Only After I Lost Her

Chapter 9 The Investigation

After dropping Kelsey off at her apartment, Xavier sat in his car for a long moment before making a decision. He pulled out his phone and called his assistant, Keith Zane, with a simple instruction. He wanted Nina's complete medical records, and he wanted them now.

Less than an hour after sending Kelsey home, Keith arrived at Xavier's office with a thick stack of documents in hand.

Keith laid the stack before Xavier, who frowned in confusion at the sheer size of it. "Ms. Nelson went for a prenatal checkup at the hospital this morning," Keith explained quietly. "She is one month pregnant based on the dating. Barring any unlikely circumstances, the child is almost certainly yours."

Xavier's expression shifted, but Keith continued before he could speak.

"The rest of these documents are her medical records from the past year. She has advanced stage stomach cancer, and there are also files regarding her son's leukemia diagnosis and treatment history."

Keith paused, letting the information sink in. "At this late stage of her illness, choosing to proceed with pregnancy instead of pursuing aggressive treatment suggests a specific purpose. She must be planning to use the umbilical cord blood from this baby to save her son."

With each page Xavier turned, his face grew stormier and darker.

After a measured pause, Keith added quietly, "The oncologists note that if she continues the pregnancy without any cancer treatment, her prognosis is extremely poor. She might not have much time left once the baby is delivered."

Xavier flipped the last page of the file, then violently swept everything off his desk in a single furious motion. Papers scattered across the floor like fallen leaves. "Nina, you have got some nerve," he snarled. "Throwing your life away for that brat. You are really going all out for Ansel Chase, are you not?"

Keith eyed the wreckage littering the floor but bit his tongue. A suspicion had nagged at him for a while now, something about the timing and the circumstances, but without proof, he chose to stay silent.

"What did the Chase family promise her for this level of devotion?" Xavier roared, his voice echoing off the office walls. "First she sneaks overseas to protect that kid for years, and then she comes back here to get pregnant with my child just to save him?"

The more he thought about it, the hotter his rage burned inside his chest. 'She would rather die than let Ansel's bloodline end?' He wanted to wring that brat's neck himself for making her do this. "Find Nina immediately and drag her to a clinic. That pregnancy is getting terminated today."

Using his child to save Ansel's son? Not a chance in hell would he allow that to happen.

Meanwhile, across town, Nina had just finished booking her flight and was shoving clothes into her suitcase as fast as her shaking hands would allow. Xavier's strange behavior at the hospital had set her on edge. 'Had he figured out the truth already?'

In Boreton, he had enough power and connections to uncover her pregnancy in a heartbeat if he decided to look.

Her thoughts tangled together like knotted thread as she zipped the suitcase shut and bolted for the door. She kept glancing at the clock, her stomach tied in knots with every passing minute.

When her phone rang, displaying an international number, she nearly dropped it in her panic.

"Mom, when are you coming back?" her son's small voice chirped the moment she answered the video call. "Did you find Dad yet?"

Seeing her frail son Seth on the screen, his little face pale from months of treatment, Nina's eyes welled up with tears she could not hold back.

"Honey, I am coming home very soon," she said, her voice trembling despite her best efforts to steady it. "I found Daddy, and he misses you so much. As soon as you are feeling better, he will come see you."

She knew this lie would hurt him more when the truth eventually came out, but she could not bear to see disappointment cloud his little face right now.

Seth's face lit up with a small, hopeful grin. "When I get better, I want to play basketball with Daddy," he said excitedly. "He can teach me all the moves."

'Father and son were so alike in that moment, so similar in their expressions and their dreams, that the thought made her tears flow faster.' She hurriedly said goodbye and ended the call before he could see her fall apart.

The boarding announcement blared from the airport speakers around her, and relief washed through her like a wave. Once she left Boreton behind for good, she could have this baby and use it to cure Seth's illness.

She would sacrifice anything to keep Seth alive. Boreton, Xavier, none of it mattered anymore compared to that single goal.

She dragged her suitcase toward the gate, and the thought of boarding that plane gave her the first real hope she had felt in months. Soon she would be free of all this chaos and pain.

Her time with Xavier over the past week? Nothing but a bad dream she could finally wake up from.

Now it was time to leave it all behind.