Owned by Ruthless Billionaire Brother

2

Liora and Leander have been married for two years and have been trying to conceive for six months, but there has been no news of pregnancy. Liora knows that Leander has been looking forward to her being pregnant, and he even picked out names for a boy and a girl.

Unfortunately, she has not been able to conceive.

She sits in the bathroom, looking at the pregnancy test in her hand. Fifteen minutes have passed, but the test still shows a single red line.

It seems like God hasn’t heard her prayers.

She stares blankly at the pregnancy test. It has been seventeen days since her husband’s accident. She hasn’t slept well, haunted by nightmares every night. Either she dreams of him crying and pleading for death or she dreams of doctors declaring him dead.

Her heart has become numb.

But there is a string in her mind pulling her, not allowing her to give up any chance.

She takes a deep breath and picks up her phone to call her friend at the hospital, Saskia, “Saskia, I need a favor.”

Visiting hours for Leander are only from 4:00 to 4:30 in the afternoon. Only one family member can visit, and Fiammetta is resting on a bench, giving today's visiting opportunity to Liora.

Liora puts on a sterile suit, mask, and cap. She puts the fake ultrasound slip provided by Saskia into a sterile bag and then, led by a nurse, enters the ICU. Leander is lying on the bed, still unconscious. A small hole has been made at the back of his neck, and a plastic tube has been inserted, with the other end connected to a ventilator. He has seven stitches on his head, and the wound is healing well. After the nurse checks the equipment and changes his medicine, she leaves, giving Liora the space.

For a long time, Liora remains silent, just quietly looking at Leander.

Before the accident, Leander had passed by a flower shop, bought a bouquet, and placed it in the basket of his bike. While waiting at a red light, he sent a message to Liora: [What should we have for lunch?]

Before Liora could see the message, she received a call from Fiammetta, saying Leander was in the hospital.

A large truck swerved to avoid two pedestrians running a red light and hit Leander and a pregnant woman riding an electric bike. The pregnant woman died on the spot, and Leander suffered a T5 spinal cord injury — a high-level paraplegia.

After waking up and realizing his situation, he fainted twice from despair. When he woke up again, he found himself unable to control his body. He cried and yelled at the medical staff around him, telling them to get out.

But he couldn’t make a sound.

Liora stands outside the ICU observation window, watching Leander helplessly and despairingly with tears streaming down his face. The nurse hands him a tissue to wipe his tears, but he doesn’t even have the strength to move away.

She holds his hand, still warm and dry, though he has lost a lot of weight, and his skin has become dry. She leans in and gently rubs her face against his.

Leander doesn’t respond, still deeply asleep.

Liora whispers, "Leander, I'm pregnant."

"Haven't you always wanted our child?" She strokes his hand slowly, "Do you think it will be a boy or a girl? Don't you want to see our child born? Promise me, stay with me and watch our child be born, okay?"

The golden recovery period for high-level paraplegia is six months.

She needs to fight for those six months. If she can, there is hope for Leander's treatment, even if the chances of success are low. She will try her best.

There is hope as long as he is alive.

"Will you?" She kisses his hand, tears silently falling into her mask. She's about to wipe them away when she hears Leander's hoarse voice say, "Okay."

Liora turns her head to look. Leander has awakened at some point and is staring at her with red eyes.

"It...will...be...hard." His speech is slow and weak, and Liora needs to get close to hear him clearly.

After saying these four words, he can't say anything more. He tries to speak but doesn't have the strength, just looking at her with increasing redness in his eyes. Liora understands what he means. Without this child, she could find another man after a divorce, to start a new relationship and find a new love, but she doesn't want to.

She leans down to kiss his cheek, her voice soft and heavy, "I love you, Leander."

This is her answer to all the voices from the outside world.

She took out the ultrasound report to show him, told him the expected due date, advised him to rest well, and was about to say something more when a nurse came in to inform her that her time was up. Liora squeezed his hand once more before getting up to leave.

As she walked out the door, she looked back and saw Leander crying, tears streaming down his face.

Fiammetta was almost in tears upon learning of Liora's pregnancy.

This child came just in time.

She clasped her hands in gratitude to the heavens, then thanked Liora and sent a driver to take her home. She also called the housekeeper to hire a family nutritionist to specially prepare Liora's meals.

Once back home, Liora locked herself in the bathroom. For the first time, she told a massive lie, feeling extremely uneasy, fearing that her mother-in-law might find out, worried that Leander might discover, and even more fearful of the unknown. But she had no way out now.

If Leander doesn't recover, he would never get a chance to be a father.

She had to get pregnant now to fulfill Leander's wish to become a father.

The success rate of artificial insemination is only between thirty to fifty percent. Time-wise, Liora couldn’t afford to wait. There's screening to be done, and the embryo needs to develop before implantation. If the child has any chromosomal abnormalities, the baby could be born deformed.

She couldn't take any risks.

The only option left, which she was reluctant but had to accept, was to find a man to have s*x with and let him ejaculate inside her.

If she's lucky, it might happen in one go.

Ever since this idea came to her mind, she had someone in mind – and that person was none other than Leander's older brother, Dashiell.

The two of them share some resemblance in appearance, especially their eyes. Dashiell's eyes are colder, while Leander's always appear gentle and warm.

If it's Dashiell, the child would surely bear some resemblance to Leander.

After washing her face, she stared at herself in the mirror for a while. After taking a deep breath, she took out her phone and messaged Dashiell: [Brother, do you have some time? I need your help with something.]

The Abernathy family started their business with jewelry in Spain and later moved to Italy, establishing a chain of jewelry stores. When Dashiell took over, the first thing he did was to create a unique brand 'marry me'. They even got a popular actor to endorse it, making it instantly recognizable nationwide.

Currently, 'marry me' has over two hundred stores in major cities. Every time Liora passes through the city center, she sees the advertisement on the scrolling screen: [Love one person, be loyal to one person.]

Would the person who created such a loyal brand agree to such an absurd request?

Liora was uncertain.

She had almost no bargaining chips.

She could only gamble – gamble on Dashiell's brotherly love for Leander and hope he wouldn’t turn a blind eye.

Just before six in the evening, Dashiell finally called. His voice was indifferent, "What's the matter?"

"I... want to talk to you face to face." Hearing his voice, Liora immediately thought of his usual cold demeanor at home, with eyes that often looked indifferent. If you accidentally made eye contact, you'd feel an unprecedented sense of oppression.