Chapter 1
Elizabeth's POV
"Mr. Smith, Ms. Spencer is three weeks pregnant. If we proceed with the bone marrow transplant now, the fetus will not survive."
"Get rid of it." Aiden Smith's voice, cold and sharp, sliced through the closed door. "As long as it saves Bianca, I don't care if it's just a fetus. If it came down to Elizabeth Spencer's life, she'd have to give that up, too."
Outside the consultation room, my fingers tightened around the freshly printed ultrasound report, my knuckles turning white.
I knew that voice all too well. It belonged to Aiden, the man I had been with for five years, my fiancé.
I glanced down at my still-flat stomach. To have this child, I had endured countless rounds of IVF. I had believed, with a foolish naivety, that Aiden was just as eager for this baby's arrival as I was.
But now, here he was, calmly discussing how to terminate my pregnancy, planning for me to donate my bone marrow to save his so-called one true love.
It wasn't a complete shock. For Bianca Johnson, Aiden would drop everything, abandoning me in the middle of the night without a second thought to rush to her side.
I used to tell myself it was fine, that a man having an unforgettable ex didn't matter as long as he didn't cross any lines. But now…
A chill snaked its way up my spine. I bit down hard on my lower lip, the coppery taste of blood flooding my mouth, just to keep myself from storming in there and demanding an explanation.
But what was there to demand? An explanation for his cruelty? An answer to what our five years together had meant to him? It was pointless. The Aiden I heard now filled me with a visceral disgust.
Taking a deep breath, I forced down the wave of nausea roiling in my stomach and turned to leave. I had just sent Aiden a quick message on Messenger, telling him I was heading home, when a low, urgent voice called out from behind me.
"Ms. Spencer!"
My entire body went rigid. It was the doctor. I didn't want to turn back; instead, my pace quickened.
"Ms. Spencer, please, wait!"
A hand shot out, blocking my path.
Finn Williams, the physician who had performed my examination, stood before me, beads of sweat dotting his forehead. He cast a nervous glance at the closed door of the consultation room before lowering his voice. "Ms. Spencer, can we speak in private? It's about your baby."
The word 'baby' made me instinctively shield my abdomen. "If Aiden sent you to convince me to have an abortion, you can turn right back around. I, Elizabeth, would rather die than ever harm my child."
"No, that's not it!" He insisted. He scanned the hallway, ensuring no one was paying them any mind, before pulling me into the relative privacy of the stairwell. Finn wiped the sweat from his brow, his voice trembling. "With Mr. Smith in there, I couldn't tell the truth. The fact is there was a mix-up with your IVF sample."
I froze, my mind going completely blank. "What are you talking about?"
"When you underwent the procedure, our hospital was in the middle of a system upgrade. A nurse mixed up the sample IDs," Finn confessed, swallowing hard. "The child you're carrying… it's not Mr. Smith's."
If Aiden's words had been a knife to the heart, Finn's were a lightning bolt that shattered my world. My eyes widened in disbelief, and I forgot to breathe. "Not Aiden's? Then whose is it?"
Finn's face was ashen, his lips trembling as he uttered a name. "It's… it's Alexander's. Mr. Windsor's."
Alexander Windsor. The name seemed to freeze the very air in the stairwell.
In the elite circles of Silverlight City, there wasn't a soul who hadn't heard of him.
The man at the helm of the Windsor Group—decisive, cold, a figure of immense power and respect who stood at the apex of the city's social pyramid.
Rumor had it that he'd been in a severe car accident five years ago, and the Windsor family, desperate to preserve their bloodline, had secretly had his sperm samples cryogenically frozen.
Alexander made a miraculous recovery, but the samples had remained sealed away. Who could have imagined that, through a bizarre medical error, I would end up pregnant with a child belonging to this legendary man?
"Ms. Spencer, if Mr. Smith finds out about this, our hospital is finished! And if the Windsors discover it, I'll lose my life!" Finn's voice cracked, on the verge of tears, as if he might drop to his knees. "I'm begging you, this child… perhaps you could…"
He didn't have to finish. I knew what he was asking. He wanted me to terminate the pregnancy.
For a moment, my thoughts were a chaotic whirl. Was fate playing some cruel joke on me? I looked down at the ultrasound report in my hand. This was my child. Aiden was unworthy of being his father. And Alexander… the man who commanded the awe of the entire city.
A wild, audacious idea began to form in my mind.
Aiden was willing to sacrifice everything for Bianca, wasn't he? He was convinced that I, Elizabeth Spencer, was weak and helpless, incapable of surviving without the Smith family's charity.
But what if I had this child? The baby's very existence would give me leverage with the Windsor family. This was Alexander's first child, after all. With the influence of the Windsors, I could do more than just protect my own well-being; I could make Aiden and Bianca pay for what they had done.
I reached up, gently smoothing the creases on the report, my gaze hardening with resolve.
"Dr. Williams," I said, my voice surprisingly calm as I met his eyes. "I will keep this medical accident a secret. I won't breathe a word of it to anyone. But you must remember, regarding the identity of the child's father…"
I stared directly into his eyes, enunciating each word with chilling clarity. "This stays between you and me. I don't want a third person to know. You, of all people, should understand how Alexander Windsor operates."
Finn flinched, nodding vigorously. "Yes! I understand! I'll keep it an absolute secret!"
Leaving the hospital, I hailed a cab back to the Smith family villa.
In the five years since the Spencer family's downfall and my parents' death, I had forgotten what it felt like to fight back. But now, for my child, I was ready to fight for myself.
The moment I stepped through the grand entrance of the Smith residence, a sharp, imperious voice cut through the air. "So, you decided to come back."
On the sofa, a woman in a silk dress set down her soup bowl without so much as glancing up at me. "You were gone first thing this morning, off gallivanting who knows where. We Smiths have the worst luck, getting stuck with a troublemaker like you."
The speaker was Aiden's mother, my future mother-in-law, Cleo Brown.
Ever since Aiden's father passed away, she had made her disdain for me clear, even decreeing that I couldn't officially marry into the family until I produced an heir. In the past, for Aiden's sake, I would have swallowed my pride and offered a meek apology.
But not anymore.
I slipped off my shoes and walked directly into the living room, not even bothering to give her a second look.
My blatant disregard clearly infuriated her. She slammed the bowl down on the coffee table with a loud crack.
"Elizabeth! Are you deaf? I'm speaking to you!" She shrieked, rising to her feet and pointing a finger at my face.
"Don't think you can do whatever you want just because Aiden spoils you! Take a look at yourself! All these years, and you can't even have a child. What's the point of you taking up space here? If it weren't for Aiden's kind heart, you would have been thrown out long ago!"
"Can't have a child?" I stopped and turned, my gaze locking onto hers with an icy calm.
The irony was staggering.
Just hours ago, her precious son was in a hospital, plotting how to get rid of my child.
And here she was, berating me for my supposed infertility. If she knew that I was carrying the heir to the most powerful family in Silverlight City, I wondered if the smug expression on her face would instantly crumble.
"Mother, you shouldn't say things like that," I said, a smile touching my lips but not reaching my eyes.
"Whether or not I can have a child isn't something I can decide on my own. Why don't you ask your darling son where the problem really lies—with him, or with me?"
"You shameless woman!"