Chapter Eight

Three weeks passed like an endless, gray winter.

The news from Tokyo was a slow drip of corporate propaganda. Maximo Monteverde had woken from his coma, but the reports remained tightly controlled by his mother’s public relations team. They spoke of a miraculous recovery, a renewed dedication to the empire, and a tightening alliance with the Herrera family. There was no mention of a site supervisor named Max. He had returned to his glass tower, completely insulated from the world below.

Victoria stayed in her apartment, a ghost in her own life. She had officially resigned from Monteverde Holdings, sending her papers through a courier. She spent her days staring at the blank walls, her body heavy with an exhausting, overwhelming fatigue that she initially blamed on her broken heart.

Until the Tuesday morning she woke up and couldn't stand the smell of her morning coffee.

She rushed to the small bathroom, gripping the porcelain sink as her stomach violently convulsed. A cold sweat broke out across her forehead. She sat on the cold tile floor, her breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps as a sudden, terrifying realization bloomed in her chest.

Her mind raced back to that rainy evening beneath the concrete pavilion, the fierce heat of Max’s body, and the passionate, breathless nights they had shared in secret before the boardroom exposure.

With trembling legs, Victoria walked to the local pharmacy, bought a test, and waited the longest three minutes of her life in the quiet dark of her bathroom.

Two pink lines.

Victoria dropped the plastic stick, her hands flying to cover her mouth to stifle a sob. She was pregnant. She was carrying the child of the billionaire heir who had forgotten she existed, a man wrapped in high-security fences and international bodyguards.

"Oh, God," she whispered, her tears dripping onto her bare knees. "Max..."

***

She had no time to process the shock. That very afternoon, the black sedans returned to her narrow street.

This time, Eleanor Monteverde didn't bother knocking. Her security team forced the door open, stepping into the small apartment with practiced, terrifying efficiency. Eleanor walked in behind them, her sharp eyes instantly dropping to the pharmacy receipt sitting on the kitchen counter, and then to the pale, protective way Victoria’s hands were folded over her stomach.

Eleanor’s lips curled into a cold, satisfied smirk. "I see my private physician’s source was correct. You’ve been frequenting the clinic, Miss Valenzuela."

Victoria stood up, stepping back until her spine hit the edge of her drafting table. "Get out of my home."

"This is no longer your home," Eleanor said smoothly, snapping her fingers. Her primary legal advisor stepped forward, placing a thick, black leather folder on the dining table, right next to the white envelope that Victoria had still refused to touch. "Let’s skip the theatrics, Victoria. You are pregnant with a Monteverde child. Under normal circumstances, I would have my lawyers tie you up in litigation until you starved. But my son’s recovery is fragile, and I will not allow a bastard child to disrupt his upcoming marriage to Sofia Herrera."

"He isn't a bastard," Victoria snapped, her voice shaking with a fierce, maternal rage she didn't know she possessed. "He is Max's child."

"He is a liability," Eleanor corrected, her voice turning to pure ice. "And here is your ultimatum."

The lawyer opened the folder, revealing a stack of legally binding non-disclosure agreements and relocation papers.

"You will sign these documents," Eleanor commanded, her gaze pinning Victoria to the spot. "You will accept the fifty million pesos in that account. You will pack your things tonight, and you will take a flight to the southern provinces. You will change your contact numbers, you will never practice architecture in this city again, and you will never, ever tell this child who his father is."

Victoria lifted her chin, her eyes burning. "And if I refuse? If I wait for Max to fully recover and show him his child?"

Eleanor let out a sharp, mocking laugh that echoed horribly against the small room's ceiling.

"You think Maximo will believe you?" Eleanor leaned forward, her aristocratic face inches from Victoria's. "Do you know what I told him when he woke up from his head trauma, Victoria? I told him you came to the hospital, saw his broken body, and demanded fifty million pesos from me to walk away because you didn't want to waste your youth on a crippled billionaire. I showed him a forged receipt with your signature."

Victoria’s breath caught. Her heart shattered into a thousand bleeding pieces. "You... you monster."

"He hates you now," Eleanor whispered venomously, her eyes triumphant. "He believes you abandoned him for money. If you try to approach him with a baby now, he will see it as nothing but a pathetic attempt at a second extortion. He will use the full, crushing weight of our legal empire to take that child from you, throw you in prison for fraud, and bury you where no one will ever find you."

Eleanor straightened her silk blazer, looking down at Victoria as if she were a bug beneath her expensive heels.

"Sign the papers and keep the baby, Victoria. Or refuse, and watch me destroy you, take the child, and raise him to hate your very memory. You have until midnight to disappear."

Eleanor turned and walked out, her bodyguards closing the door behind her.

Victoria collapsed to her knees, clutching her stomach as the room spun around her. She looked at the white envelope, then at the black legal folder. She was entirely alone, trapped in the jaws of a corporate monster. She looked down at her belly, her heart crying out for the man who used to hold her in the rain, the man who was now a million miles away, believing she had sold his love for a check.

She had to protect her baby. She had to run.