The Alpha's Accidental Heir

Chapter Four

Clara POV

The ten days crawl by so slowly I start to wonder if time itself is punishing me.

I fill the hours the only way I know how: sending out job applications. I apply to receptionist positions, veterinary offices, anywhere that might take me despite the rumors Jason has clearly kept spreading. Most don't respond at all. The ones that do send polite, empty rejections that all somehow manage to sound the same.

"We've decided to move forward with another candidate."

I've read that sentence so many times it's stopped meaning anything.

I don't let myself sink into it, though. Every time the rejection emails pile up, I remind myself why I'm doing this. Somewhere out there, a tiny life might already be starting, might already be depending on me to keep believing in a good future even when the present looks like nothing but closed doors.

I spend my evenings imagining who this baby might become. I picture a little boy with dark hair like the donor's profile picture, running through a park somewhere, laughing the way I imagine his father laughed on his hiking trips. Or maybe a little girl with my green eyes, stubborn and clever, exactly the kind of child I always dreamed of raising.

It's foolish, maybe, to build an entire imaginary person out of a folder and a hopeful heart, but it's the only thing keeping me steady through the silence of unanswered job applications and the ache of an apartment that still smells faintly like Jason's cologne no matter how many candles I burn.

Nora checks in on me most days, short texts asking how I'm holding up, promising the ten days will be over before I know it. I appreciate the effort even when her responses feel a little distracted, a little slower than usual. I tell myself she's busy. The clinic sounded overwhelmed the day I visited, and I know she's still juggling her residency on top of everything else.

On day eight, I finally get a callback for an interview at a small veterinary clinic across town. It isn't much, but it's something, a reason to put on real clothes and remember what it feels like to want something other than silence and grief.

The interview goes well. Dr. Alvarez, an older woman with kind eyes and a gruff, no-nonsense manner, seems to genuinely like me, asking about my experience and nodding along thoughtfully at my answers.

"We'll be in touch by the end of the week," she tells me at the door, and for the first time in weeks, I let myself feel something close to optimism.

I walk home with my head held slightly higher, allowing myself, just for one evening, to believe that maybe everything is finally starting to turn around. A new job on the horizon. A possible pregnancy waiting to be confirmed. A fresh start built entirely on my own terms, free of Jason's shadow.

That optimism carries me through days nine and ten, right up until the morning I wake up and realize today is finally the day. My hands shake as I dig through the bathroom cabinet for the pregnancy test Nora gave me before I left the clinic, tucked away in its box like a tiny, fragile promise.

I sit on the edge of the tub for a long moment before I work up the courage to actually use it, my heart hammering so hard I can feel it in my throat. When I finally do, I set the test on the counter and force myself to wait the full three minutes without looking, pacing my small bathroom in slow, anxious circles.

My phone buzzes on the counter, and I glance at it automatically, expecting maybe a good morning text from Nora, some reminder to breathe, some joke to calm my nerves.

Instead, it's an incoming call. Nora's name lights up the screen, and something about the timing makes my stomach twist with unease.

I answer before the second ring finishes. "Hey, I was just about to check the test"

"Clara." Her voice comes out strange, tight, nothing like her usual warmth. "Clara, I need you to stay calm, okay? I need you to just listen to me for a second."

The bathroom suddenly feels too small, the air too thin. "Nora, you're scaring me. What's wrong?"

"There was a mix-up," she says, and I can hear her voice cracking slightly around the edges. "During your procedure. With the samples. Things got confused during a shift change, and I" She stops, takes a breath, tries again. "Clara, I don't think the sample we used was donor 4471's."

My mind goes strangely blank, refusing to process the words in any order that makes sense. "What do you mean it wasn't his? Whose was it?"

There's a long, painful silence on the line before Nora finally answers, her voice barely above a whisper. "I don't know exactly. But I know it came from a private client's sealed personal donation. Someone very important. Someone very powerful."

"Nora, you're not making sense." My hand drifts unconsciously to my stomach, protective and afraid all at once. "Whose baby am I carrying?"

Before she can answer, I hear a commotion on her end of the line, muffled voices, a door slamming somewhere in the background. "Nora?"

"I have to go," she says quickly, panic bleeding into every word. "Clara, listen to me. Don't talk to anyone about this yet. I need to figure out exactly what happened before"

The line goes dead.

I stand frozen in my small bathroom, phone still pressed to my ear, the pregnancy test sitting forgotten on the counter beside me. Whatever answer waits on that little stick suddenly feels like the smallest problem I have.

My reflection stares back at me from the mirror above the sink, pale and wide-eyed, a woman who woke up this morning expecting nothing more complicated than good or bad news about a baby she'd planned for carefully. Now even that plan feels like it belongs to someone else's life. I set my phone down on the edge of the tub and force myself to breathe, slow and deliberate, the way Nora taught me to do years ago whenever panic threatened to swallow me whole.

I don't know who this powerful person is. I don't know what a sealed private donation even means, or why it matters so much that Nora's voice cracked with fear just describing it. All I know is that somewhere between choosing a folder profile and waiting out ten anxious days, my simple plan for a simple life has already slipped out of my hands.