HIS SECRET HEIR

Adrian's POV

I'd barely handed Celeste the signed agreement when Nolan Pierce was wheeled out of surgery.

Celeste shoved past me to reach him.

Pain tore through my abdomen. Days earlier, I'd taken a knife to the stomach rescuing her from kidnappers, and the wounds still hadn't healed.

Nobody noticed. Everyone crowded around Nolan, asking how he felt.

I braced myself against the wall and made my way back to my office.

The miscarriage report on my desk blurred as my eyes filled with tears.

Celeste had suffered another miscarriage while sleeping with her seventh lover.

That was the third child I'd lost.

While I was still grieving, she had ignored my warnings and insisted on taking Nolan to an opera at the very theater where she and I had first fallen in love. Her enemies had seized the opportunity, abducting her and taking her to a remote island.

I'd been stabbed three times getting her out.

Yet just three days after I'd been moved out of intensive care, she had dragged me from my hospital bed at three in the morning, all so I could perform a lengthening procedure on her newest lover.

With tears in her eyes, she'd pulled me toward the operating suite, her voice breaking.

"Adrian, I got carried away. Nolan's so young. If he's permanently injured down there, his whole life will be ruined.

"I'm begging you."

So I'd changed into my scrubs without a word.

No shouting. No accusations. None of the frantic, desperate fights we'd had the previous six times.

I didn't sob until I could barely stand, ready to hang up my white coat and be branded an unethical doctor rather than set foot in the operating room.

I simply wheeled him into the OR and treated him like any other patient.

After ten years with Celeste, I knew the difference. This time, she'd actually fallen for him.

My fingers drifted over the photograph on my desk.

Celeste was grinning straight at the camera. Her face was bruised, one leg encased in a cast, and she somehow looked happier than anyone I'd ever seen.

I slid the picture out of its frame with shaking hands.

On the back, in her wild, slanting handwriting, she'd written, "Celeste Harrington and Adrian Vale. Together forever."

It was the day I'd turned eighteen.

My gambling-addicted mother had tricked me into going to a private club. Celeste had come to rescue me and been beaten so badly that she broke her leg. She never got back into the kickboxing she loved.

And yet, in the hospital, she'd insisted on taking that photograph with me to celebrate my birthday.

"I saved your life," she'd teased. "So now you have to marry me."

I ran my thumb across her smiling face.

"You saved me once, Celeste, and I've lost three children," I murmured. "We're even."

I tore the photograph into pieces and dropped them into the trash.

Someone knocked.

Celeste came in and immediately noticed the empty frame.

"Where's our picture?"

Before I could answer, she thrust her phone toward me, practically glowing with excitement.

"Adrian, what do you think Nolan and I should name our baby?"

The names on her screen made my chest seize.

She'd spent night after night searching through baby-name books to choose them for our first child.

One of those names was now engraved beside a perpetual memorial candle in a chapel.

She'd even forgotten the name of our baby.

I studied her face: the tender smile, the warmth in her eyes, the unmistakable joy at the thought of becoming a mother again.

Only then did I understand that she had truly forgotten.

Our son had been with us for only thirty-seven days. He'd been born fragile because of an inherited genetic illness, and he hadn't survived his first winter.

"Adrian?"

Celeste's smile faded when I didn't respond.

"I thought you'd finally come to your senses. I've explained this a hundred times. My position means I need an heir. If you love me, you should understand that..."

"Use this one," I interrupted quietly.

I pointed to a name on her screen.

Celeste froze. She opened her mouth, but a noise from the doorway cut her off.