Chapter 17
Kiryan
I had just moved to do something when Isabella blacked out. I caught her before she hit the floor and carried her back to the hospital bed.
A nurse making rounds hurried over, checked Isabella over, and replaced her bandage with a clean one.
"Kiryan." After the nurse left, she slowly opened her eyes. "What happened to me?"
"You fainted. The nurse said you got yourself too worked up." I stood by the bed, watching the color drain from her face.
Isabella didn't stay still. She braced on her knees and crawled to the edge of the mattress, slow and careful. Her injured arm hung stiff at her side. Her other hand reached out and hooked my belt.
"Isabella." I let the warning sit in my voice.
"You didn't use to say my name like that." She tilted her chin up. Her palm pressed over my slacks, then slid, unhurried—like she was checking an answer she thought couldn't possibly be wrong.
She knew me too well. One look, one hint, and I usually snapped. But tonight it all felt like it was happening to someone else. My senses stayed sharp. My desire didn't even flinch.
Elena's face filled my head instead.
When she painted me, her gaze skimmed over my body like she was afraid of what she might wake up.
Her cheeks had flushed, but she still tried to play calm.
She didn't know how to turn a man on. Somehow she did it anyway.
When her fingertips brushed my skin, my body recognized her faster than my brain could catch up.
"Lie down. Your wound already split once. The nurse said you need rest." I stepped back.
That distance said more than any excuse ever could.
Isabella's hand stopped midair. She glanced down at my crotch, and the last bit of certainty on her mouth broke.
"You really don't want me?" She looked up, her eyes turning sharp. "Before, I only had to touch you, and you got hard. You wouldn't even let me finish a sentence. But just now, my hand was right there, and nothing. Do you not feel anything for me anymore?"
I didn't answer.
"Did you fucking fall in love with Elena?" Her voice went high and ugly.
"No." The denial came out too fast, like my body had jumped in to protect the truth.
Isabella stared at me. "Then why don't you want to touch me?"
My jaw locked. If I really loved Elena and still let myself hurt her, then I was worse than my father. Fucking worse.
"Why aren't you talking?" Isabella forced a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "So I was right."
I had been ready to say Elena was good at playing the victim. That she bought Olga with tears, that she tried to turn me against Isabella. Those words used to come easy.
Now they stuck in my throat.
Elena had never asked me for a damn thing. When people misunderstood her, she didn't strike back first—she found reasons for me. Even when I never stood on her side. Not once.
"It all happened too fast," I said at last. "I wasn't ready."
"Ready for what?"
The question landed, and I couldn't find an answer that didn't peel me open.
Ready to admit I'd gotten used to sleeping in the same bed with Elena?
Ready to admit every time I walked back into the manor, I checked whether the studio light was on before anything else?
Ready to admit that when she'd fought back tears and asked me to stay that morning, I'd wanted—just for a second—to take back every cruel word?
None of it belonged in front of Isabella. None of it belonged in my own ears.
My phone sat just a few steps away. If I picked it up, I could ask Elena why she'd gone to the hospital, tell her the voice she'd heard wasn't what she thought.
But I stood there anyway, still as stone.
Not because I didn't care—because I knew if she asked where I was, I couldn't give an answer that wouldn't hurt her again.
I had already left her once. Now even an explanation felt like another betrayal.
The room had just gone dead quiet when a knock sounded at the door.
A female doctor came in holding a report.
"Mr. Morozov, Ms. Rossi." She opened the folder. "The additional tests are back. There's no serious issue with the arm or the forehead."
I saw Isabella exhale, like she'd been holding her breath for hours.
"And—there's one more result you need to know." The doctor paused. "Ms. Rossi is pregnant."
The sound in the room vanished, like someone had sucked the air out.
I stared at her. "What did you say?"
"Her bloodwork came back positive. It's early. Exact dating will need an OB follow-up and more testing."
I turned, slowly, to Isabella.
Her face went blank too. She looked down at her belly, her good hand hovering in the air for a few seconds before it finally settled there.
"Is the baby going to be okay?" Her voice shook.
"No abdominal pain, no bleeding—that is good.
But she needs to stay overnight for observation.
" The doctor looked at me, automatically filing me under father.
"No alcohol. Any medication has to be cleared.
She'll need someone taking care of her the next few days, and we should schedule her first prenatal appointment as soon as possible. "
I still hadn't pulled myself out of the word pregnant.
The doctor handed me a sheet of instructions. "As her husband, you need to watch for abdominal pain, dizziness, or bleeding. If anything seems off, call immediately."
"No." One word.
The doctor blinked at me, then pushed her glasses up. Isabella looked at me too, and something like disappointment flashed in her eyes.
I still took the paper. "I'll watch her. Whatever tests she needs—schedule all of it."
After the doctor left, the door shut with a soft click.
"The baby can only be yours," Isabella said first.
She kept her eyes on her belly. "I went to parties. Other men walked me back to my room. But I didn't let anyone touch me. After I left New York, you were all I could think about."
My brain started lining up dates. Before she left, she'd still been my fiancée. We'd been intimate, the way engaged couples were. If it was early, the timing didn't clash.
But tonight, for the first time, I didn't reach for belief like it was the default.
The hidden video. The wrong photo. The way she'd pressed up against me the moment she'd heard Elena's voice. One by one, they cut across my mind. Each thing alone could be explained. Together, they looked like a row of coincidences that lined up a little too clean.
My gaze dropped to the hand covering her belly. A child. My child.
Joy never showed up.
What came first was a weight—heavy enough to choke on.
My father's cold face rose up from memory. When my mother had been sick, he'd been at another woman's side. When she'd been cornered and broken, he couldn't even be bothered to look. I hated him for it. I'd sworn I'd never be him.
But if I acknowledged the baby and still let him grow up waiting, I wasn't any different. And if I ended my marriage for the baby, then Elena became another woman I left in the dark.
If this child had been conceived before I married, he hadn't done a damn thing wrong. Whether I was ready or not, whether it threw both families into chaos, I didn't get to toss him aside.
"I'll take responsibility," I said. "You'll have the best OB. I'll set up a place for you to live, a driver, security, a nurse around the clock. When the baby's born, there'll be a separate trust, the best schools, and Morozov protection."
Isabella shook her head, and tears finally spilled. "You think I want a house and money?"
"I'm telling you you won't be short on anything."
"Anything." She repeated it, bitter laughter tugging at her mouth. "An account. A couple bodyguards. A father who shows up by appointment. When the kid grows up, what am I supposed to say? That his father gave him everything—except a home?"
Every word hit the one place I couldn't dodge.
"I'll be in his life. He won't be without a father."
"But he'll be without a whole family." She looked down at her belly. "I don't want him to end up like us. He should wake up with his mom and dad there. He shouldn't get punished for grown-ups' mistakes the minute he's born."
The crash. The wounds. The baby dropped into the same night—enough to break anyone's control.
"I'm sorry." My voice came out rough.
"I don't want to use the baby to ask you for anything, and I don't want to fight with Elena again.
But she ruined everything." Isabella's words sped up, heated.
"She knew we were getting married and she still walked into your room.
She pushed me out. She put on the wedding dress that was supposed to be mine.
Now we are even having a baby, and she is still sitting in the Mrs. Morozova seat. "
For a second, the hatred on her face looked like a stranger wearing her skin. When she said Elena's name, something crawled up my spine—pure discomfort. I told myself it was the accident, the pregnancy, the shock. I still couldn't keep the doubt from rising.
"I'll give you and the baby everything you need," I said again, because it was all I could offer.
"But you are already married." Her voice cracked. "The person you go home to every day is Elena. I am supposed to live in some place you bought, while our child waits for his father to show up once in a while?"
"My marriage to Elena isn't that important," I heard myself say. "It won't change what I owe my child."
"If there's no love, then end it." Isabella grabbed my hand and pressed it to her flat stomach. "I know it isn't fair to Elena. But the baby didn't do anything wrong. I'm not asking you to love me the way you used to. Just—for the baby—give us a home. Okay?"
Under my palm, I felt nothing. Still, it was like I held two different lives at once.
On one side, the child I'd sworn I would never abandon.
On the other, my wife who'd just called and said she'd gone to the hospital.