper Quinn yelled over the deafening shriek of the storm. Nora doubled over, her gloved hands clutching her swollen belly. She was twenty-eight weeks pregnant, but the sheer terror of the swinging gondola and the biting cold had sent her body into a state of severe, premature shock. Another contraction hit her, harder than the last, radiating from her lower spine and seizing her breath. "I can't," Nora gasped, her breath forming thick white clouds in the freezing air. "Harper, it’s too early. It’s too early, something is wrong. The pain… it’s not stopping."Harper threw herself across the small space, dropping to her knees on the grated metal floor. She tore off her thick, heated mittens with her teeth, spitting them aside so she could press her bare, warm hands against Nora’s cheeks. Harper was a concert pianist; her hands were her livelihood, insured for millions, meticulously cared for. Right now, she didn't care about anything except the pale, sweat-drenched face of her best friend. "You are going to be fine. The baby is going to be fine," Harper insisted, her sharp-tongued ferocity acting as a shield against the rising panic. "This resort belongs to your husband. Silas isn't going to leave his pregnant wife suspended halfway up a mountain in a whiteout. I’m getting him on the radio right now."Harper scrambled up, her bare fingers gripping the freezing metal casing of the emergency intercom. The metal bit into her skin like microscopic needles, but she slammed her palm against the red call button, holding it down. "Control room, this is Gondola 4! Do you copy? We have a massive medical emergency. Come in, damn it!" Harper shouted into the speaker. Static hissed back, a sharp, crackling sound that seemed to mock the howling wind outside. "Control, answer me!" Harper screamed, slamming the button again. "This is Harper Quinn and Nora Hayes! Drop this car down now!"The static broke. A voice crackled through the speaker, laced with a heavy sigh of irritation rather than urgency. *“Keep your pants on, Gondola 4. We’ve got a situation down here.”*Harper’s jaw tightened. "Julian. Listen to me very carefully. You need to route the emergency generator power to our line immediately. Nora has gone into premature labor. She is having agonizing contractions, and the temperature in here is dropping rapidly."*“Labor?”* Julian Croft’s voice dripped with skepticism. As the Head of Resort Security and Harper’s fiancé, Julian had always been desperate to please the executives above him, often at the expense of his own dignity. *“Harper, stop exaggerating. The main power grid just blew out across the entire mountain. We’re on the backup generators, and it’s absolute chaos in the control room.”*"I am not exaggerating, you sycophantic coward!" Harper roared, her fingers pressing so hard against the freezing radio casing that her knuckles turned stark white. "She is literally doubled over in pain! The cold is triggering severe shock. Get Silas on the radio right now. Now, Julian!"*“Mr. Thorne is busy dealing with a real emergency,”* Julian snapped back defensively. *“Car 12 is stalled directly over the jagged ridge of the North Ravine. The wind is hitting them hardest. Evelyn is in there.”*
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