02

~Elara POV~

The words refuse to make sense.

My baby.

Mine.

I stare at the report in the doctor’s hands, then at the door where the nurse carried my baby only minutes ago, waiting for someone to laugh and tell me there has been a mistake, because there is no way I have spent nine months believing I am carrying another woman’s child only to discover that the baby is actually mine.

“Mine?” My voice comes out weak as I look at the doctor. “You’re saying the baby I carried for nine months is actually mine?”

“Yes,” the doctor replies, his expression remaining serious as he looks between me and the report.

I shake my head slowly, trying to make sense of everything while the room seems to tilt around me.

“But how? Mrs. Veyne took me to her doctor herself, and I went through the embryo transfer at the clinic, so how could my egg possibly be used?”

The doctor closes the file halfway, his fingers resting against the edge as he studies the report again.

“I don’t know what happened at the clinic, Ms. Carter, because I wasn’t involved in the embryo transfer, and there is nothing in the information provided to us that explains how your egg was used.”

My eyes move toward Lucien.

“So you don’t know?”

“I only know what the test confirms,” the doctor says, his voice careful.

I look at Lucien again.

His face has not changed.

If anything, he looks colder than he did when he walked through the door, his eyes fixed on me with an intensity that makes the back of my neck prickle as he stands beside my bed, completely silent while the doctor gives him an answer that should have shocked him as much as it shocks me.

“Mr. Veyne?” I whisper, but he gives me no answer at first, and the silence between us stretches long enough for my stomach to tighten as his gaze remains fixed on the report before slowly lifting toward me.

“Elara.”

The way he says my name sends an uneasy chill through me, because there is something in his voice that makes me feel as though I am already being blamed for something I don’t understand.

“What did you do to my wife and my child?”

I stare at him, completely caught off guard by the question as I try to push myself higher against the pillow, my weak arms trembling beneath me while the doctor remains beside the bed with the report still in his hands.

“What?”

“Why is the child yours?”

His voice remains low and controlled, but the accusation beneath it makes my chest tighten as I look at him, wondering how he expects me to answer something I am only discovering myself.

“I don’t know,” I say, shaking my head as I try to catch my breath. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Then explain it.”

“I can’t explain something I don’t understand.”

My breathing becomes uneven as I grip the sheets, because only minutes ago I was preparing myself to hand over a child I believed belonged to Lucien and Aurelia Veyne, and now the doctor is telling me that the baby I carried is biologically mine while Lucien is staring at me as though I have somehow taken something that belongs to him.

“Mrs. Veyne took me to her doctor,” I say, forcing the words out as I look between Lucien and the doctor, desperately trying to make them understand. “She arranged everything, she told me the embryo belonged to both of you, and I believed her because why would I think she was lying to me?”

Lucien’s jaw tightens as he watches me, while the doctor shifts the report in his hands and finally speaks with the same careful tone he has used since revealing the results.

“We cannot determine what happened before the pregnancy from this report alone, and I don’t want to speculate about something I cannot verify.”

A wave of dizziness suddenly crashes over me, making the room blur around the edges as I grip the sheets harder and try to steady myself, while the bright hospital lights seem to become painfully intense and the sharp scent of medicine fills my nose again, reminding me exactly why I have always hated hospitals.

I close my eyes for a moment, trying to breathe through it, because I cannot tell whether the dizziness is from the blood I have lost, the exhaustion tearing through my body, or the shocking revelation that has turned everything I believed about this pregnancy upside down.

When I open my eyes again, Lucien is still watching me, and I force myself to meet his gaze despite the fear twisting inside my stomach.

“If I’m telling the truth and you’re telling the truth, then who can explain this?”

He remains silent, and that silence makes the answer become painfully obvious as I lie there trying to put the pieces together, because the only person who knows what happened before I ever entered that clinic is the woman who arranged the entire procedure.

I swallow hard, my head still spinning as I look directly at him.

“The person who can answer that question…”

My voice falters when another wave of dizziness passes through me, but I force myself to continue because suddenly, finding Aurelia feels more important than anything else happening in this room.

“Where is she?”

Lucien’s expression hardens as he looks at me, and I stare back at him while my heart pounds beneath my ribs, waiting for the answer to the question that now seems capable of unraveling everything.