"Preg... pregnant?"
Raphael's voice was barely a rasp. The word was so alien, so impossible, it felt like a language he didn't understand.
Dr. Ahn just nodded, his expression grim. "Yes. Six weeks. Which, given her heart condition, makes this an extremely high-risk pregnancy. She cannot, under any circumstances, be put under this kind of emotional distress again. Am I clear, Mr. King?"
Raphael didn't answer. He had sunk, boneless, onto the plush leather sofa of the lounge.
He was staring at his own hands—the hands that had, an hour ago, grabbed her arm in anger.
Frail.
Pregnant.
The two words crashed together in his mind, annihilating every thought he'd had just moments before.
Frail. He had spent six months, no, twenty years, treating Esme Lee like his equal, his fiery, indestructible rival.
He'd pushed her, goaded her, and fought with her, enjoying the spark in her eyes when she fought back.
He had always assumed her "frail" reputation was a lie, a weakness her family exaggerated.
But it was real. He had been fighting a sick woman.
He had been a monster.
Pregnant.
His child. His heir.
The heir to the King conglomerate.
He thought back to the alcove, to the word that had shocked him: Divorce.
He had been furious, ready to call her bluff, ready to let her walk and watch her family crumble.
But now...
Now she was sick. She was carrying his child. And the thought of her leaving, of her taking his heir and disappearing...
He didn't want her to leave but She might still choose to leave.
The guilt was a physical thing, a cold, crushing weight. His pride, his arrogance... what had it done? He, Raphael King, had almost murdered his wife. He had almost killed his child.
The man who had left the gala, furious and ready to fight, was gone. The man who remained was a terrified stranger, staring down the barrel of a catastrophe he had single-handedly caused.
"She needs to be kept on absolute bed rest," Dr. Ahn continued, writing on his chart. "Monitored 24/7. Her OB-GYN will be here in the morning, but my primary concern is her heart. No stress, Mr. King. None."
"Yes," Raphael said. The word was sharp, his voice suddenly back, but different. The arrogance was gone, replaced by a chilling, obsessive focus. "I understand. She will have no stress. I'll handle it."
He stood up, his dark suit jacket still clutched in his fist, and walked to the door.
"I want to see her."
---
The first thing Esme registered was the sterile smell, followed by the quiet, rhythmic beep... beep... beep of a heart monitor.
The second thing she registered was him.
Raphael King was sitting in a chair by her bedside. He wasn't on his phone. He wasn't barking orders. He was just... sitting. Staring.
His hair was a mess, his tie was gone, and his expensive white shirt was rumpled.
He looked less like a billionaire heir and more like a ghost who had been told the world was ending.
When he saw her eyes flutter open, he shot to his feet, nearly knocking the chair over.
"Esme?"
"What... happened?" she whispered. Her throat felt like sandpaper. The last thing she remembered was the alcove, the coldness in his eyes, the word "divorce"... and then white-hot pain.
"You collapsed," he said. His voice was rough, like he'd swallowed gravel. "You... your heart."
"Oh." She closed her eyes. Of course. Her stupid, treacherous heart. She had pushed it too far.
"And..." Raphael hesitated, his face a mask of pale, unreadable conflict. He looked like he wanted to be sick. "The doctor... he..."
As if summoned, the door hissed open and Dr. Ahn stepped back in, his face all business.
"Ah, Ms. Lee. You're awake. Good." He moved to her bedside, pointedly ignoring Raphael, and began checking her monitors.
"Doctor?" Esme tried to sit up, but a wave of dizziness pushed her back.
"Easy," Dr. Ahn said, his voice calm. "You gave us all quite a scare. Your heart is stable, for now. But we need to talk about what we found. Your collapse wasn't just your chronic condition."
He looked from Esme to Raphael, his gaze landing on the billionaire with a flicker of clear disdain.
"You're approximately six weeks pregnant, Ms. Lee. The hormonal and physical stress, combined with your heart condition, makes this an extremely high-risk pregnancy. You need zero stress. Am I understood?"
He finished his checks, gave a curt nod, and was gone, leaving the bombshell hanging in the air like a live grenade.
The beep... beep... beep of the monitor was the only sound.
Six weeks. Pregnant.
The words just rattled around Esme's brain. She and Raphael stared at each other. For the first time in their entire lives, neither of them knew what to say. The silence was louder and more awkward than any of their screaming matches.
Finally, Raphael, a man of zero emotional intelligence, broke the silence with the absolute, fundamentally stupidest thing he could have possibly said.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
His voice was hoarse.
Esme's head snapped toward him. The heart monitor, in perfect, traitorous sync, let out a sharp, sudden BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!
Raphael's eyes shot to the monitor in pure panic.
"Stop!" he yelped, "Don't... don't do that. The doctor said no stress!"
The nerve. The absolute, platinum-plated, diamond-encrusted audacity. He thought his arrogance caused her collapse? His sheer idiocy was going to be the thing that finally did her in.
"I had no idea I was six weeks pregnant, you absolute idiot!" she snapped.
The monitor beeped faster.
"I know! I know! Just... calm down! I was talking about your heart condition not the pregnancy." he said, backing away with his hands up, as if she were a wild animal. "Okay! You didn't know! I get it! Just... breathe!"
"Ah... I see but you..." Esme narrowed her eyes, the new, horrifying realization dawning. The math wasn't... math-ing. "You know how I got pregnant, don't you?"
Raphael King, the man who stared down global markets, visibly stepped back. He actually swallowed.
He looked like a guilty, overgrown schoolboy who'd just been caught setting fire to the principal's car.
"How?" Esme demanded, her voice dangerously quiet.
The monitor beeped steadily.
"How, Raphael?"
He winced, his face looking pained. "It was... it was that one time. At your ex-fiancé's wedding."
Esme let go of a breath she didn't know she was holding.
Oh.
Of course.
That night. The single most humiliating night of her adult life, the one where she got drunk on spite, schadenfreude, and two-dozen leftover champagne flutes.
The night she woke up with a hangover that could kill a rhino and her wedding ring suspiciously still on.
"You... We..." she stammered.
"I'm... sorry..." he mumbled, looking at the wall, the floor, the ceiling...anywhere but at her. "I don't know what came over me..."
"You didn't think to even tell me?"
"I thought maybe since you didn't remember, it wasn't necessary!" he said, his voice rising in that old, arrogant defense. "Plus, we... we don't talk, if we talk we end up arguing! I just... I didn't bother!"
Beep-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!
"You didn't bother'?!" she shrieked, and Raphael immediately flinched, his eyes darting to the monitor in terror.
"Okay! Stop! I'm sorry! You're right!" he said, "It was stupid! Just... stop getting angry, you'll... you'll... just stop!" He was terrified of her heart, not her anger.
Esme took a few, shuddering breaths, forcing herself to calm down.
This was a farce.
Her entire life was a farce.
The beeping slowed. Raphael sagged against the wall, his shoulders slumped.
He looked at her, his eyes stripped of all their usual fire, showing only that new, terrifying, guilt-ridden look.
"So," he asked, his voice suddenly small. "The... the divorce? Do you... still want to?"
Esme stared at him. This whole mess. This baby. This... him.
The hate was still there, a familiar, hot coal in her chest. But now it was complicated by this tiny, six-week-old, bean-sized problem.
"How can I?" she said, the words tasting like ash. "When you're my baby's father."
The relief that washed over his face was so immediate, so total, it was almost offensive. The heir was secure. The problem was contained.
He visibly straightened up, the CEO slotting back into place.
"Right. Okay." He nodded, pulling out his phone. "I'll handle it."
Esme just stared, exhausted. "Handle what, Raphael? You just 'handled' me into a high-risk pregnancy."
He didn't even flinch, his eyes glued to his screen, fingers flying.
"Everything. I'm moving my office home. I'm having your things moved into the master bedroom. I'm hiring a nutritionist, two full-time nurses, and a new security detail for you. The doctor said 'no stress.' So I am eliminating it."
He looked up, his gaze locking on hers. The arrogance was back, but it was different. It was cold, clinical, and possessive.
"You just lie there," he repeated, "and don't you dare collapse again. Understood?"
Esme just leaned back against the pillows, her eyes half-closed. The man was a walking, talking migraine.
"You said you're eliminating all stress," she whispered, her voice deceptively sweet.
Raphael nodded, looking proud of his own efficiency. "Everything."
"Why don't you eliminate yourself then?"
The silence that filled the room was absolute.
Raphael's fingers froze on his phone. His jaw tightened, and that old, familiar spark of anger flashed in his eyes.
But just as he opened his mouth to snap back at her, the heart monitor on her bedside let out a single, warning Beep-BEEP.
He flinched. His mouth snapped shut.
He stared at the monitor, then at her, his expression a furious, frustrated mess. He was a lion who had just been muzzled by a six-week-old, bean-sized fetus.
Esme gave him the smallest, most tired, most victorious smirk.
Raphael King, for the first time in his entire life, was utterly speechless.
He turned on his heel, and marched out of the room, slamming the door just hard enough to show his anger, but not hard enough to startle the monitors again.
This, Esme thought as she closed her eyes, was going to be a very long nine months.