Chapter Three
Stella
The first thing I notice is white.
Blinding, sterile white that burns my retinas even through closed eyelids. I try to move but my body feels heavy, disconnected, like I’m floating in thick syrup. A steady beeping cuts through the fog in my mind—rhythmic, mechanical, insistent.
Slowly, I force my eyes open. The ceiling swims into focus, stark and institutional. My throat feels raw, and there’s a metallic taste in my mouth that makes me want to gag.
Where am I?
I try to remember, to grasp at any recent memory, but there’s nothing. Just… emptiness. A vast blank space where memories should be. Panic starts to rise in my chest as I realize I can’t recall anything— not how I got here, not what happened, not even—
My hand flies instinctively to my stomach, and I feel the firm swell there. Relief floods through me. I’m pregnant. At least I remember that. But everything else is just… gone? Like trying to recall a dream that slips away faster the harder I try to hold onto it.
The beeping speeds up, matching my increasing heart rate. I try to sit up, but my head throbs with such intensity that I have to lie back down. The movement must have attracted attention because someone dressed like a nurse appears in my field of vision, her face professionally concerned.
Why is there a nurse in here?
“You’re awake,” she says, checking something on the monitor beside my bed. “How are you feeling?”
“I…” My voice comes out as a croak. “Where am I?”
“You’re at Blessed Angels Private Hospital. We’re a specialist clinic.”
Specialist clinic?
How did I get here?
Who brought me?
Nothing makes sense.
She pours water into a plastic cup and helps me take small sips. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
I shake my head, then immediately regret the movement as pain shoots through my skull. “No, I… I can’t remember anything. Why am I here?”
The nurse’s expression shifts subtly. She busies herself adjusting my IV line. “Let me get the doctor.”
“Wait,” I call after her, but she’s already gone.
Why isn’t she talking to me? What can’t she tell me?
The room feels too large, too empty. I look down at my hands— they’re mine, I know they’re mine, but they feel like they belong to a stranger. The wedding ring I expect to see isn’t there.
Was I expecting a ring? I’m not sure anymore. If I’m pregnant, surely there should be a ring. And a husband?
A husband. I can’t remember being married. Loving someone. All I feel is this overwhelming blank space where the memories should be.
Minutes crawl by like hours before the door opens again.
A distinguished-looking Indian man in a white coat enters, followed by the nurse.
His salt-and-pepper hair is neatly combed, and he carries a tablet, his eyes focused on the screen before finally lifting to meet mine.
The fluorescent lights cast harsh shadows across his face, highlighting the tired lines around his eyes—the mark of someone who’s probably been on shift far too long.
My heart thuds against my ribs as I straighten, hands gripping the edge of the bed tightly.
“I’m Dr. Malhotra,” he introduces himself, his accent carrying traces of British education. “How are you feeling?”
“Confused,” I admit. “Everything’s… blank.” My fingers twist nervously in the thin hospital blanket, seeking something familiar to hold onto.
He pulls up a chair beside my bed, his manner gentle but professional. “Can you tell me your name?”
“Stella.” At least I remember that much. “Stella…” I falter, reaching for my surname but coming up empty. The absence feels like a physical hole in my mind, a dark space where something important should be.
The doctor frowns. “Fermont,” he supplies, but it doesn’t mean much to me. “Can you tell me what year it is?”
I shake my head and then wince at the lancing pain that shoots from temple to temple. The throbbing intensifies, making my vision blur momentarily.
The doctor’s frown deepens. “Who is the current president?”
Another blank. My chest tightens with anxiety. How can I not know such basic information? I’m an educated woman— I know this about myself somehow, but the specifics remain frustratingly out of reach.
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
I close my eyes, trying to focus. “I know I’m pregnant. I can feel the baby. But everything else is just… fog.” My hand instinctively moves to my abdomen, cradling the small swell there. This connection feels real, undeniable— the only thing I’m certain of in this moment.
Dr. Malhotra makes notes on his tablet. “You suffered a severe head trauma. Memory loss is not uncommon in such cases. Often, it’s temporary.”
Temporary.
Oh, thank God!
The thought of feeling like this indefinitely fills me with dread. Living in this half-state, where I recognize my own body but not the life that inhabits it.
“How long?” My voice sounds small, even to my own ears. Vulnerable in a way that feels unfamiliar.
“That varies from patient to patient. The important thing is to rest and not force the memories. They often return naturally with time.”
He continues asking questions, but I can feel myself drifting.
The medication flowing through my IV makes everything feel distant, dreamlike.
His voice fades in and out like a badly tuned radio.
I try to focus on his words, but they slip away like water through my fingers, leaving me floating in a hazy sea of uncertainty. Sleep takes me.
“Miss Fermont? Miss Fermont,” the voice is insistent.
I try to focus past the fog. There’s a man looming over me and a nurse at my side. “What…?” My throat is dry, my tongue bitter.
“We’re taking you for an MRI, dear.” This nurse is older, more motherly. “Everything is going to be fine.”
“I… Okay,” I croak, because it’s clear that I have no say in the matter. Though I don’t have any urge to resist them. I want them to do whatever is necessary to get rid of this emptiness in my head.
Now, I’m being wheeled down a corridor. The ceiling lights flash past overhead like Morse code, sending sharp pains through my skull with each bright pulse.
I close my eyes against the brightness, letting the movement lull me into a half-conscious state.
The gurney squeaks beneath me, wheels catching occasionally on the linoleum seams.
“Just relax, dear,” the nurse is saying as I feel myself being shifted and manipulated. “This will all be over before you know it.”
Time becomes fluid, meaningless. I drift in and out of awareness, catching fragments of conversations around me that make no sense. Medical terms float above me like bubbles I can’t quite catch. Concerned voices murmur about “possible cranial trauma” and “temporary amnesia.”
Someone mentions a name I should know but doesn’t register— it slides away before I can grasp its significance.
My thoughts scatter like leaves in a breeze, impossible to collect or organize.
The medication makes everything feel distant, as though I’m experiencing the world from underwater, sounds muffled and distorted.
When I surface again, the quality of light in the room has changed. It must be later in the day— evening perhaps, though I have no real sense of time passing. Something’s different. There’s a presence in the room.
Pain shoots through my eyes as I rotate toward the chair beside my bed— the man sitting in it makes my pulse skip.
But it’s not because of the heady cologne or expensive Armani.
The tailored suit can’t disguise the predator beneath— muscles coiled beneath Italian wool, jaw carved from granite.
Dark hair, strong features, intense eyes fixed on me with an unsettling focus that makes my skin prickle.
Something about him seems familiar, like a word on the tip of my tongue that I can’t quite grasp, a half-remembered dream slipping away.
I bite my lower lip, fighting against the fog in my mind, trying to place where I might have seen that face before. The steady beep of hospital monitors seems to fade into the background as those eyes— dark and knowing— hold mine with an intensity that feels almost invasive.
But along with that vague familiarity comes something else— a deep, instinctive unease that makes my heart rate spike. Yet again, the monitor betrays my reaction with faster beeping, the electronic tattletale announcing my discomfort to the room.
His expression changes slightly— concern? Worry? I can’t read him. There’s something calculated in the way his features shift, like he’s selecting the appropriate response rather than feeling it naturally.
My fingers seek out the hospital blanket once more, finding something to anchor me as that unsettling gaze continues its assessment. I’ve always trusted my instincts, and right now, they’re screaming at me to be careful.
“Stella,” he says softly, reaching for my hand. “How are you feeling?”
I pull away before he can touch me. I don’t know why, but everything in me screams that I shouldn’t let him near me. The monitor beeps faster still.
“Who…?” My throat feels dry again. “Who are you?”
A strange expression flashes across his face so quickly that I might have imagined it. He sits back, his hands falling to his sides. “I’m Aleksei,” he says, his voice carefully controlled. “I’m the father of your baby.”
No.
That can’t be right.
It doesn’t feel that way.
I stare at him. The words should mean something. Should trigger something. But there’s nothing— just that same unsettling feeling of wrongness that I can’t explain. My hand moves protectively over my stomach.
“Oh…” I exhale. “That… that’s good, then.” It’s not good, though. Nothing about this is good.
He nods slowly, as if he expected this. “You’ve been through a lot, and you’re confused. It’s okay, zaychik . You’ll be better once you’ve had some rest.”
The Russian endearment makes me wince, though I don’t know why. He notices— of course he notices— and something dark passes behind his eyes.
“Yes,” I say feebly because I don’t know what else to say.
My hand remains on my stomach, feeling the slight movements of the baby within.
At least that feels real, feels right. Everything else is like trying to read a book with half the pages torn out— fragments that don’t connect, stories without beginnings or endings.
The only thing I do know is that I’m carrying the child of a man who somehow makes me feel terrified.
And I have no idea why.