THE CEO’S UNPLANNED HEIR

CHAPTER THREE

ISABELLA

My head had been pounding since morning, the kind of dull weight that wouldn’t lift no matter how much water I drank. Then I was on my knees in front of the toilet, sick before I even understood why.

That’s when I bought the first test.

The pregnancy test blurred in my hand, that second pink line refusing to fade no matter how hard I blinked it away.

Four. I’d taken four, lined up on the edge of the sink, all saying the same thing.

Shit. What have I done?

****

I barely slept at night.

Something in me wanted to call Thelma, my best friend, and tell her everything. But she was drowning in her own mess right now — postpartum recovery, sleepless nights, a newborn who didn’t believe in schedules. She didn’t even know yet that Jeff and I were over. I couldn’t hand her this on top of that. It would have to wait.

By morning, the four pregnancy tests were still lined up on the bathroom counter, waiting for me to admit what I already knew.

I couldn’t.

Not yet.

I shoved them into a plastic bag, buried it at the bottom of my handbag, and got dressed. I needed to see my mother. Maybe being near her would make everything else disappear for a while.

It didn’t.

The hospital smell hit me the second I walked in — disinfectant sharp enough to sting, nurses moving fast down the corridor, a machine somewhere beeping steady and patient. Work. Hospital. Home. That had been the whole shape of my life for a year now, and today it barely held me together.

I pushed the pregnancy out of my mind and walked toward my mother’s room. For now, there was only her. Her and the fourty thousand dollars I still had no idea how to find.

I saw her through the glass before I opened the door — awake, watching Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, the one show she never missed, always insisting she’d have made a better Housewife than half the cast. The moment she spotted me, she muted the TV and pulled a tired smile onto her face. It didn’t quite reach her eyes. Guilt lived there instead.

I pulled the chair close and sat.

“How are you feeling, Mother?”

“A little tired. Nothing I can’t handle.” She reached for her water cup, hand trembling slightly around it. “Did something happen, Isabella? You look worried.”

“No, Mother. Just tired from work. My shithead boss keeps piling it on.”

“You work too hard. I hate that my illness has taken so much from you.”

“Don’t say that.”

“You should be living your life. You’re twenty-five, Isabella. You should be worrying about love, school, stupid things — not whether your mother can afford another week of treatment.”

My fingers tightened around the strap of my bag. I couldn’t tell her about Jeff. Not now. It would break something in her that was already cracked enough.

“Let’s just focus on getting you better,” I said, brushing my thumb against her cheek.

“Has Jacob visited?”

The question landed like a slap.

“No, Mother.” I turned toward the tray of fruit so she wouldn’t see my face.

“He isn’t someone worth beating yourself up over. You already carry enough.” I looked at her — the sadness in her eyes that came from years of loving a man who never once loved her back the same way.

“You already know how Jacob is. He only shows up to ask for money, usually for his mistress and her kids, or because someone’s chasing him for a debt. Either way, we don’t need that right now.”

“Jacob is poison, Mother. We can’t afford him.”

She didn’t answer. She just looked down at her hands, and somehow that silence hurt worse than an argument would have.

“I have to go. I’ll be back tonight to sort out the dialysis payment.” I lied.

I kissed her forehead and left before she could see my face crumble.

—

Outside, the cold cut straight through my coat. My phone buzzed before I’d made it to the corner.

Of course. Who else.

Maxwell: Review pages 62 to 74. Summarize the key points and send them back before 7 tonight.

It was Saturday. Who assigned homework on a Saturday? But I didn’t dare ignore it — not after two years of impossible deadlines and a boss who seemed to think sleep was a privilege his employees hadn’t earned yet.

By the time I turned onto my street, the evening breeze was tugging at my hair. Everyone had problems, I knew that. But not everyone spent their life split between hospital bills, a dying mother, and the fallout from one very bad decision in an emergency stairwell.

I pulled out my phone and scrolled i********:, half looking for a distraction. An old schoolmate’s photo stopped my thumb cold — Kath, in a flowing dress, hands cradling a bump. A maternity shoot.

Fuck.

My heart lurched. When was the last time I’d even had my period? October? September, maybe — I’d never been the type to track it closely. Some years I got it eight or nine times, if that. I couldn’t be pregnant. I couldn’t have been ovulating that night, of all nights.

No. Those tests from this morning had to be expired. Faulty. Something.

I needed to know for sure.

A bodega came into view up ahead, and I was inside before I’d fully decided to go in, walking straight for the pharmacy aisle. I picked up one test. Then another. Then three more, because if I was going to prove those first four wrong, I was going to do it properly.

Maybe I was being paranoid. I’d read somewhere that strips weren’t always reliable.

I paid and walked the rest of the way home with the little pharmacy bag clutched tight in my fist. I found myself praying that four positive tests had somehow all been wrong.

My apartment was dark and cold. I barely spent time here anymore — the space felt like it belonged to someone else now. A version of me who hadn’t slept with her boss and blown her whole life apart in one stairwell.

I’d watched the YouTube videos twice over, memorizing every step so I wouldn’t mess this up.

The bathroom light flickered before it steadied. I tore open the first test with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking.

Pee on the stick. One line, not pregnant. Two lines — Two lines.

The strip weighed almost nothing in my palm. How could something this small hold this much?

I set it on the counter, grabbed my phone, and started a three-minute timer.

Then I sat on the floor by the door, staring at anything but the strip, like not looking could still change the outcome.

The timer went off. Two pink lines. Clear as day.

I let out a laugh that had no humor in it. “Thank God I bought more.”

I ran through the rest, one after another, lining them up on the counter like they were evidence at a crime scene.

Two lines. Two lines. Two lines. Two lines.

He used a condom. I know he did — I remember it, remember him being careful in a way Jeff never once bothered to be.

And Jeff — God, Jeff and I hadn’t touched each other like that in three months. Not once, not since before everything between us started falling apart.

Which left one name. One night. One stairwell.

Fuck. I was pregnant. Pregnant with Maxwell Blackwood’s baby.

Shit.