The Alpha's Accidental Heir

POV: Clara “Your window to become a mother is closing.” Dr. Reyes said it like she was reading the weather. She held up my scan, the dark shapes on the screen small and quiet, like they already knew they were disappearing. “How closing?” I asked. “Your egg count is very low for your age. If you want a child, Clara, you need to start now. Not next year. Now.” I nodded like I understood, but my whole chest felt hollow. I had always thought I had time. Time to get married first. Time to save more money. Time to feel ready. Now the doctor was telling me time was the one thing I didn’t have. I drove home holding the steering wheel too tight. I kept thinking about Jason. He would know what to say. He always knew how to make hard things feel smaller. We had talked about kids before, in that soft, far-off way people talk about someday. Today, someday felt urgent. I parked crooked in the driveway and ran inside, my heels loud on the wood floor. “Jason?” No answer. His car was outside, so I knew he was home. I walked past the kitchen, past the living room, toward our bedroom. The door was open a few inches. I heard a laugh that wasn’t mine. I pushed the door open all the way. Jason was in our bed. A woman I had never seen was under his arm, her hair spread across my pillow. For one second, nobody moved. Then Jason sat up fast, pulling the sheet over his lap like that would fix anything. “Clara. This isn’t—” “Don’t.” My voice came out flat, not loud. I didn’t have the energy to be loud. “Don’t tell me this isn’t what it looks like.” The woman grabbed her shirt and slid off the far side of the bed, not looking at me. Jason at least had the decency to look ashamed for about three seconds. Then his face changed. The shame turned into something colder. “You know what, Clara, maybe this is a good thing,” he said. “Maybe now you’ll stop pretending we were ever going to work.” “Pretending?” I laughed, and it hurt my throat. “I found a wedding venue last week.” “You found a wedding venue because you’re desperate for a family before your eggs dry up. Don’t act like this was about me.” I felt like he had reached into my chest and pulled out the words the doctor had just said to me, twisted them, and thrown them back like a weapon. I didn’t answer. I turned around and walked to the closet and started pulling my clothes off the hangers with shaking hands. “You can’t just leave,” Jason said, following me. “We work together, Clara. My father owns the firm. If you leave me over this, it’s going to be very awkward for you at the office.” I stopped and looked at him. “Is that a threat?” “It’s a fact.” He crossed his arms. “You’re not that good at your job. You know that. I got you that position.” Something in me went still and cold, colder than I thought I could feel. “Then I quit.” “You don’t need to quit,” he said, smiling now like he’d already won. “You’re fired. Effective now. I’ll have HR send the paperwork.” I stood there with an armful of shirts, my hands still shaking, and I understood in that moment that I had lost my home, my fiancé, and my job in the space of about ten minutes. I didn’t cry. I was too shocked to cry. I just kept folding clothes into a suitcase like my hands knew what to do even when my brain didn’t. By the time I carried my two bags out to my car, it had started to rain. Not a gentle rain. A hard, cold rain that soaked through my jacket in seconds. I threw my bags in the trunk and sat in the driver’s seat, water dripping from my hair onto my lap, and I let myself shake for a minute. Just one minute. Then I made myself stop. I didn’t know where I was going. I couldn’t afford a hotel for more than a night or two, not anymore. I pulled out of the driveway and just drove, the wipers slapping back and forth, the streetlights smearing gold across my windshield. I stopped at a red light near the edge of downtown, and that’s when I saw it. Taped to a bus stop shelter, half wet from the rain, a flyer with a soft blue background and a picture of a smiling woman holding a baby. SUNVALE FERTILITY CLINIC Your family. Your choice. Your future. The light turned green behind me. A car honked. I didn’t move. I just sat there, staring at that flyer through the rain-streaked glass, thinking about the doctor’s voice telling me my window was closing, thinking about Jason’s cruel little smile, thinking about how everyone in my life so far had made choices for me or taken things away from me. I thought about what it would mean to make one big choice, entirely my own, that nobody could take away. The car behind me honked again. I finally pressed the gas, but I didn’t go home, because I didn’t have one anymore. I drove straight for the clinic, my hands steady on the wheel for the first time all night, my mind made up before I even understood what I was deciding.