Chapter 6 No.6

Alina Phillips POV:

The two bodyguards didn't speak as they escorted me out of the ballroom, through the gilded hallways, and into the cold night air. They deposited me at the front desk of the city hospital's emergency room with the detached efficiency of a package delivery.

"Mr. Jaxon Francis requests she be evaluated," one of them told the tired-looking nurse, then they turned and walked away, leaving me standing alone under the harsh fluorescent lights.

The nurse's eyes traveled over my designer gown, now rumpled and stained with God knows what, and a look of thinly veiled disdain crossed her face. I was just another piece of high-society drama washed up on her shore.

She pointed me toward a row of hard plastic chairs in the hallway, and I sat. The air smelled of antiseptic and human misery. A man in the corner was groaning, and a child was crying somewhere down the hall.

A strange heat was blooming behind my eyes, and my body ached. The champagne from the party, combined with the soul-crushing shock, was brewing into a fever. My head throbbed in time with the relentless beep of a nearby monitor.

My purse vibrated against my hip. I pulled out my phone. The screen was lit up with Jaxon's name. A call. Then another. Then a text. The irony of it was so bitter it made my stomach churn.

I silenced the phone and shoved it back into my purse. I didn't want to hear his voice. I didn't want to read his excuses.

A moment later, it buzzed again. A number I didn't recognize. I hesitated, then answered, my throat too dry to speak.

"Miss Phillips," a crisp, professional voice said. It was Marcus, Jaxon's personal assistant. "Mr. Francis has instructed me to arrange a private suite and a consultation with Dr. Alistair. He's the best."

The best at what? Locking people away?

"No, thank you," I said, my voice a hoarse whisper. "Tell your boss to save his money."

"Miss Phillips, Mr. Francis insists..."

"Tell him," I interrupted, a sliver of ice entering my tone, "to stop pretending he gives a damn."

I hung up before he could reply and blocked the number.

I leaned my head back against the sterile wall and closed my eyes. *Alina, stop making a scene.* His words echoed in the sudden, ringing silence of my mind. It was the same tone, the same dismissive impatience my father used to use on my mother whenever her tears became inconvenient. The historical echo of it, the realization that I had chosen a man exactly like the one who had broken my mother, sent a wave of nausea through me.

The pain in my heart was so sharp, so absolute, that it looped back on itself and became nothing. A void. I waited for the tears, but they wouldn't come. My eyes were dry, burning.

It was a terrifying discovery. When you drain all the love out of a heart, all that's left is a barren, silent wasteland. And in that wasteland, for the first time, my thoughts became terrifyingly clear.

I couldn't live like this anymore. I wouldn't.

"Alina Phillips?"

A nurse with kind eyes was calling my name. I followed her like an automaton into a small examination room. She took my blood, my temperature, my blood pressure. I complied with every request, my body a machine disconnected from my mind.

Finally, a middle-aged doctor with a serious face and wire-rimmed glasses came in, holding a chart. He looked from the paper to me, his expression unreadable.

"Miss Phillips," he began, his voice gentle. "Your fever is quite high, and we'll need to admit you to manage that. But there's something else we found in your bloodwork. Something more important."

I looked at him, my mind a dull, flat line. A brain tumor? Some rare, fatal disease? A part of me, the part that was already dead, thought it might be a relief.

The doctor sat down on the stool across from me. He took off his glasses and polished them on his coat.

"According to your blood and urine tests..." he started, pausing as if to soften the blow.

My heart, which I thought had stopped feeling anything, gave a strange, painful lurch.

He met my eyes, his gaze steady and direct. He spoke each word slowly, clearly, as if to make sure they penetrated the fog of my shock.

"Miss Phillips, you're pregnant. About six weeks."