You’re standing in Antonio Nolasco’s penthouse office when he says it, and the room feels like it’s made of glass for a reason. Everything shines, everything reflects, everything looks clean enough to hide what people do in it. Marble floors, steel edges, the city pinned under the windows like a trophy he paid for. You’re holding a pregnancy test in your purse as if a thin piece of plastic can hold you together. Your hands tremble anyway, but you try to smile because you still believe the version of him that traced constellations down your spine in hotel rooms. You still believe the man who said you were different, that with you he didn’t have to perform. Then he turns toward the skyline and speaks without looking at you, like he’s approving a budget. “Get rid of it,” he says. “I don’t want a child.”
The words don’t just hurt. They seal. They slam shut inside you like a steel door, and you can feel the click in your chest. You wait for him to blink, to soften, to realize he just called a life “it.” But Antonio doesn’t blink. He reaches for his desk drawer, pulls out a check, and slides it across the table with a gesture so neat it looks practiced. Six zeros. The exact number he thinks can scrub the future off your body. “There,” he adds, voice calm like a quarterly report. “It covers the procedure, your move, and whatever you need to start over. Far. Quiet. No scandal.”
You press your palm to your stomach without meaning to, because your body already knows what your mind is still trying to process. It’s flat, still yours in the old way, but not empty anymore. You whisper that you thought he’d be happy, because he told you he was tired of living for other people. You remind him he said you were different, that what you had was real. For a moment you expect warmth to return like a light switching on. Instead, Antonio finally turns, and the man you loved disappears behind his CEO face like a mask snapping into place. “You were wrong,” he says. “I have responsibilities. My father’s sick. The merger with Alcázar Bank depends on my engagement to Viviana. The board needs stability, not… this.”
“This,” you repeat, and the word tastes like poison. You realize he’s not talking about a baby. He’s talking about you. You ask him if that’s how he sees a life, and he exhales through his nose like you’re being inconvenient. “Don’t get emotional,” he says. “We always knew what this was.” He says he never promised anything permanent, as if the last year of your life wasn’t full of his hands on your face, his voice in your ear, his “I love you” like a vow. You remind him he told you he loved you two weeks ago. He doesn’t even flinch. “I said what you needed to hear,” he replies.
