Page 53 of The Cruel Heir
His hand covered the small swell the doctor named the ‘gestational sac’. “Eleven weeks,” he mused. “A good start.”
Anger sparked bright, but my body, traitorous, exhausted, leaned into the warmth. I slipped from beneath his arm, bare feet sinking into the Aubusson rug. My robe hung on a chair, like dignity waiting to be reclaimed, and I knotted it tight, crossing to the vanity mirror.
Reflection: wild curls, bruised lips, a constellation of love-bites Sterling called proof. The robe’s belt cinched just above the barely-there curve. A ribbon on a gift he wrapped without permission.
Water hissed as I twisted the faucet. Cold bit my fingers, until pulse and fury matched rhythm. Behind me, bedsprings sighed, and footsteps padded across hardwood.
His presence filled the doorway, bare chest, inked ribs, trousers slung low. Steam curled from a coffee mug servants anticipated before sunrise. Predators always awoke ready.
“Regret it?” he asked softly. “Say the word, and I’ll open every door.”
Doors he nailed shut himself; jobs lost, accounts frozen, friends ghosted. He salted exits like a general poisoning wells. I met his gaze in the mirror.
“I regret that it’s you,” I said. Truth tasted like blood and freedom both.
His jaw ticked, subtle. “But not the child?”
Answering felt like choosing a side in a war I never enlisted for. My hand settled over my belly. “No,” I whispered, because the flutter there felt innocent of his sins.
Something unspooled in his expression, satisfaction? Relief? He masked it fast. “Then we agree.”
A knock sliced the moment.
“Why isn’t Zara in school?” Madeline’s voice, lacquered and lethal, drifted through the corridor, like poisoned perfume.
Panic jolted. Sterling’s eyes glinted and amusement sharpened his mouth. He set the mug down and closed the space between us, fingertips stroking a bruise along my collarbone.
“Does she care,” he murmured, “or does she already know?”
He kissed the hollow behind my ear just as the door swung wide.
Madeline Kingsley stood framed in cream silk, assessing the tableau: me in Sterling’s robe, Sterling half-dressed, steam twining like gossip. Her gaze lingered on our proximity, on the flush climbing my neck.
“You’re not dressed,” she observed, voice sugar-iced.
“It’s Saturday,” I managed.
Her smile was all blade. “Some girls enjoy sleeping in.” Eyes flicked to Sterling. “Your father needs help with luggage.”
“He’s not my father,” Sterling muttered, but brushed past her, past me, with a look that promised later. The corridor swallowed him, and his absence chilled the suite.
Madeline remained. The polite mask dropped, and cruelty gleamed beneath. “Desperation,” she said softly, “never wears well, even in silk.”
I gripped the vanity edge. “I’m not desperate.”
“You’re predictable.” She stepped closer, gaze fixed on the robe’s knot. “Women with nothing always bet their bodies. He’ll tire of you.”
My pulse hammered, but a second heartbeat fluttered back, steady, defiant. “Kings don’t discard heirs,” I said, shocked by how calm it sounded.
A flicker, surprise, maybe respect, before disdain returned. “Every empire buries mistakes. Pray he doesn’t label you one.”
She turned, perfume trailing contempt. The door clicked and silence expanded like lungs. I inhaled, slow, steady, feeling the weight and wonder of the life inside me, and the iron in my spine that wasn’t there yesterday.
Footsteps returned, Sterling. He paused at the threshold, reading the tension.
“What did she say?”
“That I smell of desperation.”
