THE VILLAGE GIRL HE REJECTED

Chapter 2: Two Lines - Pregnant

Amina had not slept for one month. Not even one full night. Every time she closed her eyes, she was back in that car.

Not since that night. Not since Ethan Black's black Rolls Royce Cullinan left deep tyre marks in the mud of Kalabur Village and disappeared in the storm, like it was never there. Like she had imagined everything.

But she had not imagined it. Her body remembered. Her heart remembered.

Every single night for thirty days, she replayed it in her small hut, staring at the leaking roof. The locked door — click. The rain hammering the roof so loud no one could hear her if she screamed. His cold eyes turning dark, black with something she didn't understand. His voice — deep, cruel, yet desperate — "Say yes and your debt is gone. Your mother will live." Her own whisper, broken, ashamed — "Yes... but please be gentle... I have never..."

And then the morning. The grey silent morning after the storm. The torn blue dress. His expensive black coat covering her naked body, smelling like him. The cheque for 2,000,000 rupees lying on the leather seat like payment. And that small white paper with four words that cut her more than any knife: "You got what you wanted, gold digger."

She was not a gold digger. God knew she was not. She had never wanted money. She had never even touched lipstick. She only wanted to save her mother.

But her mother, Lila, had gotten worse, not better. Even after Amina paid the debt with that cheque that burned her fingers, even after they took her to the small district hospital, Lila's fever did not go away. It got deeper. She coughed blood now, red blood on her white handkerchief.

"Amina," Lila whispered today, her hand shaking, cold and sweaty as she touched Amina's face. "My baby... you look pale. So pale. You are vomiting every morning. You don't eat. Are you sick too? Did you catch my fever?"

Amina had been vomiting for two weeks. Every morning at 5 AM, like clockwork, she ran to the back of the hut and threw up until her stomach was empty and tears came. Her breasts hurt so much even her old bra pained her. She felt dizzy all day. She felt sleepy but could not sleep. And most scary — she had missed her monthly blood. For 5 weeks now. It never missed before. Never.

She knew. Deep inside her soul, she knew what was happening. But she was too scared to say it out loud. If she said it, it would become real.

"I'm fine, Ma," she lied, forcing a smile that felt like breaking. "Just gas. Village water."

"I will go to clinic," Lila said, trying to get up. "Ask Doctor to check you..."

"No! Ma, you rest! You are sick! I will go to shop to buy medicine for you!"

Amina ran out before her mother could see her tears falling.

The village clinic was one small room with a broken fan that made more noise than wind. Old Nurse Kamla had known Amina since she was a baby, had helped deliver her. She was 60, kind but blunt.

"Beta, what happened? You look like ghost," Kamla said, looking at Amina's pale face, dark circles, and thin body shaking. "You lost weight but your face is swollen. Sit."

Amina couldn't speak. Her throat closed. She just handed over 50 rupees — her last 50 — and said in a tiny voice, "Check... check please... I am late..."

Kamla understood instantly. She had seen thousands of girls. She took her inside the curtain where there was a small bed.

"When was last period? Tell truth."

Amina whispered, crying, "One month ago... 5 weeks maybe... 6 weeks... I don't know..."

"Boyfriend? Husband?" Kamla asked, not judging, just tired and practical. "Who is father? Village boy?"

Amina started crying silently, shoulders shaking. "No boyfriend... no husband... one night... I didn't want... but I had to... for my mother... debt... he said he will take house..."

Kamla's face softened. She had seen hundreds of girls like Amina. Poor, beautiful, trapped by rich men. She squeezed her hand.

She gave her a small white stick in plastic cover from her drawer. "This is pregnancy kit. Costs 120 but for you 50. Go to toilet. Pee on this middle part. Wait two minutes. Don't come out before two minutes. I wait here."

Amina's hands shook so much she almost dropped the precious stick. In the dirty toilet behind clinic, with flies buzzing and smell making her want to vomit again, she did as told.

Two minutes felt like two years. Her heart beat so loud she could hear it in ears. She closed her eyes and prayed to God — "Please one line. Please God, please one line. I cannot be pregnant. I cannot..."

She looked down.

Two lines.

Two dark pink lines. Clear. Bright. No doubt.

Amina's legs gave out. She sat on the cold dirty floor, the stick in her hand, and pressed her hand to her mouth to not scream loud and make whole village hear.

Pregnant.

She was pregnant with Ethan Black's child. The billionaire who called her a gold digger and left her like trash.

The world stopped spinning.

"Beta?" Kamla knocked after 5 minutes. "Beta, what is it? You okay? What lines?"

Amina opened the door, tears streaming like river, showing the stick with shaking hand. "Two lines... two..."

Kamla sighed deeply, a long sad sigh of a woman who had seen this story too many times. "Positive. You are pregnant. Around 5-6 weeks. It matches your date. That night... that night you are saying..."

"No... no no no..." Amina whispered, sinking to floor again, holding stomach. "It can't be... just one night... first time... how?"

"One night is enough, beta," Kamla said gently, sitting next to her on floor. "One time is enough. Especially first time. You are very fertile age. What will you do? Will you tell the boy? He should take responsibility."

The boy. Ethan Black was not a boy. He was a 28-year-old billionaire who owned half the country, who lived in 50 crore mansion, who wore suits that cost more than her whole village.

Amina thought of that morning again. The cheque. The note. He thought she was a p********e who sold herself for 2 million rupees. A gold digger.

If she told him she was pregnant, he would think she was doing it for more money. He would laugh. He would call her an even bigger gold digger. He would say, "You want to trap me with baby? How much you want now? 10 million? 20 million?" He would tell his lawyers to throw her out.

And the news she saw yesterday on TV made her heart die completely.

She had gone to the village tea shop to buy biscuits for her mother, her last 20 rupees. The old TV was on, loud, showing city news. The news anchor was screaming happily with excitement:

"BREAKING NEWS! Billionaire Ethan Black, CEO of Black Empire, finally engaged! After his painful breakup last year, he proposed to supermodel Sophia Lee last night in Paris with a 10-carat diamond worth 5 crores! Wedding of the year in December! Sophia Lee is 26, 5'11, ex-Miss Universe runner up, and best friends with billionaires!"

On the screen, Ethan Black in a perfect black tuxedo, actually smiling — that cold man actually smiling! — holding a tall, blonde supermodel with legs longer than Amina's whole body, skin white like milk, wearing diamond necklace. Sophia Lee. Famous. Rich. Perfect. Everything Amina was not.

Amina had stood there in her faded blue dress, dusty slippers, hair not combed, hand automatically going to her stomach that already held his child, and felt the world spin and go black for second.

He was engaged. He was going to marry a supermodel goddess. And she was pregnant with his baby in a village clinic with flies buzzing around toilet.

"Amina?" Kamla shook her hard. "Amina, who is father? Is he from village? Tell me, I can call him..."

Amina wiped her tears hard, with anger now. "No one. No father. Father is dead. I will keep baby. I will not kill."

"Beta, think practical," Kamla whispered urgently. "You are poor. Mother sick dying. No husband. Village will talk. They will call you characterless. They will throw stones. They will not give you work. How will you feed baby? How will you live? Think beta, you are only 21..."

"I don't care!" Amina shouted, then lowered her voice when people outside looked. Tears came again but stronger now. "Let them talk! Let them call whatever! This is my baby. I felt... when I saw two lines, I felt something move inside heart. I am alone. My father dead. My mother dying. No one loves me. This baby... this baby is mine. Someone who will love me. I will be mother. I will protect."

Kamla hugged her tightly, crying too now. "You are brave girl, Amina. Strongest I know. But brave girls suffer more in this world."

Amina walked back home in burning sun, pregnancy stick hidden deep in her dress, close to her heart. Her mother was sleeping, coughing in sleep.

She sat at their small window, looking at dead rice fields, and placed both hands on her still-flat stomach that only she knew held a secret.

"Hi," she whispered to the tiny dot inside, size of a seed, her voice breaking but full of love that surprised even her. "It's me, Mama. I know... I know your Papa doesn't want us. He thinks Mama is a gold digger who wanted money. He has supermodel fiancee now. But I promise... I promise on my dead father's soul, I will protect you. I will work in city. I will be maid. I will clean toilets. I will do anything. But I will never beg him. Never tell him about you. We don't need him."

That evening, Lila's cough got worse. So much blood came out that the small towel became red.

Village doctor came running. "We need city hospital, NOW. Dhaka Medical College. Tonight. Or she will die in 2 days. Her lungs failing."

City hospital cost 300,000 rupees minimum. Amina had only the memory of cheque Ethan gave — but she had already used it to pay debt. Her purse had 0 rupees. Zero.

She looked at her mother gasping for breath like fish out of water, and at her stomach where her baby was just 5 weeks old, invisible but alive.

And she made a decision that would change everything.

She would go to the city. Dhaka. Tomorrow morning first bus. She would find work as a maid in rich houses. She would save her mother and her baby with her own hands.

She would never tell Ethan Black that his gold digger was carrying his heir.

She took out her old cracked Nokia phone, connected to village wifi, and searched with shaking fingers: "Black Empire Company Dhaka address maid job"

The address glowed on screen: Black Empire Tower, Gulshan 2, Dhaka. Hiring House Staff. Contact HR.

She didn't know that Ethan Black's mother, Mrs. Margaret Black, had been looking for a poor, innocent, traditional village girl exactly like Amina to cure her cold son's heart, because she hated that gold digger supermodel Sophia. And that Amina, pregnant and broken and carrying Black heir, was about to walk straight into his billion-dollar office for a maid job interview tomorrow morning at 10 AM.

And Sophia Lee, his perfect fiancee, would be there too, waiting to destroy any poor girl who dared come near her billionaire.