All Chapters of DIVORCED BY THE BILLIONAIRE: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

LAURORA The words were still hanging in the air when the pain hit again.I was sitting at the counter, my hand on my stomach, trying to process everything Mrs. Bayer just told me. Mr. Bayer. The burglary. The medicine. The debt. All of it crashing down on me at once. And then the pain came, sharp and sudden, ripping through my lower back and wrapping around my stomach like a vice. I gasped and grabbed the edge of the counter. My hand slipped and I almost fell off the stool."Aurora?" Mrs. Bayer rushed over. "What's wrong?""I don't—" I couldn't finish the sentence. Another wave hit, stronger than the first, and I doubled over, my breath leaving me in a strangled cry. The pain was different this time. Deeper. More insistent. Like my body was telling me something I didn't want to hear."Oh God. Oh God, no." Mrs. Bayer's voice was shaking. "Maria! Call an ambulance! Now!"Maria dropped the tray she was holding and ran for the phone. I heard her voice, high and panicked, but I couldn't

AURORA I was back in Sacramento. But it wasn't the Sacramento I remembered. It was a different version, a version where everything went right.The sun was warm on my skin, the sky a perfect blue without a single cloud in sight. I was standing in a garden, roses blooming all around me, their petals soft and red and fragrant, climbing up a trellis that had been painted white. The air smelled like honeysuckle and fresh-cut grass, the kind of smell that made you want to close your eyes and breathe it all in. A white fence stretched along the edge of the yard, and beyond it, a house stood tall and welcoming, its windows catching the afternoon light. The same house from my dreams. The same house from my fantasies. The same house I'd imagined a thousand times before, the one with the wraparound porch and the big oak tree in the front yard.I looked down and saw my daughter in my arms. She was older now, maybe two years old, her dark hair curling around her face, her eyes bright and curious.

AURORA The discharge papers were signed after all the back and forth and the final instructions given, the wheelchair was waiting by the door, but I sat there in my actual clothes for the first time in days, the fabric feeling strange against my skin after so many hospital gowns. My bag was packed and my things collected, but something was missing, something important. My daughter was still here, in the NICU, fighting for her life.I know the doctor has reassured me a million times that she was safe, I still couldn't think about anything else."Ms. Vale?" The nurse touched my shoulder. "You're all set. Mrs. Bayer is waiting for you outside."I nodded and stood up, my legs weak and unsteady, my body still recovering from everything it had been through. I walked out of the room and down the hallway, past the nurses' station and the waiting room and the doors that led to the NICU. I stopped for a moment and looked through the glass, pressing my hand against it. I could see her incubator

AURORA The first night with Arya was everything I expected and nothing I was prepared for.She cried alright, but not the soft, and sleepy fussing I saw in the hospital, but full-throated, face-red, tiny-fists-waving screaming that seemed to come from somewhere deep in her tiny body. I tried everything. I fed her. I burped her. I changed her diaper. I rocked her. I walked her around the basement. I sang to her. I shushed her. I bounced her gently. I held her upright. I laid her down. Nothing worked. She just kept crying.I sat in the rocking chair with her pressed against my chest, her little body rigid with distress, her cries echoing off the concrete walls and making my head throb. I could feel my own tears threatening to spill over, hot and sharp behind my eyes, my throat tight and aching with the effort of holding them back. I failed."Please," I whispered, my voice breaking. "Please stop crying. Please. I don't know what you want. I don't know what I'm doing wrong."She didn't s

"I can't do this."The laptop sat open on the table, the screen glowing with a lecture I paused forty minutes ago. I kept trying to watch it since Arya fell asleep, but every time I hit play, she stirred or cried or needed to be fed. I was still in my pajamas, my hair unwashed, a burp cloth thrown over my shoulder like a badge of honor.After giving birth, it felt like I was thrown five hundred steps behind on my classes. I missed so much material, so many lessons, that I didn't even know where to start anymore. The first few weeks after Arya came home were a blur of feeding and changing and surviving, and my coursework just piled up in the background. I had four lectures to catch up on in Constitutional Law alone, two assignments overdue for Legal Writing, and a reading list that seemed to grow longer every time I opened my email. I kept telling myself I'd get to it, that I'd find time, but time was something I didn't have anymore. Every spare moment went to Arya, and the spare momen