The Billionaire Accidentally Heir

CHAPTER ONE: THE WIFE HE NEVER TOUCHED

"Please, Adrian. Just come for ten minutes. I don’t want to do this alone again."

Elena Hayes stood outside the fertility clinic’s treatment room with her phone pressed to her ear and her appointment card bent between her fingers. She had arrived early because she was afraid of being late, although there was nobody waiting at home to wish her luck. This was her fourth insemination attempt. The first had ended with a nurse saying the timing had been right but nature was unpredictable. The second had ended with a sympathetic doctor and another bill. The third had ended with Elena sitting in her car until the clinic closed, crying so hard that she could barely see the road. She had promised herself she would not cry today.

“I told you I’m in a meeting,” Adrian said. His voice sounded distant, as if she were an interruption he had already decided to forgive himself for making. “I’ll come when I can.”

“They’re preparing me now. You said you would come after your meeting.”

“And I said I would try, Elena. I can’t abandon everything because you’re nervous.”

She swallowed the reply that rose in her throat. “I’m not asking you to abandon everything. I’m asking you to be here for something we supposedly want.”

There was a pause, then a sharp exhale. “I have to go.” The call ended before she could answer.

Elena stared at the blank screen. For a moment, she considered calling back, but she knew how it would end. Adrian would say she was making a scene, that she had known what their marriage was when she agreed to it, that she should stop expecting feelings he had never promised her. She put the phone away and followed the nurse inside.

The procedure was quick. The waiting had been longer than the treatment itself, as always. The doctor explained what Elena should do over the next few days and reminded her that even when everything was done correctly, success was never guaranteed. Elena nodded. She had memorized every instruction from the previous attempts, including the ones about rest, medication, and avoiding unnecessary stress.

“You’ve been carrying this alone,” the doctor said gently. “you and your husband are able to, natural conception can sometimes be another option, since you both are fertile.”

Elena’s smile nearly broke. She wanted to tell the doctor that natural conception was not an option, because Adrian had never touched her. They lived in the same house and attended family dinners as husband and wife, but their bedroom had been separate from the first night. Adrian had told her that he had agreed to the marriage only because his grandfather had insisted. He would provide for her, he said, but she should not mistake the arrangement for love.

Still, Elena had hoped. She had hoped that time would soften him, that patience would earn her a place in his heart, and that a child might become something they could love together. She knew how foolish those hopes sounded when spoken aloud, so she kept them to herself.

After the appointment, she walked slowly along the corridor with her medical folder held against her chest. Near the maternity ward, two nurses were talking beside an open door.

“That husband is so devoted,” one said. “He came for her antenatal appointment and stayed with her the whole morning.”

“He even carried her bag. I wish more men understood that pregnancy is frightening.”

Then a man answered from inside the room. Elena stopped so abruptly that another patient nearly bumped into her. She knew that voice. It was the low, controlled voice Adrian used when he wanted to sound patient while hiding his irritation.

She told herself she was mistaken. Adrian worked with people whose families used this hospital. He might be visiting a colleague, a cousin, or anyone else. She had no right to turn every sound into evidence against him, even if he had given her plenty of reasons to doubt him.

The ward door opened before she could move away. Adrian came out with a pregnant woman beside him. The woman’s face was turned toward him, partly hidden by her hair, but Elena saw Adrian take the handbag from her shoulder. He placed his arm around her carefully, guiding her around a trolley left in the corridor. Then he bent his head and said something that made the woman laugh.

There was no impatience in him. No clipped answer. No look that suggested the person beside him was demanding too much. He looked like a man who wanted to be there.

Elena’s folder slipped in her hands. “Adrian?” she whispered.

He did not hear her—or he heard and chose not to turn. The lift doors opened, and he guided the woman inside. Just before they closed, he brushed his thumb over her shoulder in a small, familiar gesture that hurt Elena more than a kiss would have.

She remained in the corridor until the lift indicator changed floors. She could not see the woman’s face clearly, but she had seen enough to understand that Adrian had not been too busy to care. He had simply been too busy to care for her.

Her phone vibrated. A message from her biological mother appeared on the screen: *Come to the family house immediately. We need to discuss your marriage.* A second message followed before Elena could respond: *Do not bring Adrian. Victoria will be here.*

Victoria. The name had appeared too often lately, usually followed by a silence that ended when Elena entered the room. She looked toward the lift, then down at the folder containing the result of another procedure she was afraid to hope would work.

She had spent years trying to build a family with a man who would not share a bed with her. Now her biological family was summoning her as if her marriage were a problem they had already solved without her. Elena wiped her face before anyone could notice the tears and walked toward the exit.

Outside, the sun was bright and the traffic was loud. Her life looked ordinary to everyone passing her, but she felt as if something had split open inside her. She had not yet confirmed that Adrian was betraying her. She had not yet heard the truth from Victoria. But as she climbed into her car, a frightening thought settled into her mind: perhaps the people closest to her had been waiting for her to discover what they already knew.

She started the engine, then looked once more at the message. This time, she did not call Adrian to ask where he had been. She drove straight to her biological parents’ house, determined that nobody would dismiss her questions as jealousy or nerves again