All Chapters of The Billionaire’s Sacrificial Wife: Forced to Bear His Heir: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Sophia POVThe cab smells like old vinyl and someone else's perfume. My car is still wherever I left it after the hotel. I don't care.I don't remember giving the driver an address. I just know I can't go back to the apartment Julian and I shared, so I give him mine instead — the old studio I never quite let go of, the one with a bed I haven't slept in for months. He drops me at the curb and I let myself in still wearing the red dress, and I sit down on the edge of a stripped mattress in the dark because I don't have the strength to turn on a light.My phone starts buzzing before I've even set my keys down. Vivian's name flashes and disappears, flashes and disappears, over and over, and each time I let it ring out I feel a small, mean flicker of relief, like I've found the one door in my life I'm still allowed to close tonight. I have exactly one night off left before my next shift, and I had promised myself I would spend it grieving quietly, alone, where no one could watch me do it.

Sophia POVI wake up on Nora's couch with my mouth tasting like old crying and my neck bent at an angle that's going to cost me later. For a second I don't remember why I'm here instead of my own apartment, and then it all comes back at once, Julian, the nurses' station, my mother's hand across my face, and I have to sit very still and breathe through it before I trust myself to move.Nora is already awake. I can smell coffee before I even open my eyes all the way, and when I do, she's standing over me in yesterday's pajamas with two mugs, watching me with the kind of careful attention she usually saves for patients coming out of sedation."Hey." She sets one mug down on the table in front of me, close enough that I don't have to reach far. "You actually slept. I wasn't sure you would.""I don't even remember falling asleep." My voice comes out rough, scraped thin. "One second you were talking, and then I just…wasn't there anymore.""Your body shut the whole thing down for you." She s

Sophia POV"Your room is this way, Mrs. Vale."The housekeeper says it without turning around, like she's said it to a hundred different women before me and I'm simply the latest one who needs directing. I follow her down a hallway so long the far end blurs, past door after identical door, dark wood, brass handles, all of them shut."You can call me Sophia," I tell her."Yes, Mrs. Vale." She stops at the last door on the left and pushes it open, stepping back so I can pass. "Mr. Vale had this suite prepared for you. The intercom by the bed reaches the staff line, if you need anything.""Not him, though.""No." She says it plainly, no apology in it, like she's confirming a fact rather than delivering bad news. "Mr. Vale is rarely in the east wing.""Good to know." I step past her into a room that's beautiful in the exact way that tells you nobody who actually lives here chose it, cream walls, a bed big enough for four people, a window overlooking gardens I could get lost in. "Wh

Sophia POVDaddy.The word sits in my chest louder than any of the slaps Vivian gave me that night, forcing me toward a marriage I never agreed to. I stay another minute at Lily's bedside, just watching her sleep, my mind already running somewhere I don't want it to go.I think about the photograph on Emily's mantel, the one from three years ago, Daniel smiling stiff and formal beside her, Ethan cropped at the very edge of the frame like an afterthought nobody bothered to cut out. I think about the signing, how Ethan dropped everything the second Emily's name lit up his phone, no hesitation, no calculation, just pure animal urgency, the kind you don't fake for a sister-in-law. I think about the careful, exact distance he keeps from her in public, three feet, never closer, like a man who's practiced not touching someone he isn't allowed to touch.None of it proves anything. All of it proves everything.I ease off the bed before Lily can stir again, smooth the blanket one last time

Sophia POVThe phone rings while I'm still in my robe, coffee cooling on the counter, and I almost don't answer it because the number isn't saved."Dr. Hart? This is HR, calling from St. Augustus." A woman's voice, brisk, professional, the kind that's delivered a thousand of these calls before. "The review board concluded its investigation yesterday evening. You've been fully reinstated, effective immediately."I have to sit down on the kitchen stool because my legs stop cooperating."I'm sorry, could you say that again?""You're cleared, Dr. Hart. All charges dismissed, no findings against you." A pause, papers shuffling on her end. "We'd like you back on the floor as soon as possible. Today, if you're able.""Today." My voice comes out thin, disbelieving. "Yes. Yes, of course, I can be there within the hour."I hang up and just sit there for a second, both hands pressed flat against the counter, my whole chest loosening in a way it hasn't in close to a month. Cleared. Not suspended