Chapter 5

Elia POV:

Christian released my wrist, as if waking from a trance, but his arm remained protectively around Gidget. Her head was still buried in his shoulder, her body trembling with fabricated sobs. He looked at me, his eyes pleading, yet unwavering in his defense of her.

"Elia, please, calm down," he said, his voice strained. "It was... an accident. That night, when she was drugged. It happened." He looked away for a moment, then back at me, his gaze heavy with what I now recognize as guilt. "She's pregnant with my child."

He rushed on, as if trying to outrun the truth. "The doctors said she has a very rare condition. If she doesn't carry this baby to term, she might never be able to conceive again. She was scared, Elia. She came to me because she had nowhere else to go. I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to worry, to overthink things."

Gidget lifted her head, her face tear-streaked, but her eyes, I noticed, were dry. She began her practiced performance. "My parents... they want me to get rid of it," she whimpered, her voice cracking. "Elia, please, just let me stay here. Just until the baby is born. I won't bother you, I promise. I just want my baby."

My head throbbed, a dull, insistent ache. A sharp, almost violent rage ignited within me. "You're lying, Gidget!" I snapped, my voice shaking. "You told me you couldn't get pregnant! You said that years ago after that car accident! You said your doctor told you it was impossible!"

"Go to a hospital, Gidget! Get a second opinion!" I challenged, my voice rising. "Let's see if your 'rare condition' is just another one of your convenient lies!"

Gidget' s eyes welled up again, perfectly timed. "Elia, why are you always so extreme? Why do you always think I'm trying to ruin your life? I just want a child!"

Christian's face, which had been a canvas of conflicted emotions, hardened. His jaw clenched, his eyes turning cold. "You shouldn't talk to her like that, Elia." His voice was low, dangerous. "She's already been through so much. I... I owe her. I'm sorry for what I did to her."

He looked at me with an expression I had never seen before-disappointment, disapproval. "You're being unreasonable, Elia. You're being cold-hearted."

His words hit me like a physical blow. The Christian from my past, the one who had always protected me, who had always seen through Gidget's lies, fractured and reformed into this stranger. His youthful face, once filled with such warmth and tenderness, now stared at me with an icy indifference that chilled me to the bone.