16. Blythe
— ? —
Blythe
I slept like a baby.
Bayes was sprawled across the foot of my bed, every enormous pound of him, and I’d curled around him like he was a body pillow. When I woke up, the sun was streaming through the windows and I felt something I hadn’t felt in weeks.
Happy.
Actually, genuinely happy. Things were working. The plan was working. We’d poached half of Chadwick’s senior staff, the marine insurance was moving to Halyard, and last night Reid had defended me in front of the entire Bellcliff bar and then kissed me against his car until I forgot my own name.
I stretched, dislodging Bayes, who grumbled and relocated to the floor. Then I got up, showered, dressed in one of the new outfits Reid had bought me at the mall. I looked at myself in the mirror and smiled.
This was what winning felt like.
I walked out of my room and made it halfway down the hallway before it hit me.
The nausea came out of nowhere, a wave of dizziness so intense I had to stop dead and brace my hand against the wall. My vision swam. My stomach lurched. I stood there breathing through my mouth, willing myself not to throw up on Reid’s expensive hardwood floors.
“Blythe?”
His voice behind me. Footsteps approaching.
“I’m fine.” I didn’t turn around. “Just - give me a second.”
“You’re not fine. You’re white as a sheet.”
His hand on my elbow, guiding me toward the living room. I let him lead me to the couch and sank down, pressing my palms flat against the cushions, focusing on breathing.
The nausea came and went in waves. One minute I thought I was going to vomit; the next I felt almost normal. Reid crouched in front of me, his face creased with worry.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. I was fine, and then I just-” I shook my head. “It’s passing. I think it’s passing.”
“You’ve been queasy all week.”
“It’s stress. It’s been a stressful week.”
He didn’t look convinced. “I’ll make something gentle for breakfast. Toast, maybe. Tea.”
“That sounds good.” I managed a smile. “Thank you.”
He stood up, still watching me like he expected me to keel over at any moment. Then he walked toward the kitchen, and I followed him slowly, one hand trailing along the wall just in case.
He’d slept in a gray T-shirt that had given up trying to contain his shoulders, and he pushed the sleeves up as he reached for the bread. I paused in the doorway, queasy and green, and still caught myself tracking his forearms across the kitchen.
Even half-dead, my body kept its priorities in order. Fantastic.
The smell of the bread in the toaster hit me the moment I crossed the threshold.
My mouth watered, in the bad way. The way that meant I was about to throw up, not that I was hungry. I sat down hard at the kitchen island and pressed the back of my hand against my lips.
“Maybe no toast,” I said weakly.
Reid turned off the toaster immediately. “What can you eat?”
“I don’t know. Nothing. Everything smells wrong.”
To distract myself, I pulled out my phone. Emails, messages, the usual morning flood. I scrolled through them without really seeing them, my stomach still churning.
Then I saw it. An email from the clinic, the subject line reading simply: Lab Results Available.
“Oh.” I sat up straighter. “I’ve got the results.”
Reid turned from the counter. His face went carefully blank, the expression he wore when he was trying not to show how much he cared about something.
I tapped the email and waited for it to load.
The page filled with medical jargon, test names I didn’t recognize, numbers and ranges and abbreviations. I scrolled past the standard stuff, blood type, cholesterol, vitamin levels, looking for the section I cared about.
STI Panel: All results negative.
Relief flooded through me so fast it made me dizzy all over again.
“I’m clean,” I said. “No diseases. Nothing.” I looked up at Reid, tears pricking at my eyes. “I’m okay. He didn’t - I’m okay.”
Reid’s shoulders dropped. He crossed to the island and took my hand, squeezing hard. “Thank God.”
“I was so scared.” I laughed, wiping at my eyes. “I kept imagining the worst. But it’s fine. Everything’s-”
I scrolled down to the bloodwork section.
And stopped.
The numbers blurred in front of me. I blinked, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. HCG levels elevated. Consistent with pregnancy at approximately 11 weeks.
“Menace?” Reid’s voice, concerned. “What’s wrong?”
I couldn’t breathe.
The phone slipped from my fingers. I grabbed for the edge of the counter, but my legs weren’t working right, and suddenly I was falling-
Reid caught me. His arms around my waist, holding me upright, his face inches from mine.
“Blythe? Blythe, what is it?” His voice was frantic. “Talk to me. What did it say?”
“I-” Tears streaming down my face now, and I couldn’t stop them. “The bloodwork says-”
I couldn’t say it. The words wouldn’t come. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be possible. Seven years of trying, seven years of specialists, seven years of being told my body was broken-
“It says I’m pregnant.”
Silence.
Reid’s arms tightened around me. His face went through something: shock, confusion, fear, hope, all of it flickering past faster than I could track.
“Pregnant,” he repeated.
“Eleven weeks.” I was shaking. “Reid, that’s not - that can’t be right. I can’t get pregnant. Every doctor said-”
“Okay.” His voice steadied, shifted into something calm and controlled. “Okay. Let’s not panic. Let’s go back to the clinic and have them check the results. Maybe there was a mix-up.”
“There wasn’t a mix-up.”
“Maybe there was.” He was already moving, grabbing his keys from the counter. “Come on. We’re going right now.”
***
The clinic was quiet at this hour. The same beige walls, the same antiseptic smell. The receptionist recognized us from before and got us into an exam room within minutes.
The doctor was young, thorough, and entirely too cheerful for the situation.
“Well.” He smiled at us over his clipboard. “I can confirm the results. You’re pregnant, Mrs. Navarro. Approximately eleven weeks along. Congratulations.”
I stared at him. “That’s not possible.”
“I assure you, the tests are accurate.” He pulled up something on his computer. “Your HCG levels are well within the normal range for this stage of pregnancy. Everything looks healthy.”
“But I can’t-” My voice cracked. “I’ve been trying for seven years. Every specialist said-”
“Sometimes these things happen.” The doctor shrugged. “The body is mysterious. What matters is that you’re pregnant now, and the pregnancy appears to be progressing normally.”
Reid’s hand found mine under the exam table. He squeezed once, hard.
“I have a few routine questions,” the doctor continued. “Current medications, supplements, anything you’ve been taking regularly?”
“I-” I tried to think. “Vitamins. The usual stuff. And a compounded supplement from my mother-in-law’s doctor. I’ve been taking it for seven years.”
The doctor nodded, writing. “What kind of supplement?”
“I don’t know, exactly. It was supposed to help with - with fertility.” The word tasted bitter in my mouth. “It came from a special pharmacy. Delivered to the house every month.”
“Do you still have the bottle?”
“Actually, yes.” I reached into my purse. I’d always kept one bottle with me, so I’d never miss a dose. Old habit. “I have one right here.”
I handed it over.
The doctor took it, frowning. He turned the bottle in his hands, examining the label, the pills inside. His expression shifted, something careful entering his eyes.
“Mrs. Navarro,” he said slowly. “Would you mind if I sent this to the lab? Just to confirm what’s in it?”
“Why?” Reid’s voice was sharp. “What’s wrong?”
The doctor hesitated. “I don’t want to alarm you. But based on the shape and weight of these pills…” He paused. “They look like oral contraceptives.”
The room went silent.
I heard the words, but they didn’t make sense. Contraceptives. The vitamins I’d been taking for seven years. The ones Sandrine’s doctor had prescribed. The ones that were supposed to help me get pregnant.
“WHAT.” Reid’s voice was a snarl. “They’ve been DRUGGING her?”
“I can’t say for certain without lab results.” The doctor’s voice was careful, professional. “But if these are what I think they are, then yes. Someone has been giving your wife contraceptives without her knowledge for a very long time.”
I couldn’t speak.
Seven years. Seven years of taking those pills every single morning. Seven years of crying over negative pregnancy tests, of sitting in specialists’ offices being told my body was broken, of apologizing to Stan with every failed cycle.
And the whole time, the whole time-
“The pills stopped arriving about two months ago,” I heard myself say. My voice sounded far away. “The pharmacy just… stopped sending them. I thought it was a mistake.”
“That would explain the pregnancy.” The doctor nodded. “If you stopped taking the contraceptives about two months ago, and you were intimate during that window…”
“Let’s wait for the lab results,” Reid said. His voice was tight, controlled, but I could see the fury burning behind his eyes. “Before we do anything else.”
“Of course.” The doctor stood. “I’ll put a rush on it. You should have answers within forty-eight hours.”
We walked out of the clinic in silence.
The parking lot was bright with afternoon sun. Reid opened my door for me, helped me into the car, walked around to the driver’s side. He got in and put the keys in the ignition.
Then he just sat there.
“Reid-”
“Give me a minute.” He scraped the words out. “I need a minute.”
I waited. The silence stretched between us, heavy and suffocating.
And then I started to cry.
Not the delicate tears I’d shed in the exam room.
This was deeper, a grief that had been building for seven years, pressure behind a dam that finally cracked.
I sobbed until I couldn’t breathe, until my whole body shook with it, until I didn’t know if I was crying about the pregnancy or the pills or the marriage or all of it at once.
Reid pulled me into his arms.
He held me across the center console, awkward and uncomfortable and exactly what I needed. His hand stroked my hair. His lips pressed against my temple. And he whispered to me, soft words I couldn’t quite hear, gentle sounds that meant nothing and everything.
“They stole it,” I gasped. “Seven years. They told me I was broken, and the whole time they were the ones-”
“I know.”
“I thought it was my fault. I thought there was something wrong with me. And Sandrine - she used to hold my hand when the tests came back negative. She used to cry with me. And the whole time she knew-”
“I know.” His voice was rough with anger. “I know, baby. I know.”
I pulled back and looked at him. His face was tight with fury, but his eyes were soft when they met mine.
He kissed me, soft and sweet, a brush of lips that asked nothing and gave everything.
I melted into him, my hands fisting in his shirt, my tears still wet on my cheeks. For one moment, everything else fell away, the clinic, the pills, the seven years of stolen hope. There was just this, just him, just us.
When we broke apart, he pressed his forehead to mine.
“What do you want to do?” he asked.
I thought about it. Really thought.
They hadn’t just stolen my marriage. They hadn’t just stolen my husband, my sister, my family. They had stolen seven years of my chance at a child. Seven years of hope and heartbreak and desperate wanting, all of it manufactured, all of it fake.
And now I was pregnant. Eleven weeks along. A baby growing inside me that never should have existed, that only existed because someone at a pharmacy had stopped filling a prescription.
I looked at Reid. At his dark eyes, his worried face, his hands still holding mine.
“I’m going to destroy them,” I said quietly. “Not just the company. All of them. Everything they have. Everything they care about.”
My voice was steady. Cold. Certain.
“I’m going to take it all.”
***
That evening I had the house to myself. Reid had taken his rage to the club to drink it quietly, and I’d told him I wanted an hour alone with mine. I walked the house in the dark, room by room, and ended up outside on the stone deck, standing at the edge of the pool.
The water was heated. Steam came off it in slow ribbons, and the underwater lights turned the whole thing a soft, harmless blue. It was the least threatening water in the world. A child could stand in the shallow end.
I stood at the coping in my bare feet and told myself to put one foot in. Just one. Just to prove that I was a woman who was going to take apart an empire, and a woman like that could put her foot in a heated pool.
I couldn’t do it.
For a long time I stood there, toes at the very edge, close enough to feel the warmth coming off the surface. Then I went back inside.
Not yet. But someday. I was getting very good at lists of things I was going to take back, and I added the water to it.
Then I went back inside, dried my feet, and texted my husband to ask where he was.