Accidentally Pregnant With The Billionaire Heir

The Wolfe family has a unique way of saying thank you: they accuse you of attempted murder while you’re still wiping the sweat off your brow.

I stand over the Old Madam, my lungs burning from the effort of breathing in this room filled with vultures and expensive perfume.

Celia is fully awake now. While Beatrice is still making all sorts of accusations at me, I keep my focus on Celia. I need to know if she’s truly fine and if she would experience any side effects of the drugs.

Her eyes move around the room, then track the movement of the heavy velvet curtains, and then rest on me.

She holds my gaze for a few seconds and then turns to Beatrice who is still talking by the way.

Doesn’t she work for my stepmother and sister or is her hatred for me just something she discovered on her own?

Celia and everyone else in the room are looking at her now. And I think they agree with most of the nonsense she’s saying. Their faces have already moved past relief and straight into an interrogation.

Beatrice Wolfe looks like she’s about to vibrate out of her lavender silk suit. She steps toward me, I guess in a bid to overwhelm and intimidate me.

"The more I think about it, the more it makes sense. That you planned this. You’re a clever little thing, aren’t you, Emily?" Beatrice asks. "I have to hand it to you. You’ve played the long game. How long did you study her medical records? Did you spend your nights in that bankrupt little house of yours dreaming of the day you could finally stage this little performance?"

I look at her and I allow that cold sensation to slowly take over my mind. The anger at Alistair’s silence, the anger at being accused instead of appreciated, and the anger at being humiliated in front of these elites just because I’m a high school dropout.

I clench my fist and my hands start to shake. I take a deep breath.

"Are you actually suggesting that I knew she was going to have an electrical heart failure tonight? I’m a healer, Beatrice, not a psychic."

"Oh, please," she sneers, turning to the rest of the family for an audience. "You didn’t just know. You planned it. You’ve been poking and prodding the Old Madam since you stepped through that door. You provoked her into an episode, and you had that little vial of ’miracle’ juice ready to go. You wanted to be the hero. You wanted leverage so Alistair wouldn’t kick you back to the gutter where he found you."

The absurdity of it makes me want to laugh, but the metallic taste of blood from the slap she gave me earlier keeps reminding me that I should be calm. I haven’t uttered a single word to Celia Wolfe until I was saving her life. I haven’t taken a single provocative action. But in this house, the truth is just a suggestion. It seems like the people here would believe whatever they want.

Including my husband.

Beatrice ignores my silence. She turns toward Dr. Aris, who is carefully packing his medical bag. I’m sure he knows this is bullshit but I understand that he’s not in the position to join the conversation without being invited.

Beatrice is about to invite him into the conversation and I briefly wonder if that would work in my favor or against me.

"Doctor," Beatrice says, "you’re an expert. Tell us. Is there a discernible difference between a commercially manufactured medication and some...kitchen concoction brewed in a basement?"

Dr. Aris looks up, his silver spectacles sliding down his nose. "Of course. The viscosity, the chemical markers, and even the way it reacts to light. A laboratory analysis would reveal the origin within minutes."

Beatrice doesn’t wait for him to finish. She lunges at me with a speed that catches me completely off guard. How is she always so fast?

She doesn’t go for my throat this time; she goes for my backpack. I’ve been clutching it like a shield, the canvas straps digging into my shoulders.

She snatches it with a strength born of pure, desperate spite. "Let’s see what else you’re hiding in here, shall we?"

"Give it back!" I shout, reaching for the bag, but she jerks it away.

She upends the backpack, shaking it with a frantic energy. The contents spill across the Persian rug in a chaotic, humiliating waterfall. My leather-bound notebook, my mother’s life’s work, hits the floor with a heavy thud. My wallet skids across the marble. Small vials of dried herbs and tinctures roll under the heavy oak tables.

Yes. I walk around with herbs and medicines for emergencies. It’s a habit my mother taught me in the hopes that I would save a life someday. And I did save a life. But I’m sure this wasn’t what my mother thought would happen after I did.

She keeps emptying the bag till the floor is littered with my most private belongings. A pack of sanitary pads spills out, the white plastic wrappers glaringly obvious against the dark, ornate patterns of the rug. One of them skids across the floor and lands right at Alistair’s feet.

Mortification washes over me in a cold, prickly wave. I feel the heat rising in my neck, staining my skin. I reach down, desperate to gather my things, to hide the evidence of my ordinary, fragile humanity from these cold, iron people.

"Looking for the evidence?" Beatrice shrieks.

She sees me reaching and misinterprets the move. She thinks I’m diving for the remaining vial of medication, the proof of my "crime." She throws herself toward me and I wonder if I missed anything in her file about her some kind of sport because how is she so agile?

We scuffle on the floor, our hands tangling in the straps of the bag and the scattered papers. My diary, the one where I wrote about my fears of this pregnancy, my anger at Julian, my confusing feelings about the man currently watching us, slides across the floor.

I’m seething. I’m mortified. But mostly, I am filled with a rage so white-hot it feels like it could melt the gold leaf off the walls. And the rage keeps spreading and dulling my senses.

Beatrice manages to seize the small metal case. She stands up, clutching it to her chest like a trophy, her hair a wild mess around her face.

"I have it!" she crows. "Now we’ll see who the liar is."

Dr. Aris steps forward and he has no readable expression on his face. It tells me that he doesn’t feel pity for me but neither does he condemn their actions. He takes the case from her and looks at the shimmering liquid in the remaining vial. "As I said, this will require laboratory analysis. I can have the results by tomorrow morning at the earliest."

The butler, who I now know is named Greyson because of the name tag on his chest, steps forward to escort the doctor out. The heavy double doors close behind them, and the room falls into a terrifying, judgmental silence.

Every pair of eyes in the room, like cold, piercing probes, converges upon me. They aren’t looking at the woman who just kept their matriarch from brain death. They are looking at a fraud. I see the verdict in their eyes: disgust, mockery, disdain. It doesn’t matter that the test results aren’t in. In their minds, I’m already guilty. I’m the little social climber who got caught in her own trap.

Alistair hasn’t moved. I don’t know when he moved to the fireplace but he’s just standing there now, l with his hands at his back. He doesn’t look at the sanitary pad on the floor.

"Alistair," I say so softly that I’m not sure he’d even hear me. But he does.

He looks up at me and when our eyes meet, it feels like everyone else in the room disappears.

I can’t read the expression on his face because it seems like he and his grandmother have mastered poker faces.

But even though I can’t read his face, it’s obvious he’s not about to take my side or rescue me. If he wanted to, he would have done so long ago. He can command this entire room if he wants to. When he ordered me to administer the drugs, no one interfered.

If he wanted to, he would have.

"You’ll remain here," Alistair says. His voice is back to its calm emotionless tone.

I think of the ’moments’ I was delusional enough to think we shared before now and I almost laugh at myself. Rescuing me from that storage room, punishing my family, telling me everything was going to be fine, all that. It wasn’t because he cared about me. It was just because of the baby in my belly. Even trying to give up his inheritance earlier, it wasn’t about me.

He just didn’t want to feel controlled.

"I should remain here?"

"We’ll keep you till the test results come out. No one leaves the estate until the truth is on the table."

The Old Madam, propped up on pillows now, watches me with those ancient, calculating eyes. "And if she lied, Alistair?"

"If she lied," Alistair says, his gaze never leaving mine, "the marriage is annulled immediately. She leaves this house with nothing. No child. No status. Nothing."

Beatrice lets out a breath of pure, smug satisfaction. "Accept the terms, Mother. Look at her. She was trying to pocket the vials before the doctor saw them. She knows she’s finished."

I stand up, brushing the dust from my dress. My hands are trembling, but not out of fear. It’s the kind of tremor that comes when you’ve been pushed so far back you have nowhere left to go but forward. I would slap the living daylights out of her if I could. But that’ll only make things worse.

"And if I’m telling the truth?" I ask. My voice is clear unlike my trembling hands. I have nothing to be afraid of.

Alistair tilts his head. "Then you are my lawful wife. You are the savior of the Wolfe family. That status grants you immunity. No one, not my father, not my aunt, not even my grandmother, will have the power to drive you out."

The Old Madam hesitates. The immunity clause is a powerful thing to grant a stranger. But Beatrice leans in, whispering into her ear with a wide smile. "She’s bluffing, Mother. Look at her hands. She’s terrified. We have everything to gain and nothing to lose."

Celia Wolfe nods slowly. "Very well. Those are the terms."

I look at Beatrice. She is still smiling, a sharp, ugly expression that makes my skin crawl. She thinks she’s already won. She thinks she has successfully buried me under a mountain of social shame and scattered sanitary pads.

"I have one more condition," I say.

The room shifts. Even Alistair looks surprised.

"If that medication is proven to be my own invention," I say, stepping closer to Beatrice until I can see the fine lines of spite around her eyes. "I want a public apology. Not a whisper in the hall. Not a private note. You will stand in front of this entire family and admit that you were wrong. You will apologize for every lie you’ve told about me tonight."

Beatrice’s smile falters for a fraction of a second, then it returns, wider and more vicious than before.