CHAPTER FIFTEEN_ Claire’s POV

I woke up in the discomfort of my car.

For a moment, I didn’t remember how I got there. The leather seat was hard against my back, and my neck ached like I had slept on top of a rock.

Then it all came back.

Eva’s calm voice.

Her certainty.

The way she’d spoken about my marriage like it was already past tense.

I sat there for a long time, staring through the windshield as the city woke up around me.

People walked, cars drove past. Life continued, as though mine hadn’t just fallen apart.

But I didn’t cry. I couldn’t. I had no more tears left to give.

When I finally drove back to the mansion, the gates opened smoothly, the same way they always had.

As if nothing had changed.

Camilla welcomed me the moment I stepped inside. Her face was pale and her hands were twisting together in a way I’d never seen before.

She seemed… nervous.

“Mrs. Dhark,” she said quickly, almost breathlessly. “Please… do not turn on the television.”

That was all it took to raise my curiosity.

I walked past her and reached for the remote.

“Mrs. Dhark—”

She tried stopping me, but it was too late.

The screen lit up.

A familiar news anchor appeared. I could see Lucian’s name scrolling across the bottom of the screen.

BREAKING NEWS: DHARK HEIR CONFIRMED.

My breath seized in my throat.

The reporter’s voice was smooth, almost celebratory.

“…sources confirm that Eva Sterling is expecting a child with billionaire CEO, Lucian Dhark. Insiders describe the businessman as fiercely private and deeply protective of his unborn child…”

“Unborn child”

“Legacy”

“Heir”

Those were the words they kept repeating.

The camera cut to a photo of Eva. She looked absolutely serene, glowing, with one hand resting possessively over her stomach.

And then they finally said my name. Once.

“…amid reports of a separation with his estranged wife, Claire Moreau…”

Estranged.

Like I had already been cast aside. Like I didn’t matter anymore. Like Lucian and I had not been married for five years!

They didn’t just announce a pregnancy.

They rewrote my marriage.

My hands started to shake. The room tilted, perhaps a side effect of my blurring vision.

I gripped the back of a chair, trying desperately hard to breathe, counting seconds just to stay upright.

Lucian wasn’t home.

I didn’t hear a single word from him. No calls, no texts.

I watched the news cycle repeat itself — different anchors, different channels, same story. My phone exploded with notifications. Most of the headlines were cruel and hurtful. My name trended alongside words I didn’t want to read.

Infertile.

Replacement.

Expendable.

By afternoon, the paparazzi arrived at the gates of the mansion, with big cameras flashing like my home was a red carpet. Or a crime scene.

There was no hiding anymore. No quiet corner left to retreat into.

And still, there was no word from Lucian.

That hurt more than the pregnancy.

He let the world hear it before I did.

By evening, something inside me became dangerously still.

The pain didn’t disappear. It just sharpened, turning into something hard and cold.

If I stayed silent, I would disappear.

I realized then, that staying silent would do me no good.

Because my marriage wasn’t ending privately.

It was ending on a stage.