7. Ivy
IVY
I t rings through my skull, louder than the beeping monitors, louder than the footsteps outside this curtain, louder than the blood rushing behind my eyes.
My mouth is dry, and my body feels wrong, heavy in places it shouldn't be, weak in others.
But none of that matters right now, not when Ethan is staring at me like this.
Not when his voice has shifted into something low and anchored, the kind of voice that never rises but still manages to cut straight through skin.
He isn’t asking to understand. He’s asking because he already suspects the truth.
And for a second—for one stupid, dangerous second—I almost tell him.
But the thought hits me like a slap. Daniel .
The shadow I keep trying to forget. I see him again, polished shoes walking across my old kitchen floor, the soft scrape of a chair pulling out, the way his voice always dropped when he was angry, never raised.
Control was his language. He didn’t need to shout to ruin someone. He only needed access.
He has that in spades.
His father sat on the city council for twelve years.
His mother is the silent donor behind half the philanthropic events in Valleria.
Their family name is printed into the marble of university buildings and museum wings.
They own blocks of property beneath shell corporations and bank names that no one questions.
Daniel has learned from the best. How to hurt people without leaving bruises.
How to make lives disappear without bloodshed. How to smile while he does it.
And if Ethan even breathes near this child, Daniel will know.
He’ll see it in the shifts. The rumors. The paper trail.
A doctor showing up at an emergency room where I’m checked in under my maiden name.
A flagged insurance note. A favor called in at the hospital’s executive wing.
It won’t take much. And when he does find out, he’ll do what he always does.
He’ll take it back. Quietly. Efficiently.
I will not let that happen.
So I do the only thing that keeps the people I care about safe and lie.
I lift my chin and force my voice to hold. “No,” I say, calmly, clearly. “It’s not yours.”
His body stills, but something behind his eyes shifts.
Not dramatically. Not with some grand reaction.
But with a tightening at the corners of his jaw, a subtle way his hands close around the edges of his coat like he’s grounding himself.
I know this version of Ethan. It’s the same one I’ve seen before surgeries, when he’s reviewing a trauma report that doesn’t quite make sense.
Focused, sharp, dissecting every syllable like he’s waiting for the truth to slip through.
I don’t let it.
“It was someone else,” I say, swallowing the burn that rises with every word. “It’s over now. He’s not in the picture.”
I don’t blink when I say it. That would be a tell.
I don’t flinch or drop my gaze. I meet him where he is, even though everything in me screams at the betrayal of it.
I watch him process, letting the lie settle like sediment in water, waiting to see what kind of shape it takes once it sinks to the bottom.
His mouth tightens, but he says nothing.
No questions. No protests. Only that dangerous quiet I used to find comfort in, back before I knew what it meant for him to bite his tongue.
He’s thinking. Measuring. Telling himself that if I wanted him to know more, I would tell him. But he doesn’t believe it. Not really.
And the worst part is, I see it.
I see the part of him that wants to call my bluff, the part that doesn’t quite trust the woman in front of him because the woman he knows wouldn’t look him in the eye and lie.
I see the anger, cold and carefully leashed, simmering just beneath the surface of his control.
He isn’t loud. He never has been. Ethan Cross is the kind of man who becomes quieter the more furious he gets.
It’s the way his eyes darken. The way his shoulders square.
The way the whole room seems to contract around him, like the air is taking a step back to make room for whatever he’s about to do next.
And still, I hold.
Because the alternative is worse.
If I give him this child, I give Daniel a reason to strike.
Ethan won’t be careful. He never has been.
He doesn’t know how to back away from a fight once he sees a line that’s been crossed.
He would fight for me, and Daniel would take that as an invitation.
He would dig into Ethan’s life like a cancer, find the people he trusts, and ruin them. Slowly. Completely.
So I keep my expression even.
I don’t let my voice crack.
I don’t cry.
Because I’ve already decided what matters most. And it isn’t being believed.
It’s keeping this baby alive, keeping myself safe long enough to become the mother I never thought I could be.
The silence stretches again, but this time Ethan takes a step back. He looks like a man trying to make sense of a diagnosis that doesn’t match the symptoms. Like he’s waiting for the part where I admit I’m lying.
But I let the lie sit. I let it build its own scaffolding. I let it become truth in the way all survival stories eventually do.
He just stands there, his body tense, jaw locked, gaze fixed on me like he’s trying to solve an equation that refuses to cooperate. I know that look. He’s trying to understand things that don’t make sense. And right now, I don’t make sense.
He’s trying to line up the timeline in his head, tally every clue, trace every missing detail.
I can feel the calculation running behind his eyes.
My answer didn’t land clean. It’s not sitting right with him because he knows me.
He knows the way I talk when I lie, the way my voice tightens and my shoulders hold still, as if any sudden movement might give me away.
I sit straighter on the hospital bed, holding the thin sheet across my lap like it might help hold back the tremble in my fingers. The nurse gave me a fresh gown and a tired smile, then vanished. Her absence leaves a silence too thick to breathe in, the kind that waits for one of us to break.
Ethan hasn’t moved.
He’s still in his coat, his clothes rumpled like he came straight from a shift, like he walked off a trauma floor and stumbled directly into mine. His hands are clenched, fingers flexing once, then again, like he doesn’t know what to do with them. He doesn’t believe me. I can see that plainly.
But he also hasn’t called me out. Not yet.
Just when the pressure builds too high, the curtain rustles and another, older, nurse returns with a clipboard and starts rattling off observations, blood pressure, heart rate, and mild dehydration. I nod at her words, grateful for the interruption. Ethan’s gaze never leaves me.
“I’m fine,” I say quickly, cutting her off. “I just need to go home. I’d like to be discharged.”
The nurse frowns. “You really should stay for observation. Especially given your history of fainting and?—”
“I’ll follow up with my OB.” My voice is firmer this time. “I just want to go home.”
She hesitates, looking between me and the man beside my bed, then gives a short nod. “I’ll get the paperwork.”
She leaves, and for a moment, the silence rushes back in.
Ethan still hasn’t moved. He’s staring like he can will the truth out of me if he holds still long enough. My skin prickles under the weight of his attention, but I keep my chin lifted. I won’t crack. I can’t.
He speaks, finally.
“You really want me to believe that?”
His voice is low, controlled, stripped of anger but rife with the kind of tension that makes my chest ache. I shake my head, not to answer him, but to stop myself from saying the wrong thing.
“There’s nothing to believe, Ethan,” I reply. “It’s not yours. That’s all there is.”
He flinches, barely, but it’s there. A slight shift in his jaw.
A sharp breath through his nose. I know he wants to argue.
I can see it in the furrow of his brow, the disbelief flickering behind his eyes, but before he can speak again, the nurse returns with a release form and a pen.
She places it in my hand, kindly, as if she understands that some things are better left unspoken.
I scrawl my name and slide off the bed. My legs still feel wobbly, my body slower than usual, but I force myself upright.
The moment my feet touch the floor, I feel the eyes on me again.
Ethan hasn’t moved from his post, but he’s watching, assessing, as if he’s waiting for me to collapse again just to prove a point.
I reach for my clothes, tucked neatly on the nearby chair. He turns his back while I change, which is somehow worse than if he hadn’t. It’s not distance. It’s restraint. And restraint means control.
I tug on my sweater, smooth my hands over my jeans, and step into my boots.
“Thank you,” I say, finally facing him. “For… staying. But I’m fine now.”
He doesn’t reply. He doesn’t even blink.
I walk past him, careful and slow, keeping my back straight, ignoring the pounding behind my ribs and the nausea that still churns low in my belly.
The ER feels too bright, too open, too loud.
A child is crying down the hall. A pair of nurses argue softly behind a curtain.
Somewhere, a monitor beeps out a steady rhythm that seems to echo my own ragged heartbeat.
The glass doors hiss open, and I step into the night.
Cold air washes over me, sharp and immediate, a balm and a punishment all at once.
The streets are quieter than I expected, but not empty.
A car drives by, its tires hissing over wet pavement.
The faint scent of something fried lingers from the diner across the road.
I pause at the edge of the sidewalk, unsure whether to turn left or right, unsure if I’m walking or calling a car, unsure of anything except the need to leave this place behind.
“I’m taking you home.”
I stop breathing.
His voice is behind me, close enough that I feel it along the back of my spine. Not raised. Not sharp. Just resolute, cool with control, threaded with a command he doesn’t bother to soften.
I close my eyes, just for a second.
Then I turn, slowly, and meet his gaze. “That’s not necessary.”
His eyes don’t flinch. They don’t waver. They only darken. “I wasn’t asking.”