I couldn’t breathe. Tears blurred my vision as I whispered, “So… the baby inside me… is David’s?”
Lena nodded gently. “And they didn’t want you to find out. You were never supposed to know.”
I sat there in silence, one hand over my stomach, trembling.
Inside me was the child of the man I loved — a child meant for strangers, chosen by the very people who had always kept me at a distance.
But that was only the beginning. That day was just the first crack — and what followed would change everything I thought I knew about love, loyalty, and fate.
The Hidden Arrangement
That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept staring at the ceiling, one hand over my belly, trying to make sense of everything Lena had said.
The child inside me was David’s.
But his parents had kept it secret — from him, from me, from everyone.
The next morning, I flew back to Chicago. David was asleep when I entered his hospital room, his chest rising and falling slowly. I sat beside him, brushing a strand of hair from his forehead.
If only he knew. If only he could see that, even in his weakest moment, a part of him was still alive — growing inside me.
But I couldn’t tell him. I had signed that contract. And Lena’s words echoed in my head: “Strict confidentiality. Breach it, and everything is void.”
If I spoke, they could take back the payments — the treatment, the medicine — everything that kept him alive.
