Chapter 2: The Unraveling Truth

Chapter 2: The Unraveling Truth

The single word hung in the air between them, a grenade with the pin pulled. “Mine?”

For a heart-stopping second, Elara’s mind went blank. Then, a fierce, primal instinct to protect roared to life within her. Her baby. Not his. She had carried this child alone through months of morning sickness, fear, and lonely nights. He had no claim.

“You have no right to ask me that,” she whispered, her voice trembling but laced with steel. She tried to step around him, to break the invisible cage his presence had erected.

His hand shot out, his fingers wrapping around her upper arm with an inescapable, familiar strength. His touch was an electric jolt, burning through the thin cotton of her dress. Her breath hitched. The crowd around them had begun to notice, their polite chatter dissolving into curious whispers and sidelong glances. A scandal was brewing in the rarified air of the gallery, and Julian Thorne was at its center.

He saw the turning heads, the avid, hungry eyes of the city's elite. A muscle in his jaw clenched violently. “Not here,” he bit out, his voice dangerously low. He tugged her, not cruelly, but with an unyielding force that left no room for argument.

“Let go of me, Julian,” she hissed, digging her heels in, but it was like trying to stop a tidal wave. He was already propelling her towards a discreet, unmarked door behind a towering sculpture. The portfolio slipped from her grasp, scattering her hopes and plans across the polished concrete floor. She didn't even have time to look back.

The door clicked shut behind them, plunging them into the sterile quiet of a back office. It was as stark and cold as his expression had been moments before. A minimalist desk, two chairs, and a window showing a brick wall. The muffled sounds of the party might as well have been a world away.

He released her arm, and she immediately stumbled back, putting the desk between them. A flimsy barrier, but one she desperately needed. She rubbed the spot where his fingers had been, her skin tingling.

“Answer me, Elara,” he commanded, his voice echoing in the small space. He unbuttoned his suit jacket in a single, fluid motion, a gesture of a man settling in for a battle he knew he would win.

“Answer you?” she scoffed, a bubble of hysterical laughter rising in her throat. “You want answers? After you threw me out of your life based on a lie? You listened to whispers and slammed the door in my face without letting me say a single word.”

The memory was a fresh wound, still bleeding. The cold fury in his eyes that day, his voice cutting her to shreds as he accused her of the one thing he valued above all else: betrayal.

“I had proof,” he ground out, stalking around the side of the desk, erasing the distance she’d tried to create.

“You had a doctored photo and a heart full of paranoia!” she shot back, her own anger surging to meet his. “You didn’t want the truth, Julian. You wanted an excuse. You were always waiting for me to disappoint you, because you couldn’t believe someone might actually love you for you, and not for… for this.” She gestured vaguely, encompassing his wealth, his power, the entire cold empire he had built.

His face was a mask of thunder. “Don’t you dare twist this. I gave you everything.”

“You gave me trinkets!” she cried, her hand instinctively flying to the silver locket at her throat. “I gave you my heart, and you treated it like a hostile takeover. You demanded loyalty you were never willing to give in return.”

She was breathless, her body thrumming with adrenaline and the righteous fury she had suppressed for six long months. She had survived. She had protected her child. She would not let him intimidate her now.

“Is. It. Mine?” he repeated, each word a hammer blow, his face inches from hers.

She opened her mouth to deliver the final, cutting lie, the one that would sever this tie forever—

And then it happened.

A pain, sharp and terrifying, seized her low in her belly. It was a white-hot, cramping agony that stole her breath and buckled her knees. A gasp escaped her lips, not of anger, but of pure terror. Her hand flew from the locket to her stomach, pressing against the spot where the pain was radiating like a cruel starburst.

The world tilted, the edges of her vision going dark. The color drained from her face.

Julian’s fury vanished in an instant. It didn't fade; it shattered, replaced by a raw, unadulterated panic that stripped away the billionaire CEO and left only a terrified man.

“Elara?” His voice was suddenly unsteady, laced with a fear she had never heard from him before.

Another wave of pain crashed over her, more intense than the last. She let out a small, strangled cry, her defiant posture crumbling as she sagged against the desk for support.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” He was at her side in a heartbeat, his hands hovering, wanting to touch her but seemingly terrified he might break her. The imposing, controlled man was gone. In his place was someone frantic, clumsy, and utterly out of his depth.

“The baby,” she managed to whisper, the words tasting of metal and fear. “Something’s… wrong.”

That was all he needed to hear. The primal fear for a child he had only discovered minutes ago consumed him entirely. He whipped his phone from his pocket, his fingers fumbling with the screen.

“Get Dr. Alistair on the line. Now,” he barked into the phone, his voice a raw command that held none of its earlier coldness, only sheer, desperate urgency. “Tell him it’s a high-risk pregnancy, patient is Elara Vance. She’s collapsing. And get an ambulance to the Thorne Gallery on 57th. No sirens. Just get here. Now!”

He ended the call and was back at her side, his arm sliding around her waist, supporting her weight as another spasm of pain wracked her body. He held her steady, his hand splayed protectively over the small of her back, his panicked gaze fixed on her pale face.

The war between them was over, forgotten. In the stark, silent office, surrounded by the wreckage of their past, a terrifying new truth unraveled. Their child’s life was hanging by a thread, and Julian Thorne, the man who thought he could control everything, was helpless.