My Fiancé Hid His Wife Until I Was Pregnant

The blood came fast. Too fast. I felt it before I saw it—warm and wrong, spreading across my thighs, soaking into the white silk. I pressed my hand against my stomach. The pain was still there. Sharp. Constant. But now there was something else. Something draining out of me that I couldn't stop.

Diana was screaming for help. Her voice sounded far away. I tried to focus on her face but everything kept blurring.

Then I heard it. A different scream. Higher. Desperate.

I turned my head. It took everything I had.

My mother was on the floor between the chairs. Her pale blue dress twisted around her legs. Her hand clutched at her chest. Her mouth was open but no sound came out. Just that awful gasping. Like she was trying to breathe through water.

"Mom," I whispered. The word barely made it past my lips.

People surrounded her. Someone was shouting about calling 911. Someone else was trying to lift her shoulders. Her eyes were wide. Searching. They found mine across the chaos.

I saw it happen. I saw the exact moment the light went out.

Her hand dropped. Her body went still. And I knew.

She was gone.

I tried to scream. Nothing came out. Just a choking sound. The pain in my abdomen was unbearable now. White-hot. Consuming. I felt something tear inside me. Something fundamental and irreversible.

The baby. Oh god. The baby.

Sirens. Closer now. Footsteps pounding. Paramedics rushed in with equipment. Two teams. One went to my mother. One came to me.

The man kneeling beside me had kind eyes. He pressed something against my abdomen. His hands moved fast. Efficient. "Stay with me," he said. "What's your name?"

I couldn't answer. I was staring past him. At my mother's body. At the paramedics working over her. Doing compressions. Trying. But I already knew. I had seen her leave.

"We need to move her now," someone said. Urgent. Clipped.

They lifted me onto a gurney. The movement sent another wave of pain through me so intense I couldn't breathe. The ceiling passed overhead. Lights. Faces. Diana running alongside. Her hand gripping mine.

"I'm coming with you," she said. Her voice was shaking. "I'm right here."

I tried to squeeze her hand. I don't know if I managed it.

They loaded me into the ambulance. The doors slammed shut. The siren started. Everything was noise and motion and pain.

I felt it happen in the ambulance. The final tearing. The emptiness that followed. I didn't need them to tell me. I knew.

The baby was gone.

I closed my eyes. I didn't open them again.

When I woke up, everything was white. White walls. White sheets. White light coming through a window I couldn't focus on. There was a beeping sound. Steady. Mechanical. It took me a long time to realize it was my own heartbeat.

I tried to move. Couldn't. There were tubes. IVs. Something clipped to my finger. My abdomen felt hollow. Carved out. Empty.

I turned my head. A man in a white coat sat in a chair beside the bed. He had gray hair. Tired eyes. He was watching me.

"Miss Grant," he said quietly. "I'm Dr. Howe. You're at Mount Sinai. You've been unconscious for four days."

Four days.

I tried to speak. My throat was too dry. He held a cup of water to my lips. I took a small sip. It hurt to swallow.

"My mother," I whispered.

His expression changed. Something careful settled over his features. "I'm very sorry," he said. "She passed away at the venue. Cardiac arrest. They tried to resuscitate her but—"

I stopped listening. The words didn't matter. I already knew.

I pressed my hand against my stomach. Flat. Empty.

"The baby?" My voice cracked.

He shook his head slowly. "I'm so sorry. You suffered a severe hemorrhage and—"

I closed my eyes. I didn't need to hear the rest.

Gone. Both of them. Gone.

"Where's Killian?" I asked. I don't know why. Maybe I wanted to see if he would even come. Maybe I wanted to know if he cared.

"He's been here," Dr. Howe said carefully. "He hasn't left the hospital since you were admitted. He's in the waiting room now. Would you like me to—"

"No." The word came out harder than I intended. "Not yet."

Dr. Howe nodded. He stood. "I'll be back to check on you in a few hours. Try to rest."

He left. The door closed. I was alone.

I stared at the white ceiling. I felt nothing. No tears. No rage. Just a vast, echoing emptiness where everything I loved used to be.

My mother died watching me get destroyed. My baby died because I fell. And Killian—

Killian had dropped my hand and walked away.

I pressed my palms against my eyes. I lay there in the white room with the white sheets and the steady beeping of machines keeping me alive. And I understood something with perfect, crystalline clarity.

I had lost everything.

But I was still here.

And that meant I could still choose what happened next.