Chapter 2

The alarm went off at six-thirty, its shrill ringing cutting through the heavy silence of the master bedroom. Luna turned it off almost immediately; she had been awake for a long time already.

Her lower abdomen still felt faintly sore, a phantom ache left over from countless injections and procedures. She lay there for a few seconds, staring at the ceiling, replaying the location pin she’d seen on Ethan’s phone the night before.

Obstetrics and Gynecology.

She swallowed, sat up, and smoothed the comforter automatically, fingers trembling only once.

“Ethan,” she called softly, “are you up?”

He emerged from the bathroom, tie hanging loose around his neck, phone already in his hand. “Mm. I’ve got an early meeting. Why are you up?”

Luna forced a small, pale smile. “My stomach doesn’t feel very good. Maybe the food last night… I was thinking of going to the hospital to do a check-up.”

He paused, one hand on his cufflink. “Hospital?”

“At St. Andrew’s,” she added, casually as she could. “Since that’s where we always… go.” The word for their fertility treatments lodged in her throat.

Ethan’s brows knit for a brief moment, then smoothed. “I’ll ask Leon to send you. I really can’t today, there’s a board meeting and a project review.”

“You don’t need to accompany me,” Luna said quickly. “I just…” She hesitated, and for the first time in a long while, she let a sliver of grievance leak through. “I thought maybe if you had some free time between meetings, you could drop by?”

He glanced at his watch. “Luna, you know what the first quarter is like. Don’t think too much. It’s probably just a mild gastritis. Have the doctor look at it and text me the results.”

Her fingers twisted the hem of her pajamas. “Is it at the hospital again? Your ‘work’?”

He looked up sharply, then exhaled, misinterpreting. “The cooperation with St. Andrew’s hasn’t been finalized yet. Yes, I need to be in touch with them. That’s all.”

That’s all.

The words slid over the image in her head: the location icon, the exact floor.

She lowered her eyes. “Alright. I’ll have Leon take me.”

He came over and patted her shoulder, the touch light, perfunctory. “Good girl. Don’t scare yourself. You’re too sensitive these days.”

Sensitive.

If you were infertile, you would be sensitive too, she thought, but the sentence never left her lips.

By the time Ethan left, the house had fully awakened. The maid brought her congee she barely touched. At eight, Leon drove the black Bentley out of the Bennett villa district, heading straight for St. Andrew’s Hospital.

Traffic blurred past outside the window. Luna watched the city that the Bennett Group practically threaded together—office towers they owned, shopping malls they invested in, land plots tied to their name. A family like theirs didn’t just have money; they had roots and rules.

Rules about heirs.

She pressed her lips together and forced herself to breathe evenly.

“Madam, your face is a little pale,” Leon said from the front, catching her reflection in the mirror.

“I didn’t sleep well,” she replied. “It’s nothing.”

Leon hesitated, then his phone vibrated on the console. “Excuse me, I have to take this.”

He put it on speaker, perhaps forgetting she was there. “Hello, Young Master?”

Luna’s spine straightened without her willing it.

Ethan’s voice came through, filtered by the car’s speakers, calm and clipped. “Where are you now?”

“Just turned onto Central Avenue, sir. Sending Madam to St. Andrew’s.”

A short pause. “Alright. I’ve just left the OB-GYN floor. Traffic around the hospital is bad, take the side entrance. I’ll be back at the office in twenty minutes. Don’t be late for the board meeting documents.”

OB-GYN floor.

The words rang like metal in Luna’s ears.

“Yes, sir,” Leon replied.

The call ended. The interior of the car seemed to shrink.

Luna forced her voice to be steady. “Leon, Ethan was… at the obstetrics and gynecology department?”

Leon stiffened, realizing what he’d said. “Madam, I… Young Master was just here to talk about, uh, the hospital cooperation project. Each floor…”

“Is he handling it personally now?” she asked, almost lightly. “Even the OB-GYN floor?”

Leon swallowed, eyes darting in the mirror. “He… he cares about the strategic partnership. The hospital’s maternity services are very famous among the upper circles. Many families… choose it for childbirth.”

Upper circles. Childbirth.

The word dug into her like a needle.

She gave a gentle smile that felt nailed to her face. “I understand. I was just curious.”

Leon, visibly relieved, fell silent.

St. Andrew’s Hospital rose like a glass-and-steel cathedral for the city’s elite—private entrances, VIP elevators, entire floors reserved for those whose surnames could move markets.

Luna stepped out of the car, wrapping her scarf tighter around her. The lobby was bright, the air lightly scented, nothing like the crowded public hospitals she had grown up with.

“Madam, do you need me to accompany you upstairs?” Leon asked.

“No, go park the car. I’ll register myself.” She forced a casual tone. “It’s just a routine check-up.”

As Leon left, she walked to the registration desk, took a number mechanically, then glanced at the signage. Internal Medicine one way. Obstetrics and Gynecology the other.

Her feet moved before her mind decided.

She told herself she would just… look. Just to convince herself how ridiculous these thoughts were.

The OB-GYN floor corridor was quieter, carpeted, the lighting softer. Framed photos of newborns lined the walls, each one a flushed, wrinkled promise of continuation, some recognizable surnames printed in discreet gold letters underneath.

Bennett had a plaque here too, she knew. The family had donated an entire baby-care wing.

From the end of the corridor came the murmur of voices, the squeak of shoes, the rustle of medical gowns. Luna slowed her pace, fingers brushing the wall to steady herself.

Then she saw them.

Ethan and Chloe stepped out of an examination room together.

Chloe wore a soft beige coat over a hospital gown, her hair loosely tied back, face slightly pale in a way that made her features seem more delicate. In her hand was a folded ultrasound report, the faint black-and-white image visible from where Luna stood.

Luna’s breath hitched, and she instinctively ducked behind the corner, pressing her back to the wall.

“Walk slowly,” Ethan said, one hand hovering near Chloe’s elbow.

Chloe took two steps, then gave a little gasp and pretended to lose her balance. She swayed, body tipping toward him.

Ethan caught her reflexively, his hand sliding to her waist. The movement was so smooth, so practiced, that it didn’t look like an accident at all.

Luna dug her nails into her palm until she felt the sting of pain.

“I’m sorry,” Chloe murmured, her voice low and soft. “I just… the dizziness is getting worse lately.”

“You’re in your first trimester.” Ethan’s tone held a firmness Luna hadn’t heard directed at her in a long time. “Nausea, dizziness, fatigue—these are normal. You heard what the doctor said.”

First trimester.

The words marched through Luna’s skull like a foreign language trying to become familiar.

Chloe leaned her head a little closer, free hand unconsciously brushing her still-flat stomach. “But what if something happens? I… I’m scared, Ethan.”

His grip on her waist tightened slightly. “Nothing will happen. I’ve already arranged the best specialist in the city, and if anything looks off, we’ll transfer you to the private wing. This child is important.”

This child is important.

The corridor swayed for a second. Luna’s knees almost buckled.

A nurse passed by, smiling at them. “Mr. Bennett, Mrs. Bennett, you can come straight in next time. The director said there’s no need to line up.”

Mrs. Bennett.

Luna’s lungs forgot how to work.

Chloe ducked her head shyly. “We don’t want to trouble the director…”

Ethan merely nodded; he didn’t correct the title.

Luna bit down on her lip so hard she tasted blood.

Mrs. Bennett was supposed to be her. Chloe, officially, was the widowed sister-in-law, the Bennett daughter-in-law by Ethan’s elder brother. But the nurse didn’t know that, or didn’t care. All she saw was a man and a woman at the obstetrics department, a folded ultrasound report, a protective hand at the woman’s waist.

Luna’s mind scrambled for explanations.

He’s only fulfilling his responsibility to his brother.

The child must be Henry’s legacy. Of course the hospital staff got the surname wrong. It happens.

Of course Ethan would accompany Chloe; she was family, and pregnant women needed support.

She clung to each thought like a drowning person clutching at fragments of driftwood.

She must have made some sound, because Chloe glanced down the corridor, eyes briefly narrowing.

Luna shrank back behind the corner, her back slick with cold sweat.

“Let’s sit for a while. You shouldn’t stand too long,” Ethan said.

They moved toward the waiting area benches. Luna edged along the wall, turning just enough to see them without exposing herself.

Chloe sat down slowly, one hand resting possessively over her abdomen. Ethan stood beside her, talking into his phone now, voice more businesslike. “Yes, shift the meeting by half an hour. I said I have something more important this morning.”

Something more important.

More important than the Bennett board meeting. More important than a whole floor of subordinates waiting for him.

Luna stared at his profile, at the softness in his eyes when he looked down at Chloe, at the faint, unguarded smile that almost never appeared at home anymore.

Her chest hurt.

As Ethan’s call went on, Chloe tilted her head down, the corner of her lips curving up in a tiny, fleeting smirk. Her fingers traced idle circles over her lower belly, like she was caressing a prize.

From where Luna stood, hidden behind a pillar, she could see it clearly.

Her first thought was denial. No, I must have misseen.

But the smirk stayed, cruelly clear.

In that tiny gesture, something crumbled inside her.

The urge to rush out and slap that expression off Chloe’s face surged up, hot and wild. She could march up to them and demand an answer. She could ask Ethan, right here, in front of everyone: Whose child is it?

Her hands began to shake.

And then, just as quickly, fear washed over the anger. Fear of his answer. Fear of the way he might look at her—with impatience, with disgust, with a pity that would finish breaking her.

She swallowed it all down.

Quietly, Luna turned away.

She walked back down the corridor, past the smiling babies on the walls that seemed to mock her, past a young couple excitedly arguing over baby names, past a grandmother cradling a swaddled newborn, pride shining on her face.

At the stairwell, her heel caught on the edge of the step. Her body pitched forward.

She grabbed the railing just in time. Below, the open waiting area of the OB-GYN floor spread out like a staged tableau: pregnant women resting on chairs, husbands carrying thermos flasks, grandparents counting ultrasound photos with wrinkled fingers.

Luna’s vision blurred.

Her own empty hands looked strangely foreign to her. No ultrasound reports. No baby photos. No future little Bennett to secure her place in this family.

She turned away from the rail and forced herself downstairs, step by step.

By the time she reached the ground floor, her heart felt like it had been scraped raw. She walked straight out of the hospital, forgetting the registration number she’d taken, forgetting the check-up she’d come for.

The winter wind slapped her face as the automatic doors slid open. Leon spotted her immediately and trotted over.

“Madam? You’re done already?” he asked, surprised.

“I… didn’t feel like waiting,” she said. “Let’s go home.”

Leon opened the car door. She climbed in, the leather seat suddenly too cold.

They drove off in silence.

As the hospital receded in the rearview mirror, Luna’s stomach churned violently. A wave of nausea surged up her throat.

“Stop the car,” she gasped.

Leon swerved toward the curb and braked. Luna fumbled with the door handle, stumbled out, and bent over, retching.

Nothing much came out—she hadn’t eaten—but her body convulsed, as if trying to expel something heavy and invisible lodged inside her.

Leon hurried over, patting her back awkwardly. “Madam, are you alright? Should we go back to see the doctor?”

She wiped her mouth with a trembling hand. “I’m fine. Maybe it’s just… stress.”

Leon hesitated, then, as if the thought had slipped out without his consent, said, “Could it be… Are you… pregnant?”

Luna’s mind went blank.

The word hung in the cold air between them, impossible and yet suddenly, terrifyingly possible.

Her heart thudded wildly in her chest as she stared at him, unable to answer.