All Chapters of The Billionaire’s Sacrificial Wife: Forced to Bear His Heir: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Sophia POVThe restaurant is exactly the kind of beautiful I never let myself want, low gold lighting, a private table set apart from the rest of the room with a single candle burning in the center, and a wrapped box sitting on the seat beside me that I spent two weeks deciding on."He's just running behind, Mrs. Vale." Priya checks her phone again, the same nervous glance she's given it every ten minutes since we sat down. "Something came up at the office. He said to start without him if you got hungry.""I'll wait." I smooth my dress over my knees, glancing at the empty seat across from me, still hopeful in the stupid, stubborn way I've been hopeful about this man for weeks now. "It's fine. I don't mind."An hour passes. The candle burns lower, and the food the waiter brought out grows cold on its silver trays, untouched, the same as the second course after it. Priya keeps checking her phone with less confidence each time, her smile getting thinner, more apologetic, until she finall

Ethan POV"Drive safe, sir." The hospital's night nurse holds the door for me, and I barely register the words, still glancing at my watch out of habit as I step out into the cold.11:02 PM."That can't be right." I stop dead on the sidewalk, pulling my phone out to double-check, and that's when I see her, Priya, standing by the car with her coat still buttoned wrong at the top, like she left wherever she was in a hurry and didn't stop to fix it."Priya? What are you doing here?" I frown, checking my phone properly now and seeing six missed calls stacked on the screen, all from her. "I didn't hear any of these come through.""You had it on silent for the hospital, sir, I know how you get with Lily." She says it fast, already walking toward me instead of waiting for me to close the distance. "I've been trying to reach you for the last hour. I finally just drove over.""Reach me about what?" Something in her face makes my stomach drop before she even finishes the sentence."Sophia. She

Sophia POVThe doorbell shatters whatever fragile thing had been building in that room, and I shake my head hard, swallowing the words I'd almost let slip out into the space between us.I pull my hand free of Julian's, relief flooding through me so fast it nearly buckles my knees, relief that I hadn't actually let myself be swayed by him, hadn't said whatever half-formed answer had been rising in my throat a second ago. I avoid his eager, waiting gaze on my way past the couch and pull the door open, still bracing for whoever's on the other side.The slap lands before I even register the woman standing there, my cheek stinging hot and immediate, my head snapping sideways from the force of it."You disgusting little parasite." Her voice comes out shrill, her manicured hand still raised like she's considering a second one, and it takes me a full second to place the sharp, angular features glaring back at me. Julian's mother."Excuse me?" My hand flies to my throbbing cheek, shock outpaci

Sophia POV"Such an early morning gift." I say it out loud to the empty hallway outside Whitfield's office, my voice dripping with a sarcasm nobody's around to hear, because apparently being stripped of every single patient I've spent six years earning is Ethan Vale's idea of an early morning present.I pull my phone out, ready to call him and ask exactly what I did to deserve this kind of generosity, and that's when I see them. A string of missed calls, all from him, all timestamped mid night, the earliest one is 12:10 midnight.I never even heard my phone ring. I was asleep at my own kitchen table by then, neck bent at some terrible angle, completely dead to the world after everything: waiting for him and the drama with Julian, and I never felt a single buzz.I sit down slow on the bench, staring at the screen like it might rearrange itself into something that makes more sense. Four calls. All midnight.My thumb hovers over his name, some small, traitorous part of me wondering if th

Sophia POVI make it to the sink just in time, my whole body heaving over the basin, but nothing comes up except a thin, bitter string of bile, because I haven't managed to eat anything since last night. I grip the edges of the sink until my knuckles go white, waiting for the wave to pass, my forehead damp with a cold sweat that won't quit.When I finally look up, the woman staring back at me in the mirror barely looks like the doctor who walked into that conference room an hour ago. Hollow eyes, ashen skin, hair coming loose from its clip. I splash cold water on my face twice, three times, until something in my reflection settles back into a shape I recognize, and I dry my hands and force my spine straight before I let myself walk back out.The conference room is empty by the time I get there, chairs pushed back at odd angles, the whiteboard still covered in numbers nobody's bothered to erase. Only Priya remains, gathering folders into a neat stack, and she looks up the second I step