THE HEIRESS THEY THREW AWAY

Heat flooded her body.

She clung to the cool firmness beneath her palms, caught somewhere between resistance and surrender. Pain blurred into pleasure, rising and falling like waves she couldn’t escape. Her thoughts scattered, dissolving into a haze of sensation.

“Hey… wake up. It’s cold here. Don’t catch a cold.”

Isabella’s eyes snapped open.

A nurse stood over her, a hand resting gently on her shoulder.

Reality rushed back all at once. Her cheeks burned with embarrassment as she quickly looked away, wishing the floor would open and swallow her whole.

Even after all this time, that night still found its way into her dreams.

The drunken night she had spent with Gabriel Rowes.

She remembered almost nothing from it, only fragments of heat, touch, and blurred sensations. Sometimes she felt grateful for that. If she remembered everything clearly, she wouldn’t know how to face Gabriel.

The nurse handed her a stack of papers. “You forgot your pregnancy test results. The doctor wants to see you again next week.”

“Thank you,” Isabella said softly, forcing a smile as she slipped the papers carefully into her purse.

Gabriel was returning tonight.

He had been studying overseas, in a place so remote that communication had been difficult. It wasn’t until she was over eight months pregnant that she finally managed to reach him.

She still remembered the silence on the phone after she told him.

She had expected excitement. Shock, yes but happiness too.

Instead, his reaction had been… restrained.

The doctor had told her not to overthink it. Men take time to process things like this, she had said. Especially when it’s their first child.

But Isabella couldn’t shake the unease in her chest.

Would she even have to be the one to bring up marriage?

The sun blazed overhead as she stepped out of the hospital. Supporting her lower back with one hand, she raised the other to hail a taxi.

A sudden roar of an engine tore through the air.

Before she could react, a dazzling red sports car sped toward her.

Her heart leapt into her throat as she stumbled backward. The car screeched to a halt so close that the edge of her clothes brushed against the front bumper.

Her legs nearly gave out.

The driver’s door opened.

A woman stepped out.

She wore a tight red dress that hugged her figure, and she flipped her wavy hair over her shoulder as if she had just stepped onto a runway.

“Vanessa… are you crazy?” Isabella breathed.

Vanessa smiled, slowly, mockingly, deliberately.

She walked forward in her high heels, each step confident and unhurried, until she stood directly in front of Isabella. Her eyes dropped pointedly to Isabella’s swollen belly.

“What? Afraid I might kill the bastard in your stomach?”

Isabella instinctively covered her abdomen and took a step back. “Vanessa! Don’t go too far!”

She knew Vanessa disliked her. They had never gotten along. But she had never imagined words this vicious.

Vanessa laughed softly. “I’m going too far? You’re the one who went too far.”

Her eyes were sharp with contempt.

“You got drunk, slept with some random man, got pregnant, and now you’re trying to make Gabriel take responsibility. Bella… aren’t you shameless?”

Isabella froze.

“What nonsense are you talking about?”

Vanessa tilted her head, amused. “Don’t tell me you really believe the man you slept with that night was Gabriel.”

She stepped closer.

“You talk about growing up with him all the time. Childhood sweethearts, this and that. And you don’t even know what his body feels like?”

The world around Isabella seemed to fade.

Despite the harsh sunlight, her body felt cold.

The man from that night…

She had only assumed…

Gabriel had simply grown more muscular over the years.

But now, with Vanessa’s cruel words echoing in her ears, a terrifying realization crept into her mind.

Other than the heat and the touch…

That man had felt nothing like Gabriel at all.