Chapter 131
She looked up when I entered, surprised but not unpleasantly so. “Hey.
I nodded. “Can we talk?”
She closed the book. “Of course.”
I walked closet, rubbed the back of my neck, then sat in the hair across from her. “I’ve been distant know that. And I know it’s not fair. Especially with everything going on.”
She didn’t internupt. Just watched me, patient, eyes wide.
“I want to do better. Be present,” I said. “For you. For the baby.”
Her breath caught slightly, but she masked it with a smile.
“I’d like to come to your next sonogram appointment,” I added. “If that’s okay.”
For the first time since I’d started speaking, her expression shifted. Just slightly.
A flicker of something.
“Oh,” she said. “You–you want to come?”
“I think I should,” I replied, trying to sound certain. “It’s my child too.”
She nodded quickly. “Yes. Absolutely. That would be… that would be great.”
But her smile didn’t reach her eyes.
And for the first time in a long time, I couldn’t quite tell what she was thinking
CASSANDRA
Oh. Shit.
I smiled. I nodded. I even managed to thank him without my voice cracking
But the second Derek left the room, I dropped the act and buried my face in my hands.
He wanted to come to the sonogram.
Which would’ve been fine–if there was one.
Except there wasn’t.
Because I wasn’t pregnant.
Because the whole thing was a lie.
At first, I thought it would only need to last a few days. Maybe a week. Just long enough to push
into
proposing, into choosing the safe, predictable life with the woman who’d always been there for him. The one who saved him. Who stood by him when everyone else walked away.
I had the perfect timing. Right after Elena kicked him out. When he looked lost. Torn. When he needed something -someone–solid.
But then he didn’t propose.
Chapter 131
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He didn’t even seem to consider it.
Anλ now?
Now he wanted to come to a fake appointment.
Which meant I had about 48 hours to either get pregnant for real–not happening–or come up with the most convincing excuse of my life.
I paced the room, running through every option in my head.
Could I say I had to reschedule? No, that only bought time.
Say I lost the baby? That had been the plan initially, but only after I’d secured my future and had a ring on my finger.
A cold shiver went through me. Saying I lost the baby now was dangerous. It could backfire–it could make him pull away completely.
No. I needed him to believe. To feel responsible. Attached.
Maybe I could fake it. Find a private clinic, bribe a nurse, fudge the paperwork. It wouldn’t be the first time sotneone like me used power and charm to bend the world into the shape she needed.
But it had to be believable.
It had to look real.
And the clock was ticking.
Worse, I’d seen the shift in him. The guilt was there, yes–but there was something else. A softening.
A choice forming.
And I didn’t know whether it was about me… or if he’d just decided Elena was a lost cause.
Either way, I had to move fast.
I pulled out my phone and opened the encrypted contact list my father gave me years ago.
There was one e name that might help. One favor I could call in from someone who owed me.
And if I played this right, by the time Derek showed up for that sonogram?
There’d be a monitor. A room. A fake technician with just enough medical knowledge to bluff her way through it.
And there’d be a heartbeat.
Or something close enough to one.
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