5

"What do you mean she's the woman?"

Adrian's furious voice sliced through the living room, causing everyone present to fall instantly silent.

I sat stiffly on the edge of the velvet couch, my hands tightly clasped together in my lap. Ever since the estate security had taken me from outside the hospital clinic, I had felt as though I was trapped inside a nightmare that refused to end. The drive back to the mansion had been one of the longest, most agonizing rides of my life. I had spent almost the entire journey trying to explain myself from the back seat.

"Sir, please believe me," I had pleaded to the stone-faced guard while fighting back tears. "I never planned to tell anyone about the pregnancy."

He had not responded.

"Sir, I wasn't trying to trap his son."

He had remained silent.

"Sir, I was actually trying to get rid of—"

Before I could finish the word abortion, the man had simply raised a gloved hand and cut me off.

After that, I had spent the rest of the drive staring blindly out the window while my heart pounded against my ribs with pure terror. Now, I was sitting deep inside the Hawthorne mansion while Adrian stared at me as though I was something unpleasant he had found stuck to the bottom of his shoe.

"There has to be some mistake," Adrian said, turning sharply back toward his father. "I don't care what anyone says. This cannot be true."

"It is true," Mr. Hawthorne replied, his voice chillingly calm.

"No, Father, it isn't." Adrian pointed a finger directly at me. "I can understand you accusing me of making a reckless decision. I can understand you saying I embarrassed the family. What I cannot understand is why you're expecting me to believe that she is the woman you're talking about."

My cheeks burned with a sudden, agonizing heat. I wished the floor would open up and swallow me whole. The worst part wasn't the accusation; the worst part was that he was speaking about me as though I were a piece of furniture, a blank object that wasn't sitting a mere three feet away from him.

Adrian took a frustrated, heavy breath before continuing. "I may have been intoxicated that night, but I wasn't blind. I refuse to believe this."

Mr. Hawthorne folded his arms, his posture unyielding. "You refuse to believe it because the truth is inconvenient."

"The truth?" Adrian laughed harshly, the sound scraping against the high ceilings. "Father, I have a fiancée. I am supposed to be getting married in a few months. Why would I risk all of that?"

Mr. Hawthorne’s eyes narrowed, his lip curling into a cold, dismissive sneer. "A fiancée? You mean Rusali? Tell me, Adrian, what type of fiancée isn't even ready to be a mother because she's too busy chasing a career? A woman who explicitly told us she won't carry an heir for at least another five years because it interferes with her corporate ambitions?"

The words struck me harder than a physical blow. My gaze dropped instantly to the floor. The irony tasted like ash in my mouth—Adrian's high-society fiancée didn't want a child because of her career, the exact same reason I had been begging a doctor for a way out just an hour ago. Except when a wealthy woman rejected motherhood for her career, it was an ambition; when a maid did it, it was a ruinous mistake.

To Adrian, I wasn't a woman with dreams. I was just another employee. Just another servant. Just another person who existed somewhere beneath his notice.

"I suggest you choose your next words carefully," Mr. Hawthorne warned, his expression darkening.

Adrian looked away from me, focusing his rage back onto his father. "Father, you are asking me to accept something impossible."

"Nothing about this situation is impossible."

"You honestly expect me to believe that she ended up pregnant after one night and that somehow all of this happened naturally?"

Before Mr. Hawthorne could answer, one of the bodyguards stepped forward with smooth precision and handed Adrian a tablet.

"I knew you would deny it," Mr. Hawthorne said, leaning slightly on his cane. "That is why I obtained the security footage from the house."

Adrian frowned, his grip tightening on the edges of the device. "What security footage?"

"The footage showing exactly who you dragged into your suite that night."

The room became completely, suffocatingly silent. I felt my heartbeat quicken to a frantic, erratic tempo as Adrian looked down at the screen. For several moments, nobody breathed. His jaw slowly, visibly tightened.

Then, he replayed the footage. Then, he replayed it again.

When he finally looked up, the confusion was gone. His eyes landed directly on me. The look on his face made my stomach twist into a violent knot. He wasn't looking at me with disbelief anymore. He was looking at me with pure, unadulterated anger.

Adrian slowly walked toward where I was sitting on the couch. Every heavy step he took made my nerves fracture. When he finally stopped directly in front of me, the sheer tension radiating from his body was suffocating.

"You planned this, didn't you?"

I immediately forced myself to look up, meeting his terrifying gaze. "No, sir."

"Don't lie to me."

"I am not lying."

Adrian let out a short, humorless laugh. "You expect me to believe that this happened by accident?"

"It did."

"Then explain something to me." His voice dropped into a register that was deathly cold. "If I was as intoxicated as everyone claims... why didn't you leave?"

I stared at him, the question catching me completely off guard. The memory of the dark room, his feverish skin, and the way my own body had locked up flashed through my mind. "I... I didn't know what was happening."

"You didn't know what was happening?" Adrian repeated, his expression making it obvious that he thought I was a calculated liar.

"I was confused too," I said quietly, my voice trembling.

"You were confused, yet somehow you managed to end up pregnant."

The accusation felt like a physical slap across the face. I opened my mouth to defend myself, to tell him I had just been at a clinic trying to undo it, but Mr. Hawthorne spoke first.

"That is enough."

Adrian snapped his head toward his father. "No, it is not enough!" His voice rose, echoing off the walls. "You drag me into this room, tell me that a maid is carrying my child, and then expect me to calmly accept it?"

Mr. Hawthorne remained completely composed. "I expect you to take responsibility."

"For what?"

"For your child."

Adrian laughed bitterly. "You have already decided that the child is mine?"

"The evidence speaks for itself."

Adrian shook his head, pacing a tight line across the floor. "This is insane."

Mr. Hawthorne's patience finally snapped. His voice became dangerously firm. "The child carries Hawthorne blood. That is all that matters."

Adrian stared at him. Then he looked at me. Then he looked back at his father. "You cannot be serious."

"I am completely serious."

"Father, there is no way I am marrying her."

Mr. Hawthorne took a heavy step forward, slamming his cane down. "You will marry her."

"No."

"You will."

"No, I won't!"

The tension in the room became completely unbearable. Nobody dared to interrupt them; the bodyguards stood like statues. Adrian's face hardened into stone.

"You cannot force me into marriage."

Mr. Hawthorne’s expression remained terrifyingly cold. "Watch me."

"Father—"

"I am not finished!" The older man pointed a sharp finger toward me. "Whether you like her or not is completely irrelevant." He pivoted, pointing the finger directly at Adrian. "Whether you approve of the situation or not is irrelevant. What matters is that a child carrying our bloodline is on the way, and no grandchild of mine will be born a bastard."

Adrian looked genuinely stunned, the fight temporarily draining from his posture. "You cannot be serious."

"I have never been more serious."

"Father, this is my life!"

"And I am your father." Mr. Hawthorne clenched his jaw, his eyes locking onto his son with absolute finality. "If you refuse this marriage, then I will cut you off completely."

The room fell into a dead, shocked silence. Even the bodyguards looked visibly surprised.

Adrian stared at him, his voice dropping to a whisper. "What did you say?"

"You heard me." Mr. Hawthorne's voice never wavered. "You will lose access to the Hawthorne name, the Hawthorne inheritance, and every single privilege that comes with being my son."

Adrian looked as though he had been punched squarely in the chest. "You would do that?"

"I would." The older man's expression remained unchanged, brutal and calculating. "I spent decades building this empire. I will not allow your pride to destroy it."

For several agonizing moments, nobody spoke. Then, Adrian slowly turned his head toward me. The look in his eyes was enough to make my stomach drop into a bottomless pit. I knew exactly what he was thinking. He blamed me. For the ruined engagement. For his father's ultimatum. For everything.

"So this is what you wanted?" His voice was dangerously, quietly calm.

I shook my head immediately, terror flaring in my chest. "No, sir. That isn't—"

"You wanted money?"

"No!"

"You wanted status?"

"No!"

"You wanted a shortcut into this family?"

"No, sir!" My voice trembled violently, tears threatening to spill over my lashes. "That isn't what happened!"

Adrian reached into his pocket, his movements sharp and aggressive, and pulled out a sleek black titanium card. With a flick of his wrist, he threw it onto the coffee table directly in front of me.

The card landed with a sharp, metallic clink against the wood.

"If money is what you're after, then let's stop wasting everyone's time."

I stared down at the black card, then slowly forced my eyes up to meet his. His expression was completely dead, frozen in a mask of pure contempt.

His gaze locked onto mine, boring into my soul. "So tell me. How much do you want before you disappear from my life forever?"