The Billionaire’s Secret Son

Cassian saw it at the same time I did. Something broke open in his face. Something I hadn’t seen there all day. “Seraphina. Sit down right now I’ll call—”

“No.” I straightened up. Grabbed my bag off the couch. My hands were shaking but my voice wasn’t. “I’m leaving.”

“You need a doctor—”

“I’ll get one.” I walked to the door. Didn’t look back. “Don’t call me, Cassian. Don’t send anyone. Don’t.” I stopped with my hand on the door. “If something happens to this baby tonight that is on you.”

I walked out leaving him behind. The elevator doors closed behind me and I leaned against the wall letting my legs shake as much as they wanted.

Then I pulled out my phone and immediately called Diane. She picked up on the first ring. “Sera? What’s wrong—”

“I need you to take me to the hospital,” I said. “And I need you to not ask me anything until we get there.”

She paused for a moment then spoke. “I’m already getting my keys.”

Five minutes after I called she was pulling up outside the building in her grey Honda, hazards blinking, already leaning across to push the passenger door open before I even reached the car.

I got in.

She looked at me, took in the blood, the shaking hands, the mascara I hadn’t realized had gone down my face. Her mouth opened like she was about to comment on my appearance.

“You said no questions,” I reminded her.

She closed her mouth and pulled into traffic. We made it three blocks before she broke. “How bad is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is it the baby?”

I pressed my hand flat against my stomach and stared straight ahead. “Just drive Diane.”

She drove.

The hospital was twelve minutes away. It felt like an hour. I sat in that passenger seat trying as much as possible to ensure the pain I was feeling. Diane kept comforting me, telling me to hold on that we were almost at the hospital. She pulled up to the emergency entrance and barely stopped the car before I opened the door.

“Park and come in,” I said.

“Already on it. Go.”

I walked through those sliding doors and the cold hospital air hit me and something about it — the smell, the lights, the sudden noise — made everything feel very real very fast.

I went straight to the front desk. “I’m pregnant. I’m bleeding. I need to be seen right now please.”

The nurse looked up and took one look at me. She reached for her radio. Everything moved fast after that.

They put me in a room in the ER, gave me some pain killers first and a gown to change into. A doctor named Patel who had kind eyes and fast hands and asked me questions in a calm steady voice that I was grateful for.

“How far along are you?” She asks me as she tries to take a sample of my blood.

“Eleven weeks.”

“Any cramping?”

“Some. Earlier. I thought it was stress.” I said, trying to sound too nervous.

“On a scale of one to ten how heavy is the bleeding?”

“Not heavy. But it’s there.”

She nodded. Didn’t give anything away. “We’re going to do an ultrasound. Try to stay calm for me okay?”

Diane appeared in the doorway, slightly out of breath from running from the car park. She took one look at the monitor, at the gown, at my face, and crossed the room and grabbed my hand without saying a word.

I held on.

The ultrasound was the longest three minutes of my life.

Dr. Patel moved the probe slowly. Her face was blank, I couldn’t read what she had on her face. The screen showed shapes I couldn’t fully interpret and I lay there staring at the ceiling counting the tiles because looking at the screen felt like too much.

Then I heard my baby’s heartbeat. It was small, fast and rhythmic. Diane made a noise beside me, Something between a gasp and a sob.

I pressed my free hand over my mouth.

“Heartbeat is strong,” Dr. Patel said. She almost smiled. “Baby looks good. The bleeding is likely a subchorionic hematoma — a small clot near the placenta. It’s not uncommon in the first trimester. With rest it should resolve on its own.”

I closed my eyes Just for a second. Just long enough to say something to whatever was listening. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

“You need to rest,” Dr. Patel continued. “No stress. No strenuous activity. I mean it — whatever is going on in your life right now, it needs to slow down.”

Diane looked at me pointedly, I ignored her. “Thank you,” I told the doctor. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

I sat up slightly. “If anyone comes asking about me tonight, about my condition and about the baby.” I paused. “I need you to tell them I lost it.”

The room went quiet.

Dr. Patel looked at me carefully. “I can’t falsify medical records—”

“I’m not asking you to falsify anything.” I held her gaze. “I’m asking you that if a man named Cassian Vale comes through those doors and asks about me, you tell him the pregnancy didn’t survive.”

There was a long pause. “He’s your husband?” she asked carefully.

“He was.” I said it without flinching. “As of this morning he isn’t.”

She looked at me for a long moment then she nodded once. “I’ll note your request for privacy in the file.”

“Thank you.”

She left. Diane waited exactly four seconds after then she spoke. “Sera. What is going on?”

“Not tonight—”

“Seraphina Hart.” She turned my face toward her with one hand. “You called me from your penthouse sounding like you were about to pass out, you showed up bleeding, you just asked a doctor to lie to your husband, and you want to say not tonight?”

I looked at my best friend, her eyes were red. She’d been crying since the car and trying to hide it. I felt really sad because I didn’t like seeing her crying.

So I took a breath and told her everything. By the time I finished Diane’s expression had gone through about six different emotions and landed somewhere between devastated and homicidal.

“I will destroy him,” she said quietly. “I will actually—”

“Diane.”

“No, I mean it. I have a cousin who knows people—”

“Diane.” I almost laughed. “Stop.”

She exhaled andSqueezed my hand. “What are you going to do?”

I stared at the ceiling. What was I going to do?

I was going to have this baby alone. I already knew that. I’d known it from the moment I walked out of that penthouse. Whatever fantasy I’d been holding onto — that Cassian would feel something, that the pregnancy would crack something open in him — I’d left it in the elevator on the way down.

He’d made himself very clear and I had heard him. “I’m going to be fine,” I said.

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one I have right now.”

She looked at me for a long moment, then she leaned her head against mine and said nothing. We just sat there. And sometimes that’s the only thing that helps.