Chapter 2

Elara didn't sleep that night.

She sat in the guest bedroom — her bedroom, since Kael never once invited her into his — and stared at the pregnancy test until the lines blurred.

A baby.

His baby.

A child conceived on a night he wished never happened, with a woman he wished didn't exist.

She pressed her palm flat against her stomach, feeling nothing yet, but imagining everything.

Would the baby have his dark eyes? His sharp jaw? Would it inherit his coldness too?

Her phone buzzed. A text from her mother's doctor.

"Mrs. Sinclair, your mother's latest scans show improvement. The treatment is working. Two more rounds should be sufficient."

Two more rounds. Two more months of payments. Two more months of this marriage.

She could survive two more months.

But the baby changed everything.

If Kael discovered she was pregnant, he might think she planned it — a trap to extend the contract, to cling to his money and name.

She knew exactly what he'd say. She could hear his cold voice already: "Get rid of it."

Her hand tightened over her stomach.

No.

Whatever happened between her and Kael, this child was hers.

The next morning, she went to a clinic alone, registering under her maiden name.

The doctor confirmed she was nine weeks along. Healthy. Strong heartbeat.

"Do you have a support system? A partner?" the doctor asked gently.

Elara smiled. "I have myself. That's enough."

She left the clinic and went straight to the Ashford estate, where Kael was hosting a business brunch.

She planned to stay invisible, as always.

But when she walked through the garden entrance, she froze.

Kael stood on the terrace, his hand resting on the small of Nadia's back. Around them, his family — his mother, his brother, his cousins — all laughed and chatted with Nadia as if she were the real wife.

No one even noticed Elara arrive.

She stood at the edge of the garden for a full minute before Kael's mother, Victoria, spotted her.

The older woman's smile thinned. "Oh. Elara. I didn't realize you were coming."

"I live here," Elara said quietly.

Victoria's eyes swept over her plain dress and flat shoes, then flickered to Nadia's designer gown and diamond earrings. The comparison was silent but devastating.

"Well, don't just stand there. Sit somewhere," Victoria said, already turning back to Nadia. "Nadia, dear, you were telling us about your gallery opening?"

Elara sat at the far end of the table, alone.

No one spoke to her. No one passed her food. The servants glanced at her uncertainly, unsure if she mattered enough to serve.

She ate nothing and said nothing.

Until Nadia's voice, deliberately loud, carried across the table. "Kael, I've been thinking about redecorating the master bedroom. That wallpaper is so dated."

His master bedroom. The one Elara had never entered.

Kael smiled — that rare, warm smile Elara had never received. "Whatever you want. It's practically yours already."

Laughter rippled through the table.

Elara's fork slipped from her fingers, clattering against the plate.

Every head turned toward her.

"Sorry," she whispered, picking it up with shaking hands.

Kael's gaze landed on her for the first time that morning. His brow furrowed, not with concern but with irritation, as if she'd interrupted something important.

"Elara, if you're not feeling well, you can go inside," he said flatly.

Not "Are you okay?"

Not "What's wrong?"

Just leave.

She stood, her chair scraping loudly against the stone.

"Excuse me," she said, her voice barely audible.

As she walked away, she heard Nadia whisper to Kael, just loud enough: "She always looks so miserable. It's depressing."

And Kael's reply, quiet but clear: "She won't be here much longer."

Elara's steps didn't falter.

But inside, something cracked — not her heart, which had already been broken so many times it barely held shape.

Something deeper. Something that had been holding her together.

In the bathroom, she locked the door, pressed her back against it, and slid to the floor.

Her hand found her stomach again.

"It's just us," she whispered. "And that's enough."

She made a decision. She would not tell Kael about the baby. She would finish the contract, take her mother's treatment money, and disappear.

He would never know he had a child.

And she would never let her child feel as invisible as she did.

That night, Kael came home late, reeking of Nadia's perfume.

He paused outside the guest bedroom, hearing something through the door.

Crying. Soft, muffled, the kind where someone is pressing their face into a pillow so no one will hear.

His hand hovered over the doorknob.

Then he dropped it and walked away.