MARRIED TO THE MAN WHO DENIED ME

CHAPTER TWO — THE TEST

(Cassandra's POV)

It started small — a queasy flip in my stomach that I blamed on too much coffee and not enough sleep. A tiny, ignorable thing. I told myself stress. I told myself heartbreak could do this to a body, that the nights of crying and the days of eating nothing but instant noodles were enough explanation.

But the nausea didn’t let up. It came back the next morning and the morning after that, catching me at inconvenient moments: on the subway, at my desk, in meetings where I nodded along while feeling like my insides were rearranging themselves. That’s when I stopped pretending.

I began to count days.

Three weeks late.

I stared at the calendar on my phone until the numbers blurred. I circled the date with a shaky thumb and tried to make my heart quiet. It didn’t work. The room tilted in a way that made me reach for a wall I wasn’t touching. My breath came shallow and fast, like I’d run a long way and forgot where I’d been going.

There had been protection. I kept repeating that like a spell, like if I believed it hard enough I could rewrite that blurry night — the rain, the whiskey, the way his jacket smelled when he shrugged it off. I could remember the hollow warmth of him, the soft way he’d said my name. I couldn’t remember everything, and that was the part that scared me most.

Still, something in my bones already knew before my mind admitted it.

Pamela arrived that morning in a whirl of noise and sunlight, all bright scarves and lipstick. She has the kind of energy that fills a room before she does. She found me at the kitchen table with the unopened pregnancy test box like it was an artifact from a different life.

“Cassie, you look like a ghost,” she said immediately, dropping her purse on the counter. Her eyes flicked from my face to the box and back, the way a surgeon’s eye flicks to a wound. “You’ve been ghosting me. What’s up?”

“I’m fine,” I lied because the truth sounded like an accusation against myself.

She didn’t buy it. She crossed her arms like a parent about to lecture a child. “You look like you haven’t slept in a week.”

“I’ve been busy,” I said, and the lie tasted stale.

“With what? Self-destruction?” She tried to joke, but her smile faltered when she noticed the tiny white box on the table. Her hand hovered over it like she could feel the tremor through the cardboard.

“Cass…” she breathed.

“It’s not what you think,” I said too quickly, as if that would make the world behave the way I wanted.

“Then why is it here?”

I didn’t have an answer that sounded good. I only had the map of my nights: rain, a rooftop, a man whose name slipped into my memory like a secret. So Pamela picked up the box, set it in my palm like a judge laying down a verdict, and for the first time in days I felt something close to real fear.

“I’m scared,” I admitted. Saying it out loud made it more solid than the thin, shameful whisper it’d been in my head.

“I know,” she said, softer. “But pretending won’t fix this. You need to know.”

Five minutes later, I was sitting on the edge of my bathtub, the cold porcelain under my palms, staring at a thin stick that felt suddenly heavy with possibility. The apartment hummed with an ordinary city noise that suddenly seemed obscene. The idea that a small white line could change everything felt ridiculous and terrifying at once.

When the second pink line bled slowly into being, my chest dropped like someone opened a hole in my ribs. Positive.

The word didn't feel like news so much as an accusation. It sat there between my hands like something I hadn’t earned and couldn’t refuse. I pressed my fingers to my mouth and tasted copper — the sharpness of panic. All the plans I hadn’t made rearranged themselves like dominoes.

“Jordan,” I whispered before I could stop myself. Saying his name felt like ripping a bandage off slowly. The sound of it made the moment more real, more dangerous.

Pamela was waiting at the door when I stepped out, the sympathy already written in the set of her shoulders. She didn’t need me to explain.

“Oh, Cass…” she said, and pulled me into an embrace so fierce it squeezed the breath out of me. “What are you going to do?”

I clung to her because I needed something solid. “I have to tell him,” I said. Saying it made my throat hurt in a new way — like I’d swallowed glass.

Finding Jordan Alvarez should have been impossible. He’s everywhere — the kind of man whose name is on billboards and in every headline. But the real problem wasn’t where he was. It was getting through to him. The man doesn’t take personal calls, doesn’t meet without an appointment, and certainly doesn’t have time for messy things like feelings.

I tried the phone first. The receptionist was polite and efficient, the type who kept a smile on a budget of zero wasted emotion. “I need to speak with Mr. Alvarez,” I told her, my voice too loud in my own ears.

“Regarding?” she asked.

“It’s personal,” I said.

“I’m sorry, miss. Mr. Alvarez doesn’t take personal calls.”

Of course he didn’t. The line clicked dead. My hands shook so badly I almost dropped the receiver.

The next day I called again. And the next. On the fourth day, exhausted and more stubborn than usual, I did something brash — I went to Salespush Tower.

The building is arrogant: glass, steel, mirrors. It made me feel smaller the second I walked in. The receptionist looked at me like I was a minor inconvenience. “Do you have an appointment?” She asked.

“No,” I lied. “But it’s important. Tell him Cassandra is here.”

She frowned. “Cassandra?”

“He’ll know,” I lied again because saying something else felt cowardly.

“Mr. Alvarez, there’s a Cassandra here to see you.” Her voice carried up the line and then came back with a curt, mechanical answer: He said no.

The word hit me like he’d slapped me. It should have been a sign to leave. It wasn’t. A stubborn thread in me tightened. I’d come this far; I wasn’t walking away because a secretary had politely slammed a door in my face.

I slipped into the elevator just as two men in suits stepped out. The doors glided closed with me inside, and the ascent felt like a countdown.

When the doors once again sighed open, I walked into his world: floor-to-ceiling windows, city stretched out like an indifferent audience. He sat behind that sleek black desk, sleeves rolled up, speaking into a headset with a focus that made his face a mask.

For a heartbeat he didn’t notice me. Then his head turned. He saw me.

His expression remained controlled, but the corner of his mouth hinted at something: curiosity? annoyance? amusement? It didn’t matter. The moment was fragile and awful.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. His voice was flat with the practiced cool of a man who rarely has to be human.

“I need to talk to you,” I said, because I had to. The test result was folded in my hand like a confession.

He shrugged. “I told my assistant—”

“I know what you told her,” I cut him off. “But this can’t wait.”

His eyes narrowed. “Make it quick.”

“My name is Cassandra,” I said. “I’m pregnant.”

Silence. Not even the distant hum of the city could break it. Then he laughed — a dry, humorless sound that slammed into me. “You expect me to believe that?”

“It’s true.”

“With my child?” He leaned forward, incredulous. “We met once. We were both drunk. Are you asking for money?”

The assumption hit cold. “I’m not asking for anything,” I said, voice small and steady. “I thought you should know.”

He straightened in his chair, features setting into lines I’d seen in glossy profile pieces: unapproachable, unbreakable. “You realize how this looks. I need proof.”

“You don’t have to believe me.” The words fell out before I could stop them. “There’s a life inside me, Jordan. You’re part of it whether you accept that or not.”

For a moment — a sliver of time — something flickered across his face. Shock? Maybe a hint of guilt. It vanished like sunlight behind a cloud. He ran a hand through his hair, a small, annoyed gesture.

“You should leave,” he said finally. “Now.”

The finality of it cracked something open in me. Tears I’d been holding at bay flooded forward and I left before he could see them. The elevator ride down felt too long, the world outside the building suddenly enormous and indifferent. I walked through the lobby holding the little secret to my ribs as if it were a fragile animal.

When I stepped back onto the street, Pamela was waiting, arms crossed, jaw set. “How did it go?”

“He doesn’t believe me,” I said. The words were simple truth, but they carried the weight of a verdict.

Pamela’s face hardened. “Then we’ll make him.” Her tone had that quiet edge that made me believe she meant it. She didn’t spell out how. She didn’t have to. The plan, whatever form it would take, was already building in the spaces between us.

I pressed my palm to the small curve of my stomach like it was a promise. “It’s okay,” I whispered, to the life that wasn’t yet a name. “I’ll protect you. Even if I have to do it alone.”

Jordan Alvarez might have told me to forget him that morning on a silk note, but forgetting wasn’t an option anymore. Whatever he wanted to deny, whatever he wanted to walk away from, the truth had a heartbeat. And I would make sure he heard it.