All Chapters of HIS BY MISTAKE : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

I didn’t sleep much that night, but for once it wasn’t the nausea keeping me awake. I lay in the guest room, hand resting where the smallest curve of a bump had just barely started to show under my palm, and made myself think it through the way I would any other decision, the way my job had trained me to. Not with fear. Not with pride. Just facts, laid out one after another until the shape of the right answer became obvious even if I didn’t like it. Fact one: I was going to have this baby alone, in every way that mattered, if I said no. Dorian would still be involved, legally, financially, but the day-to-day of it, the diapers and the fevers and the school pickups, that would be mine to carry by myself, the way my mother had carried me. Fact two: my mother had done it without money, without help, and it had worn her down to nothing by the time I was old enough to understand what that cost her. I loved her. I didn’t want to become her, not because there was anything wrong with what

“How do you feel? Should I get the tea?” Marta asked as I rested against the wall. Today was the wedding, though it was small, Dorian had prepared everything down to the last detail. “I’m okay,” I said, even though the room had tilted slightly the moment I stood up too fast. “Just a little lightheaded. It’ll pass.” Marta’s eyes narrowed, unconvinced, the same look she gave me every time I insisted I was fine when I clearly wasn’t. “Sit,” she said, guiding me toward the small settee near the window. “I’ll bring the tea and some crackers. You haven’t eaten since last night.” “I couldn’t stomach breakfast.” I pressed a hand to my temple, willing the room to settle. “Nerves, probably.” “Or the baby,” Marta said, not unkindly, already moving toward the door. “Either way, you’re not walking down anything on an empty stomach and a dizzy spell you’re pretending isn’t happening.” She left before I could argue, and I let my head fall back against the cushion, breathing slow through my nos

The house was quiet by the time the last guests left, Marta ushering out stray relatives of Dorian’s with the practiced efficiency of someone who’d clearly done this before, Priya hugging me twice more before finally letting Adrian walk her to her car. I stood in the entryway afterward, still in my dress, shoes abandoned somewhere back in the garden, and realized I had absolutely no idea what happened next. Dorian seemed to be realizing the same thing. “So,” he said, loosening his tie, the first genuinely unpolished thing I’d seen him do all day. “That happened.” “That happened,” I agreed. We stood there another moment, the silence stretching into something almost comic, two people who’d just gotten married with no idea what to do with themselves five minutes later. “I should, um.” I gestured vaguely toward the hallway. “Change. Out of the dress.” “Right. Of course.” He stepped back like I’d asked him to, even though I hadn’t asked him anything at all. I made it halfway to th

I meant to wait up properly, sitting in the living room with my laptop open, half drafting a reply to the email I'd sent earlier, half just wanting to be awake when he got home so I could actually tell him in person instead of over text. The plan lasted about an hour before the day's exhaustion caught up with me again, my eyes growing heavy despite my best efforts, the soft hum of the house lulling me somewhere I didn't fully mean to go. I don’t remember when I fell asleep, but the nap was needed because I felt a hand on my hair but was too tired to wake up. I only remember dozing in and dozing out, before blinking slowly against the dim lights and found out I had a blanket over me Stretching out, I tried to sit up, then when I turned I saw Dorian working, fully focus on the iPad he was holding. My movement caught his eye and he looked at me. "Hey," he said, setting the iPad aside without hesitation, like whatever he'd been reading could wait. "Didn't mean to wake you." "Y

Ines was already reviewing my chart when we walked in, glancing up with a warm smile that shifted, just slightly, into something more assessing the moment she saw Dorian beside me instead of behind me. "Mr. Reyes," she said, something careful in her tone. "Nice of you to come" She said giving a small smile "Dr Ines," he said, something almost sheepish in his voice, like he understood exactly what she meant by that. "Sit," she said, gesturing to the chair beside the exam table. "Both of you." The appointment started routinely enough, blood pressure, weight, the usual questions about appetite and sleep that I'd gotten used to answering by now. Dorian stayed quiet through most of it, though I caught him watching everything closely, more engaged than I expected given how little he usually understood about any of this. "Let's get a look," Ines said finally, squeezing the gel onto my stomach, the familiar cold making me flinch slightly. The image came up on the screen, grainy and fa