Chapter 61 FALSE PREGNANCY
POV: Selena
The phone was already ringing when I woke up, vibrating across the nightstand like it had somewhere urgent to be.
I grabbed it without checking the screen because I already knew. The noise outside had been building for hours. Shouting. Engines. The low thrum of cameras being set up before sunrise.
“Do not look at the news,” Adrian said the second I answered.
Too late.
I sat up and pulled the curtain back an inch. The street below the courthouse hotel was packed. Vans lined the curb. People stood shoulder to shoulder behind metal barriers, cups of coffee in their hands, phones raised like weapons.
“What are they saying now?” I asked.
There was a pause on the other end. That told me everything.
“Selena,” he said carefully, “they are running with the pregnancy angle.”
I laughed once, sharp and humorless. “Angle implies choice. This is fiction.”
“I know,” he said. “But it is everywhere.”
I opened my browser anyway. The headline loaded before the page finished refreshing.
MYSTERY INTERN EXPECTING? SOURCES CLAIM DE LUCA HEIR FORCED INTO SHOTGUN WEDDING
My name was not even in it. Just a role. A rumor with a body attached.
“I am not pregnant,” I said out loud, to the empty room, to the phone in my hand, to the lie spreading faster than the truth ever could.
“I know,” Adrian repeated. “Everyone who matters knows.”
“That is not how this works,” I said. “Everyone who watches believes the loudest voice.”
A knock came at the door. Then another. Then Bella’s voice, tight but controlled.
“Selena. You need to see this.”
I hung up and opened the door. Bella stood there with her tablet already in hand, her jaw set like she was bracing for impact.
“Before you say anything,” I told her, “I am not pregnant.”
“I know,” she said. “But Diana just made it worse.”
She turned the screen toward me.
The statement was short. Polished. Designed to look generous.
I am heartbroken, but I wish Adrian and his baby mama well. I hope they find peace in this difficult time.
I stared at the words until they stopped looking real.
Baby mama.
She had reduced me to a punchline and a trap in one breath.
“She is claiming I stole him,” I said slowly. “And that I trapped him with a fake baby.”
Bella watched my face carefully. “Selena.”
“I am going to end her.”
Bella exhaled. “Okay. That is a strong opening position. Let us talk about how.”
I stepped back into the room and closed the door. The noise outside felt closer now, like it was pressing against the walls.
“They want me to panic,” I said. “They want me defensive.”
“Yes,” Bella agreed. “And they want you silent.”
I picked up my phone again. Messages flooded the screen. Unknown numbers. Old classmates. People I had not spoken to in years suddenly invested in my uterus.
I deleted all of them.
“This is not about me,” I said. “It is about control. If they can make me look reckless, they can dismiss everything I say later.”
Bella nodded. “Which is why we correct the record. Publicly.”
“Not yet,” I said. “Not like this.”
She frowned. “Selena.”
“They are setting a trap,” I continued. “If I deny it now, they will say I am lying. If I ignore it, they will say I am hiding. They want me reacting on their terms.”
“So what do you want to do?” Bella asked.
I looked back at the screen. At Diana’s carefully chosen words. At the false sympathy baked into every sentence.
“I want to make her talk,” I said.
Bella’s eyes sharpened. “In public?”
“Yes.”
There was another knock at the door, heavier this time.
Marcus stepped in without waiting to be invited. “Courthouse is locked down,” he said. “Media everywhere. They are chanting your name now.”
I winced. “They do not even know me.”
“They think they do,” he replied.
Adrian’s voice came through the speaker as he joined the call again. “Selena, listen to me. We can delay.”
“No,” I said immediately.
Silence.
“No,” I repeated. “If we delay, they win the narrative. This ends today.”
Marcus studied me. “You are sure?”
I thought of my mother in a hospital bed. Of Rosa risking her life to expose a man who thought people like us were disposable. Of Diana smiling while she set fire to my reputation.
“I am done being careful,” I said.
Bella nodded slowly. “Then we do this clean.”
“What does clean look like?” I asked.
“Medical proof,” she said. “Simple. Verifiable. No speeches.”
Adrian came back on the line. “I do not want you dragged through this.”
I closed my eyes briefly. “I am already there.”
Another alert buzzed on my phone. Diana again, this time a longer statement, dripping with concern.
“She is enjoying this,” I said. “She thinks I will shrink.”
“She underestimates you,” Adrian said.
“She always has,” I replied.
Marcus checked his watch. “We have thirty minutes before the clerk opens the side entrance. After that, it is chaos.”
“Good,” I said. “Let them watch.”
Bella raised an eyebrow. “You want to walk into that?”
“I want them to see my face,” I said. “Not their version of me.”
The noise outside grew louder. Someone shouted my name. Someone else shouted something uglier.
I took a breath and straightened my shoulders.
“They can call me whatever they want,” I said. “But they do not get to rewrite my body.”
Bella squeezed my arm once. “Okay. Warrior mode.”
Adrian’s voice softened. “I am on my way.”
When he arrived, the room felt steadier. Not calmer, but anchored.
He took my hands. “We face this together.”
“I know,” I said. “But I need you to trust me.”
“I do,” he said without hesitation.
We moved as a unit through the hallway, security forming a tight circle around us. The doors opened and the sound hit like a wall.
Cameras flashed. Voices shouted. Questions flew, overlapping and sharp.
“Is it true you are pregnant?”
“Are you forcing him to marry you?”
“Did you plan this?”
I kept walking.
At the courthouse steps, Diana’s face appeared on a screen across the street. Pre recorded. Perfect lighting. Perfect sadness.
“I never wanted this,” her voice said. “But love is complicated.”
I stopped.
The crowd quieted, sensing something shift.
I turned toward the cameras.
“No,” Adrian said quietly, but he did not pull me back.
I stepped forward.
“My name is Selena Alvarez,” I said. “And I am not pregnant.”
A ripple went through the crowd.
“I am getting married because I choose to,” I continued. “Not because anyone forced me. Not because I owe anyone an explanation.”
I paused, letting the words land.
“And anyone suggesting otherwise is lying.”
The silence broke into chaos again. Shouts. Flashes. Phones raised higher.
I turned back toward the doors, my heart steady in a way that surprised me.
Behind me, Diana’s image flickered, frozen mid smile.
This was not over.
But for the first time, it was on my terms.