Chapter 2 - The Lie That Broke Them
Miranda entered the room without permission.
Her heels clicked sharply against the floor.
She looked like she had stepped out of a private recovery suite, not into the room of a woman who had just given birth.
“Sebastian,” she said, her voice low, “why are you here?”
He did not look at her.
His eyes remained fixed on Daniel.
The baby’s tiny hand had slipped free of the blanket.
Sebastian watched Rowan gently tuck it back inside.
The gesture was so natural that it hurt.
“Is this your child?” Miranda asked.
Rowan laughed once.
A short, bitter sound.
“He does have a mother.”
Miranda’s face tightened.
“I was asking Sebastian.”
“You should ask his father,” Rowan replied.
Sebastian finally spoke.
“Miranda, leave.”
Her eyes widened.
“What?”
“Please.”
“You disappeared from my recovery floor,” she said. “My parents are waiting. Your father is furious. And now you are standing in a maternity room with your ex-girlfriend and a baby?”
Rowan’s expression hardened.
“Ex-girlfriend?”
Sebastian felt the old shame move through him.
Rowan had not been his girlfriend.
She had been the woman he planned to marry before his father intervened.
Before lies had become stronger than trust.
Before Sebastian allowed fear to make every decision for him.
“We were engaged,” he said quietly.
Miranda stared at him.
“No, you were not.”
“We were.”
“Your father told us she betrayed you.”
Rowan’s lips parted slightly.
Then she looked at Sebastian.
“He told you that too?”
Sebastian felt sick.
“My father showed me photographs.”
“Of what?”
“You meeting someone at a clinic. You meeting a lawyer.”
Rowan’s eyes filled with tears.
“The man at the clinic was my brother. He drove me because I was bleeding.”
Sebastian went still.
“And the lawyer?”
“My mother’s estate attorney.”
“Why?”
“Because she died, Sebastian.”
His chest tightened.
Rowan’s mother had died six months earlier.
He knew that.
He had sent flowers.
He had not attended the funeral.
At the time, he had believed Rowan was pregnant with another man’s child and using grief to manipulate him.
The cruelty of that thought now became unbearable.
Rowan looked down at Daniel.
“I went to the clinic because I thought I was losing the baby. I went to the lawyer because my mother left me money, and I needed to protect it before your father could use it against me.”
“My father said you planned to leave the country.”
“I planned to leave you,” Rowan said. “Because you looked at me like I was disgusting.”
The room became silent.
Miranda looked uncertain now.
Not sympathetic.
But disturbed.
Sebastian remembered that night.
Rowan standing in their apartment, one hand pressed against her stomach.
He had thrown the photographs on the table.
He had accused her of lying.
She had begged him to listen.
Then he had said the words that ended everything.
“If the baby is not mine, I want nothing to do with either of you.”
Rowan had gone white.
“You never asked whether he was yours,” she said now.
Sebastian’s voice cracked.
“I thought—”
“You thought whatever your father told you to think.”
The door opened.
A nurse stepped in, carrying a chart.
She saw the tension immediately.
“Ma’am, is everything okay?”
Rowan nodded.
“Yes. I would like these people to leave.”
Sebastian looked at her.
“Rowan, please. Let me take a paternity test.”
She held his gaze.
“Why?”
“Because I need to know.”
“No,” she said. “You need to know because he looks like you. If he looked like me, you would still be upstairs planning a wedding.”
That was true.
Sebastian had no defense.
Then Rowan looked at Daniel.
Her voice lowered.
“But he deserves the truth.”
She looked back at Sebastian.
“You can take the test.”
Before he could answer, Miranda turned and walked out.
She did not slam the door.
May you like
She simply left.
And Sebastian knew that whatever future his father had designed for him was beginning to collapse.
