Chapter 3
When I woke up that morning, my stomach was churning violently. I clung to the sink, dry-heaving for a long while. Julian Sterling knocked on the door from outside, concerned. “Harper, are you okay?”
“I’m fine, probably ate something bad last night,” I wiped my mouth with a towel, my voice still weak.
On the way to the hospital, I told myself it was just a normal stomach bug. But when the doctor handed me that pregnancy test report, my hand trembled uncontrollably.
Pregnant.
I sat on a hospital bench, staring at the report in my hand, my feelings a complicated mess. This tiny life arrived without warning, like a sudden light in the darkness.
Perhaps, this was a turning point. No matter how lost Julian Sterling was in his longing for Eleanor, surely his own child would stir something in him? This child would make him re-examine our marriage, and me, his living wife.
I carefully tucked the report into my bag.
That afternoon, I took a taxi to Julian Sterling’s architecture firm. I imagined his reaction to the news – tension, surprise, then that unique sense of responsibility a man feels when he’s about to become a father.
As the car pulled up to the company building, I saw a familiar figure leaning by the entrance. Chloe Reed. She was wearing a pale yellow dress, her makeup meticulously applied, looking down at her phone. Hearing footsteps, she looked up, her gaze visibly pausing when it swept over me.
“Well, if it isn’t Harper Hayes.” Her voice held a clear edge of provocation. “Here to see my brother-in-law?”
I didn’t want to engage, so I walked around her towards the building entrance.
“Stop.” Chloe Reed caught up in a few steps, blocking my path. “I have something to say to you.”
“I have nothing to say to you.”
“Oh really?” She sneered, pulling out an ultrasound photo from her designer bag and slapping it directly onto my face.
“Don’t play innocent, Harper.” Chloe Reed’s eyes turned vicious.
“Harper, don’t think I don’t know what you’re trying to pull. Holding a pregnancy report, hoping this baby is your ticket to power?”
My heart plummeted.
She leaned closer, her voice a venomous whisper. “My brother-in-law swore to me, his body and heart belonged only to Eleanor, for life. He never even touched you.”
“…Whose bastard child is that in your belly?”
Those words plunged me into an abyss. If Julian Sterling had never touched me, then what was our intimacy every night? What was all that tenderness I thought was real?
My hand trembled as I touched my lower abdomen, where a life was growing. At that moment, I couldn’t tell if I was losing my mind, or if my entire life was built on a massive lie.
And this child, whose was it, really?