Pregnant with My Uncle's Baby

The year we hit rock bottom after I eloped with my uncle, Ethan Hayes, fate dropped a bombshell—I was pregnant. Remembering how he'd always dreamed of having a child, I raced to him, my heart pounding with hope. But instead of sharing my joy, I stumbled upon him cozying up to relatives he'd supposedly disowned. "Ethan, enough playing house. Don't wreck your future over some random niece," one taunted. Ethan arched a brow, looking amused. "Do I look that stupid to you?" The room erupted into knowing chuckles. "We get it. Now that Vivian's back, of course you're done slumming it." "Just pay the girl off," another cut in, faux sympathy oozing like syrup, "before she gets knocked up and things get messy." Ethan shrugged, his smirk razor-sharp. "If she's pregnant, she'll deal with it. What's the fuss? She's just a kid." Their hyena-like cackles followed me as I fled, my heart a block of ice. Gritting my teeth, I hailed a cab straight to the clinic. Young? Sure. But I could play dirty too. After scheduling the procedure, I stepped outside, only to freeze. There he was, his arm draped around a woman in the waiting room. My blood turned to ice. It was Vivian Carter, the ghost from his past. He hung on the doctor's every word, his gaze tender in a way I'd never earned. Yesterday, when I'd begged him to take me to the hospital, he'd just ruffled my hair. "Kids and their tummy aches. You'll live." He wasn't too busy. He was just too good for me. I shadowed them outside, a hollow shell, until a Rolls-Royce swallowed them whole. My hands, chapped and skeletal, clenched into fists. It had been a year since we'd burned our bridges. Ethan was Dad's much younger cousin by marriage. Every summer, he'd invade our home, six years my senior but never treating me like a nuisance. He drilled equations into my head and dragged me to icy rinks. He was always patient, always there. By the time I realized I loved him, he'd already given his heart away. I waited anyway through three stubborn years of stolen glances. Then, just as I gave up, Vivian shattered him. He drowned himself in whiskey and reckless speed, finally waking up in a hospital bed after my month of sleepless vigils. His first words were, "Nora, let's give this a shot." Home erupted. The obedient daughter they knew vanished as I defied them all, chasing him into the storm. Dad made sure no legitimate company would touch us. So we survived on scraps, scrubbing dishes and hawking flyers, my fingers raw from factory lines. I didn't complain. Little did I know, every calloused hand was a lie waiting to c***k. The grand twist was that I'd bet everything on a lie. I wasn't afraid of hardship. I did it all, but in the end, it was all just a cruel joke. At home, I curled into the couch and waited. The clock struck 1 a.m. before Ethan finally walked in. The instant his eyes landed on me, that lingering smirk vanished like smoke. "Why are you still awake?" he crooned, his voice dripping with false tenderness. "You shouldn't have waited." Even as he spoke, his fingers crept up my thigh and his lips claimed mine with mechanical precision. But just as I braced to push him away, his phone shattered the moment. A sidelong glance at the screen froze my blood. A glowing word: Babe. So every time our bodies joined in passion, every time I'd clung to him, weeping with devotion, the name he gasped wasn't mine. The cruel irony was that he'd been coldly distant not from restraint, but because his heart belonged to another. A thousand needle-sharp pains stabbed through my chest, unrelenting. When he returned from the call, his steps faltered at my deathly pale face. I dodged his touch, each word dripping with frost. "Who. Was. That?" All pretense of concern melted from his face. He stepped back, his eyes hardening into glacial ice.