All Chapters of The Billionaire's Rebel Fiancée: Chapter 131 - Chapter 140

Adriana's POVThe reception was a blur of faces and congratulations and food I was too nervous to eat.Dinner was served on the terrace overlooking Marcus's garden where I sat beside Zayn at a table decorated with the white lilies I'd chosen, trying to process that I was someone's wife now. The word felt strange in my mouth when I tried it silently. Wife. Mrs. Castellano. Adriana Castellano.I hadn't decided yet if I was changing my name.Sage stood to give a speech and tapped her glass for attention. "I've known Adriana since college and I've watched her survive things that would have destroyed most people. When she lost everything she'd planned, she fought back and rebuilt. And when Zayn came along, she didn't let him fix her problems, she let him be her partner instead."People laughed and I felt my face get hot."That's what I admire most about them," Sage continued, looking at me with tears in her eyes. "They don't have a fairy tale, they have something real. They fight, comprom

Adriana's POVWe came home from Italy to find Sage had set up the penthouse with pregnancy-safe groceries stocked in the fridge, prenatal vitamins lined up on the counter, and a note that read "Welcome home Mrs. Castellano" in her handwriting.The name still felt foreign even though I'd been legally married for over a week. I'd decided to hyphenate and keep Moretti because giving up my last name felt like losing the last piece of who I was before everything changed.Adriana Moretti-Castellano. It was a mouthful but it was mine.My laptop was waiting on the kitchen table and when I opened it, there were seventeen work emails. The consulting firm I'd applied to had sent the first project details. I read through them with my heart racing in a way that had nothing to do with pregnancy hormones.Healthcare algorithmic bias analysis for a hospital system implementing new AI diagnostic tools. Exactly the kind of work I'd been praying for, a remote and part-time instead of full-time in San Fr

Adriana's POVAt thirty weeks pregnant, I was exhausted in a way sleep couldn't fix.My feet were so swollen I could only wear slippers, my back ached constantly, and I had to pee every twenty minutes which made getting any work done nearly impossible.The consulting project was still going but I'd had to ask for an extension on the hospital bias analysis because I couldn't focus for more than an hour without needing to lie down. My client had been understanding but I felt like I was failing at the one thing I was supposed to be good at.One evening I stood in front of the bedroom mirror after a shower, looking at my body and barely recognizing it. Huge belly covered in new stretch marks, breasts heavy and unfamiliar, face puffy from water retention. I started crying and couldn't stop.Zayn found me like that, standing naked with tears running down my face."Hey, what's wrong?" He came over immediately."Look at me." I gestured at my reflection. "I'm enormous. I don't recognize my own

Adriana's POVMy water broke at four in the morning, a sudden gush when I stood up to use the toilet because I was feeling pressed."Zayn." I shook his shoulder. "It's happening."He was awake instantly, already reaching for his phone. "Are you having contractions?""Not yet, but my water definitely just broke."He was out of bed and moving, no panic like the false alarm three weeks ago. He helped me change into dry clothes, grabbed the hospital bag that had been sitting by the door for a month, and called the doctor while guiding me to the car."They said to come in now since your water broke," he said, buckling my seatbeast. "How are you feeling?""Wet and terrified."He drove through empty Manhattan streets while I sat in the passenger seat feeling the first real contraction start low in my back and wrap around my belly like a vise."Oh god, that's one," I said, gripping the door handle.He glanced at his phone mounted on the dashboard. "I'm timing it. Breathe."At the hospital the

Zayn’s PovWeek two started with me taking the ten PM to two AM shift so Adriana could get some uninterrupted sleep.I'd read somewhere that four consecutive hours of sleep could prevent postpartum depression, so I'd decided that was my responsibility. Feed Lily at ten, change her, get her back down, handle the midnight wake-up, then hand her off to Adriana at two for feeding.Tonight Lily woke up at eleven thirty instead of midnight and I found myself in the nursery at nearly midnight, walking circles with a screaming baby while googling "why won't newborn stop crying" on my phone.Gas. Overtired. Understimulated. Overstimulated. Hungry even though she'd just eaten. The internet had seventeen conflicting answers and none of them were helping."Come on, Lily, work with me here." I adjusted how I was holding her, trying the position the pediatrician had shown us. She screamed louder.I tried singing, which felt ridiculous but the baby book said it might help. My voice was terrible and