Chapter 2

LIORA

I ran after her even though I didn’t know where she passed but all of a sudden I felt weak, so I walked slowly into the hospital where the nurses were standing.

“Hey nurse,” I called out softly to the nurse. “I think I need to get checked too. I’m feeling kinda… weird.”

The nurse, a thin woman in scrubs with a tired expression and a pen barely hanging onto her ear, looked up. “Name?”

“Liora Westley.”

She scribbled something down without asking too many questions. “Symptoms?”

“Headache. Fatigue. A little dizzy.”

The nurse handed me a short form on a clipboard. “Fill this out and give it back. We’ll slot you in very fast. Might be a wait though but it won’t take long.”

I nodded and took a seat. My stomach growled again, louder this time, but I ignored it. I filled out the form quickly, using the edge of my knee as a desk, and returned it to the nurse. The woman took it, nodded absentmindedly, and while answering a call placed it on a stack of other documents sitting on the edge of the desk.

Another nurse passed by in a rush and nudged the pile with her elbow. The forms scattered.

“Ah, crap,” the receptionist muttered, reaching for the papers. A few fell to the floor. She picked them up hastily, stacking them together again, but now some pages had clearly shifted positions.

“Who is next?” a voice called.

I turned to see a tall, slightly balding doctor in a white coat peeking out from behind a door. He scanned the room.

The nurse beside him leaned in, her voice hushed but audible. “The lady for the insemination. Room 3.”

I didn’t hear what she said, but when I caught the doctor’s eye, he waved her over. “Miss?”

I stepped forward. “Yes.”

“Come on in.”

As I walked toward the hallway, the nurse fumbled with the file folders again. One slipped from her hand.

“Here,” she said quickly, handing a manila folder to me. “Give this to the doctor, please. I don’t want to drop it again.”

I nodded, taking it without question, still rubbing at my temple. It didn’t occur to me to check if it was me. Why would it?

The doctor guided me into a small, sterile exam room and motioned to the bed. “Just lie back and relax. Routine procedure. Won’t take long.”

I frowned slightly. “Sorry, what exactly are we doing? The nurse said it’s just a check-up—”

“Yes, we will do that first,” the doctor interrupted with a calm voice and a soft smile. “Just standard procedure based on your form. Trust me. You’ll be out of here in minutes.”

I lay down.

The procedure was quick. Cold. Silent. I didn’t understand half of what was happening.

And then it was over.

“All done,” the doctor said, discarding his gloves. “You’re free to go.”

“That’s it?” I asked, confused. “I mean… that was fast, what is wrong with me?.”

The doctor nodded. “You may feel a little pressure later, but you’re good, you will be fine once you have a good rest.”

I sat up slowly, disoriented. But nodded. “Okay…”

I grabbed my bag, left the folder on the table like he asked, and walked back out to the waiting room.

Anny was standing by the door, already holding her jacket, she was searching for me but the nurse already told her where I was.

“That’s strange,” she said, her voice low.

I smiled. “Are you free to go? What you came for didn’t even take longer than I expected” I asked softly. 

“Yes, let’s go.” She replied, her voice low.

—

Ten Minutes Later, the  automatic doors had barely swished shut behind me and Anny when another woman walked in. She was tall, elegant, with sharp cheekbones and heels that clicked like punctuation against the floor. Her name was Emilia Crestwell, and she didn’t need to say anything—everyone at the clinic knew she was Mrs. Walton, wife of billionaire CEO Lucan Crestwell.

She walked straight to the reception desk, expecting her scheduled appointment.

“I’m here for the insemination,” she said crisply.

The nurse blinked.

Her heart dropped.

The stack of papers from earlier flashed in her mind. Her hand trembled slightly.

“Excuse me just a moment,” she said, standing abruptly and rushing down the hall.

She burst into Room 3 without knocking.

The doctor looked up from washing his hands.

“What the hell, Marla?” he asked.

Her face was pale. “Doctor… I think you inseminated the wrong woman.”

There was a pause. A long, stretching pause.

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“That girl. The one who just left. She wasn’t Emilia Crestwell. I—I gave you the wrong file. They got mixed when the papers fell. I didn’t realize until she came in just now.”

The doctor stared at her, stunned. “You’re telling me…”

“Yes,” she whispered. “You inseminated the wrong person with Mr. Crestwell’s sperm.”

He leaned back against the sink, breath shallow. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I wish I was, but doctor I am not.” She said, panicking.

—

Meanwhile…

I sat in the passenger seat, staring out the window as Anny hummed along to the radio.

“You okay?” Anny asked gently.

I blinked, slow to respond. “Yeah. Just tired.”

“You sure that was just a check-up?”

“I think so. I mean…” I frowned. “I don’t know. He said it was a routine always done before check up. But it felt weird.”

“What did they do?”

“I… I don’t even know how to explain it.”

“Do you want to go back? Ask questions?”

“No,” I said too quickly. “I don’t want to be a bother, let’s just leave.”

Anny didn’t push, but her gaze lingered on me a second longer before returning to the road.

My stomach turned. Something was off. Not just with the clinic. With myself. A strange, almost invisible shift was happening inside her.

And I didn’t know it yet, but my world had just split open.

****

Emilia Crestwell’s expression changed.

“You did what?” she hissed.

The doctor looked between her and the nurse, sweat beading on his forehead. “There’s a process. We have legal waivers. It’s a mistake—but one we’ll fix. Discreetly.”

“I am not paying to have some nobody carry my husband’s child!” Emilia snapped. “Fix this. Now.”

The nurse paled further. “We don’t know who she is. Her name was Liora Westley. She filled out a form for a check-up. That’s all we have.”

Emilia’s nails dug into her palm. “Then help me find her, give me all the details she filled immediately, how could you not get things straight?” She yelled at them.

The doctor nodded grimly. “We’ll start right away.”

But it was already too late.

Because I had unknowingly become the biggest scandal of the crestwell empire.