Chapter 68
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
Harper
Five weeks later…
"Mrs. Blake." The receptionist calls.
I don't look up from my phone. I'm editing my report for this week's submission. It’s a piece about last week's runway show.
It's been a fun little distraction. I got to see the catwalk and meet some models and designers.
Turns out, Lola's parents' company was there with their collection.
A small, strange thread connecting my two worlds.
"Mrs. Blake."
I glance up.
Oh, shit. That's me.
I was expecting Miss Jones. Because that's who I am. Harper Jones. Not Blake. Never Blake. But the private clinic needed ID, and the only ID I have now is the one with his name stamped over mine.
I smile and stand, putting my phone in my purse. "Sorry. I was doing some work."
"No problem." She glances at the empty chairs on either side of where I was sitting. "Are you here on your own?"
"The father doesn't know I'm—"
Her blue eyes go wide. She recovers fast, but I catch the flash of concern.
I used the money Gianna wired for my work in New Falls to book this.
A private scan. No medical records are being recorded.
I just need to know this little one is okay.
That the stress and the sleepless nights and the nausea that never seems to stop haven't done something I can't undo. I’m trying my best to eat everything I think a growing baby needs, but I’m careful not to look anything up online.
She leads me down the hallway and into a room. Bright lighting makes my head pull. There is a bed with paper on it. The ultrasound machine humming quietly beside it.
"So you think you're around twelve weeks? Is that right?"
I nod. "Y-yes."
The nerves almost consume me as I stare at the bed.
My legs feel like they might give out. Every fear I've been carrying for the last five weeks, every sleepless night, every wave of nausea I hid from Hudson, every moment I pressed my hand against my stomach in the dark and whispered please be okay, please be okay—all of it is right here in this room, about to be answered by a screen I can't bring myself to look at yet.
"Go ahead and lie back for me, sweetheart."
I lie down. The paper crinkles. I stare at the ceiling and count my breaths. In for four. Out for four. The way Ace taught me.
Breathe, baby. You've got this.
His voice. Always there. The one thing nobody can take from me. Sometimes I just lay in bed and watch the push up video he sent me. And then I cry.
The sonographer comes in. She talks me through everything as she sets up, and I nod along even though I can't hear half of it over the blood roaring in my ears.
After pulling up my T-shirt, she puts the freezing gel on my stomach. I flinch.
"Sorry about that. Let's see what we've got."
She presses the wand against me, adjusting the angle. The screen fills with gray and white shapes that mean nothing to me. Static. Shadows. I grip the edge of the bed and hold my breath.
And then it’s there.
A shape. A real, recognizable shape. Not a flicker of light like when the screen first turned on. A baby. A tiny, curled-up, impossible little human with a head and a body and arms and legs that I can actually see.
"There's your baby," the sonographer says, and she's smiling, but I can't look at her because I can't look at anything except that screen.
The heartbeat fills the room. Thudding through the speakers with a rhythm that sounds nothing like mine.
Our baby has his heartbeat.
I shatter.
The tears come so hard and so fast, I can't see.
My whole body shakes on the table, and the paper tears under my grip, and I'm sobbing in a way that scares me.
This time, not from sadness, not from fear, but from the sheer overwhelming force of loving something so completely and so instantly that it rewrites every cell in your body.
This is Ace's baby. Mine and Ace's. Made on a ranch in Arizona under the stars by two people who never stopped loving each other. I guess it must be our little miracle, seeing as I have no idea why my birth control didn’t work.
"Everything looks perfect," the sonographer says gently. "Strong heartbeat. Measuring right on track. You've got a healthy baby in there. And you’re right. Eleven weeks and four days."
I press both hands over my face and cry harder. Perfect. Healthy. Strong. All the words I needed to hear. All the words I've been terrified I wouldn't.
"Would you like some pictures printed?"
I nod. I can't speak. She hands me tissues, and I mop my face while she clicks through the images, selecting the best angles, printing them on that strange, shiny paper that ultrasound photos always come on.
She hands me three copies. I hold them with both hands, staring down at the grainy black-and-white image of my child.
This tiny, perfect thing that doesn't know about the mess its mother has made.
Doesn't know about Hudson or LA or the deal or the lies.
Just knows my heartbeat. Just knows the sound of my voice.
Just knows it's alive and growing and safe inside me.
And I will do everything in my power to protect it.
"Thank you," I whisper. "Thank you so much."
I tuck two copies into my purse. The third I hold. I can't put it down. I stare at it as I walk down the hallway, memorizing every curve and shadow with a smile on my face.
I push through the door into the waiting room.
And my whole body turns to ice.
Hudson is sitting in the corner. Legs crossed. Phone in hand. Looking up at me with that smile. "There she is," he says, standing. "My beautiful wife."
He crosses the room in a flash and wraps his arms around me. He pulls me against his chest and presses a kiss to the top of my head.
A public display. The doting husband who showed up for the scan.
"How did you—" I start.
His arms tighten. "You should have told me, Harper. I would have come with you."
His voice is warm. I stiffen in his arms. He feels it and pulls back with that concerned-husband expression and cups my face.
"Let me see," he says, and takes the scan picture from my hand before I can react.
He stares at it. And something crosses his face. The same look he gets in the boardroom when a number lands in his favor.
"You’ve made my day, sweetheart," he says. Loud enough for the room.
The receptionist beams. The woman with the toddler smiles at us. Everyone sees what they're supposed to see… a happy couple, a new baby, a beautiful moment.
Nobody sees my hands shaking. Nobody sees the way my throat has closed up. Nobody sees the scan picture being folded into his jacket pocket instead of mine, and that alone makes me feel sick.
"Let's go," he says, his hand on the small of my back.
I don't make a scene. I can't. Not here. Not in front of these people. So I walk. I let him lead me through the doors and into the parking lot, the sun blinding after the dim clinic.
His car is parked beside mine, and he opens the passenger door of his.
"Get in."
"My car is—"
"Get in, Harper."
His voice hasn't changed. But his eyes have. The mask is off. The waiting room audience is gone. And what's underneath is the man I actually married. The cold, calculating, three steps ahead of me version of Hudson.
So, I get in.
He slides behind the wheel, pulls the scan picture from his jacket, and sets it on the dashboard, staring at it.
"How far along?"
"Twelve weeks."
"And it's his."
That isn’t a question.
"Yes," I say. "It's Ace's."
He nods and starts the engine. We drive in silence for ten minutes. Fifteen. He doesn't take the turn toward our house. He takes the freeway.
"Where are we going?"
"My parents'."
My stomach drops. "Hudson—"
"Listen to me." He glances over. His jaw is set, but there's something else in his expression.
Something I haven't seen before. Desperation, maybe.
The fraying edge of a man whose plan is taking too long.
"My father isn't getting better. But he is dragging his feet on the paperwork because he doesn't believe I've changed. Something is holding him back, and I don’t know what. He needs something that makes it undeniable. It’s a shame my plan didn’t quite work out as I wanted. "
I stare at him. The pieces are clicking together. Everything is starting to make horrifying sense.
“Did you swap my birth control out?” I ask, rage flooding through me.
He smirks, but doesn’t answer.
“That time I couldn’t find my purse at your parents house, and you put it in the office. Tell me, goddammit. Was this your plan all along?” I shout.
He runs a hand along his jaw. “I was hoping that you’d eventually give in to me. The baby would be mine, not some stupid fucking country boys.”
My mouth drops open. This man is a monster.
“I hate you.”
He shrugs, not giving a single shit about the awful things he’s doing to me. But I’m not a person to him; I’m a means to an end.
"You are not using my child for your greed, Hudson. You’re a piece of shit," I spit.
"A baby, Harper. A grandchild. That's what pushes him over the edge. That's what makes him sign."
"It's not your baby. You don’t get to do this. I can’t believe you’ve done this."
I fight back the tears. I think they’re out of anger. Out of shock. I don’t know. I’m mortified he’d do this.
"He doesn't know that."
"I'm not letting you—"
"I'm not asking." He takes the exit. The streets get wider.
The houses get bigger. The hedges get taller.
Beverly Hills. His parents' neighborhood.
"I'm going to walk in there, sit them down, and tell them we're expecting.
My father will have those papers signed within the week.
Because I need the security to bring a child into the world. His heir to the empire. And then—"
He pulls up outside the Blake estate. Kills the engine and turns to me.
"And then it's over, Harper. All of it. He signs the company over.
I get what I need. And you're free. The engagement, the marriage—I'll file for annulment.
You walk away. Go back to Arizona. Go back to your cowboy.
Raise your baby on a ranch. I don't care.
But I need this. One more lie. And then you never have to see me again. "
I stare at the house. One more lie. That's what he said the first time. One date. One dinner. One ring. One wedding. Every time, one more. And every time, the cage gets smaller.
But this time, there's an end date. A real one. Papers signed, company transferred, annulment filed. Freedom. Those videos deleted forever.
I look down at my stomach. At the place where Ace's baby is growing. This baby deserves a life on Sterling Ranch. Deserves to know its father. Deserves to grow up surrounded by Sterlings and Lawsons and crazy goats and horses and a sky so full of stars it makes you feel infinite.
I can give it that. I just need to survive one more dinner.
"If I do this," I say slowly, "you file the annulment the day the papers are signed. Not a week later. Not when you get around to it. The day."
"The day."
"And you delete everything you have on me. I mean everything. You take that stupid website down, and all of the women get their peace. I watch you do it. And you forget Ace and his family ever existed."
His jaw tightens. "Fine."
"And you never contact me again. Not a call. Not a text. Not a message through someone else. I disappear, and you let me."
"Agreed."
I look at him. Search his face for the lie. For the trap. For the twist that's coming, because there's always a twist with Hudson Blake.
But all I see is a man who's running out of time. Whose father is dying. Whose scheme has gotten messier than he expected. And who needs one final performance from the woman he blackmailed into playing his wife.
"One more lie," I say.
"One more lie."
I open the car door and step out onto the gravel.
My hand lands on my lower stomach. And then I walk toward the front door of the Blake mansion with my husband's hand on my back and my real family's heartbeat inside me.
One more lie.
And then I'm going home. For good this time.