CONTRACT BRIDE FOR THE CEO

Maya POV

I woke up to the beeping of a matching and the nauseating scent of antiseptic.

My throat was dry. My limbs were numb. And my chest…my chest felt like someone had taken a fist to it. A deep, ache coursed underneath my ribs as I tried to sit up, disoriented and slow.

Where was I?

The hospital?

“Miss Angelou?”

A voice, soft, that of a male, drew my gaze to the right. A doctor stood near the foot of my bed, flipping through a clipboard. His coat was pristine, his expression composed.

“You're awake. That's good,” he said. “You collapsed from internal bleeding. We managed to stabilize you in time since you tried your way out here on your own.”

My voice broke. “Bleeding ... .from what?”

He stepped closer, concern flickering in his eyes. “I guess you do not know then. You were pregnant, Miss Angelou.”

I blinked twice and between those times, it felt like the time froze.

Pregnant? Were?

“You were….around five weeks,” he continued gently. “Unfortunately, the pregnancy didn't hold. You had a miscarriage. I am sorry about that.”

The words settled like glass in my chest. Disbelief. I swallowed. “I didn't know,” I whispered.

“I figured,” he said. “That’s not uncommon.”

Pregnant.

The word echoed. Then shattered.

I came here all by myself even with the bleeding because he never picked my calls.

“Also…” He cleared his throat. “We ran additional tests due to the internal inflammation. Your results showed signs of a tumor in your stomach lining. We did a biopsy.”

He hesitated.

“I’m afraid it’s early-stage gastric cancer.”

The room spun around and the white walls shifted sideways. I grabbed the sheets, holding on like I was about to fall.

Cancer?

If there is one thing I feared most was cancer. Cancer took my mother away, same as my father and now it was happening to me as well?

“I….” I was short of words. “I…I don't understand, Doctor.” I said, breath catching in my throat. “What?”

“You’ll need treatment quickly,” the doctor said gently. “It’s treatable, but it can’t wait. Chemotherapy and likely surgery. If it's not treated early, it might not be treatable later on.”

First it was pregnancy, then miscarriage and then cancer?

All in the span of minutes.

Things started to fall into place. My boyfriend, Jason, his doctor, he had called his doctor when I fainted last two weeks and he never told me for once I was pregnant. Could it be?

No, no, no.

I didn't want to believe any of that. I have known him for 5 years now and he would never stoop so low to things like this.

He placed a pamphlet on the side table and murmured something about referrals. But I was already sinking into myself. I tuned out the rest. I nodded where I had to. I signed discharge papers with trembling fingers. I put on the clothes that were brought in from my locker—wrinkled jeans and a faded sweater. It was now clean and I could not see any blood stains.

And I left.

I didn’t know where else to go, so I went to him. I wanted to confront. Wanted to know what the heck was going on with me. Pregnant? And he never even uttered a word out to me.

The ride-share driver didn’t say much. Good. I didn’t have the strength to fake a smile.

His apartment looked the same….clean, polished, modern. The kind of cold space he always said reflected his "minimalist mindset." I remembered thinking it reflected something else: a hollowed-out heart but I always turned it off. The thoughts. It might be nothing to him.

I knocked. No answer. I tried again, this time twisting the knob. Unlocked.

Stupid me.

I stepped inside, ready to collapse into his arms, maybe to cry, to scream, to ask why he hadn't answered my calls when I was bleeding. But the second mind said it was all for the best.

It was for me to find out the truth by myself. Because probably, he wouldn't even have told me I had cancer. Or he might have forgotten?

My mind was racing with Joe to tell him everything: I didn't want my own thoughts to come real.

But instead, I froze.

First, there was laughter, then a low and cruel voice, coming from the living room.

I stepped in further, my heart hammering, and the world dropped out from under me.

He was there. Jason.

Half naked. Beer in hand. And her…his cousin - sitting on his lap in nothing but an oversized shirt, Cleary not hers. I remembered gifting him that shirt on his birthday. Their legs tangled, their fingers trading each other lazily. And a movie, on the flat screen, but neither of them was watching it.

“I swear, she’s so dramatic,” he was saying. “Always acting like she’s some main character. I am honestly tired of putting up with her. If not for her parents' company that she's yet to get, I would have shown her that side of me.”

Yes, it was true. I was still fighting for my father's company in court with his relative trying to rip everything away from me even after taking over the house.

My father had said all his assets were in my name but yet, they still wanted it forcefully.

“Right?” The cousin—Kira—giggled. “Like, girl, get a grip. No one’s out to get you. Well—” she smirked, looking at him, “maybe I was. I hated her guts. The way she just comes in and then gets into the kitchen to start cooking and then she goes from that to warming your bed. Screaming like a cow. She disgusts me, Jason. But at least, she's helpful when it comes to cooking.”

“I have never seen someone so foolish as she is. Did you give her the abortion pills like I said?” That was him, Jason.

Abortion pills. So he did. He ended my life in one bit just because of his selfishness?

“If I didn't, then trust me, she won't be calling you nonstop. I wonder if she's dead.”

They both burst into laughter.

And I gasped out in disbelief, my legs trembling.

I took one shaky step into the room. “Wow.”

The laughter died instantly.

Jason looked up first, eyes narrowing like I was an inconvenience. “Maya? What the hell are you doing here? I….”

I blinked. “You didn’t answer. I….I was in the hospital.”

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I saw the missed calls. I figured it was just another one of your meltdowns and I didn't want you killing my joy over again.”

I opened my mouth. I closed it.

Kira adjusted her position lazily, completely unbothered by my presence. “Was it?”

“I was pregnant,” I said, barely above a whisper. “And I lost it.”

Silence.

Jason stared at me, expression unreadable. “And?”

I stepped back, the words hitting me like ice water. “What?”

He stood, brushing Kira’s hands off him. “It wasn’t even a real pregnancy. Five weeks? That’s barely anything.”

My heart cracked. I was trying to find air. “I didn’t even know. Until the doctor told me. And now I have…..” My throat closed up. “It doesn’t matter. But what matters right now, is you actually being the cause of my miscarriage. You gave me an abortion pills? Something that could have killed me? Y…..” I sucked on my tooth, trying to hold onto the tears that had now formed in my eyes. “Jason, you knew all along that I was pregnant and yet, you caused me so much pain. All because of what?”

“Oh,” Kira said with a mock pout. “So tragic. But maybe now you’ll stop acting like the world revolves around you. He aborted the pregnancy and so what? You can't blame him, he doesn’t want his child to come out from someone as dull as you are.”

Jason crossed his arms. “You were always too clingy, Maya. This? All this drama? It’s why I stopped caring. Too calm, always wanting to be perfect and I hated it”

My lip trembled. “You lied. You said she was your cousin. I ... .all of my hard earned money, I help you with it for your business and…..”

“She is,” he said. Then smirked. “By marriage. Distant marriage.”

Kira laughed. “Relax. We’ve been messing around for months. You were just the filler.”

That broke me.

Pregnant.

Lost it.

Cancer.

I could feel my whole body trembling with the cold that had now hovered over me.

I wasn't thinking straight. I couldn't even. My breath was unstable, my whole body losing its senses.

“Na…”

“Stop being dramatic, Maya. You barely have anyone to even fend for you. Your father, he's dead. Your mother, she's dead. They all heartlessly left you to rot in this world and I…I decided to give you the love. Do not turn me into a bad person.”

His words. Filled with spite. Void. No remorse. Just there.

The notification on my phone shone so bright.

A mail.

Electric bill.

Hospital invoice.

Eviction notice.

FINAL WARNING: Your rent is overdue. Pay within 5 days or vacate.

I smiled, tears slowly slipping down my face. “I do not think I deserve this from you, Jason.”

And with that, I scurried out of the room, holding onto my chest tightly.

I sank to the floor of his apartment, still in my hospital wristband as I covered my mouth with both hands, silent tears sliding down my cheeks. My knees tucked to my chest, and for the first time in years, I let myself feel completely, utterly broken.

Just pain.

And I had five days to figure out how to survive.