Chapter Four:

Why is my best friend with the man trying to destroy me?

The question sits in the room like something alive, and I can barely hear my own breathing over it. Damien lowers the phone, but the image is already burned into my mind. Selene in her cream coat, dark glasses on, stepping out of Adrian’s building like she belongs there.

“No,” I say, because that is the only word my body can form. “No.”

Damien watches me carefully. “You know about this?”

“If I knew, I wouldn’t be standing here looking like this.”

He says nothing, which somehow makes everything worse. He believes facts more than reactions. I can see him thinking already, fitting Selene into the same dangerous pattern as Adrian, the message, the timing, the clinic.

I grab my bag from the chair. “I’m calling her.”

“Not yet.”

I turn sharply. “Do not tell me when I can speak to my friend.”

“I’m telling you not to warn someone who may already be part of this.” The words sting so hard I almost slap them away out loud. “Selene would never do that to me.” “You said Adrian would never either once.”

I go still.

He should not know enough to say that, but he does. Maybe not the details. Maybe not the full shape of what Adrian takes from me. But enough. Enough to cut with accuracy.

“That was low,” I say.

“That was necessary.”

I hate him for being calm. I hate myself because panic is rising too fast and he sees every inch of it. My pregnancy has just been confirmed. My best friend is somehow linked to the one man who has been tightening the net around me. And Damien, with his brutal timing and impossible steadiness, is the only person in the room who does not look shaken.

He steps closer. “Sit down.”

“I’m not helpless.”

“I didn’t say you were. I said sit.”

The command in his voice makes me want to fight him, but my legs suddenly feel weak in a way I cannot pretend past. I sit because if I don’t, I may fall, and that would feel worse.

He crouches in front of me without warning, bringing himself to eye level. It startles me enough that I stop breathing for a second. Men like Damien do not lower themselves for anyone. Yet here he is, calm and direct, forcing me to focus.

“Listen carefully,” he says. “You just got life-changing news. Now this. If you call Selene while you’re in this state, you’ll ask the wrong question and show her exactly where you’re vulnerable.”

“She already knows where I’m vulnerable.”

“Then don’t confirm it.”

I press a hand to my forehead. He is right again, and I am beginning to resent how often that keeps happening. “What if she betrayed me?” I ask quietly. “Then we find out before she does more damage.”

The we in that sentence slips under my skin before I can stop it.

I look at him. “You really mean that.”

“Yes.”

Not because he loves me. Not because I trust him. But because he has chosen a side, and for now that side is mine. The realization steadies me more than it should.

The doctor returns with paperwork and instructions. Damien takes them before I can and asks practical questions with such cold efficiency that I almost forget this is my body being discussed. Follow-up. Discretion. Secure filing. He leaves nothing vague. By the time she goes again, my first appointment is already set for forty-eight hours from now.

“You do that often?” I ask.

“Do what?”

“Take over a room.”

“Yes.”

I almost smile, but it fades quickly. “I need to leave.”

He stands. “You’re coming with me.”

“No.”

“You are not going home tonight.”

I rise too, anger replacing some of the fear. “You don’t get to decide that.”

His gaze drops to my stomach for less than a second, then returns to my face. “Actually, tonight I do.” Something dangerous moves through me at that. “Do not use this pregnancy as a reason to control me.” “I’m using Adrian as the reason.”

“That excuse is getting old.”

“It’s still valid.”

I should walk out. Instead, I pull my phone from his pocket when he gets distracted by another message. “You said I’m not helpless,” I tell him. His mouth almost tightens into something like approval. “Good. Keep acting like it.” I step back and unlock my screen. Ten missed calls from unknown numbers. Two from Selene. One voicemail from my mother. A fresh text from Adrian.

You went to the clinic. That was fast.

All the blood drains from my face.

Damien sees it instantly. “Show me.”

I hand him the phone because there is no point pretending now. He reads the text once, then looks toward the door as if the walls themselves have failed him. “He has eyes on you,” he says. “Or he has Selene.”

“Or both.”

The thought lands like ice. Selene would not do this. I know her. I know the shape of her loyalty, the way she has stood beside me when everyone else chose distance. But I also know what that photo shows, and I cannot explain it away.

“I need to hear her voice,” I say.

Damien studies me, then gives one short nod. “Speaker.”

I call Selene before I can lose my nerve.

She picks up on the second ring. “Elara? Thank God. Where are you?” I close my eyes. Her voice sounds normal. Warm. Worried. That hurts more than if she sounded guilty. “Why were you at Adrian’s building?” I ask.

A pause. Small, but there.

“Who told you that?” she asks.

My stomach twists. Not denial. Not confusion. A question.

“Answer me.”

Another pause, longer this time. Then she exhales. “I was there for you.” I laugh once because the words are too sharp to absorb gently. “That makes no sense.”

“I know how it looks.” “It looks like betrayal.” Her voice turns urgent. “It isn’t. He contacted me first. He said he had something that could ruin you and wanted to make a trade.”

Damien’s expression does not move, but every line of him sharpens.

“What trade?” I ask.

“He wanted information,” she says. “Public schedule stuff at first. I gave him nothing. Then he said he knew you were in trouble and that if I cared about you, I’d meet him.” “You still went.” “Yes,” she says, and I hear shame now. Real shame. “Because I thought I could get ahead of whatever he was planning.”

“Did you tell him I was late?” I ask.

“No.”

“Did you tell him I might be pregnant?”

“No.”

I want to believe her. I want to grab hold of her voice and use history as proof. But trust, once cracked, becomes a cruel thing. It asks for certainty where none exists. “What did he show you?” I ask.

Selene is quiet for too long.

“What did he show you?” I repeat.

When she finally speaks, her voice is smaller. “A marriage license application.”

My grip tightens around the phone. “What?”

“He said if you didn’t marry him, he’d release documents tying your father’s old money transfers to one of his firms and make it look like your family begged him for help. He said he already filed preliminary paperwork weeks ago.”

That makes no sense. “You can’t file a marriage application alone.”

“I know.”

I look at Damien. For the first time since the clinic, he looks genuinely surprised.

Selene keeps talking, too fast now. “That’s not even the worst part. The application had your signature on it.”

The room tilts.

“No,” I say. “That’s impossible.”

“That’s what I thought,” Selene whispers. “Until I saw it myself.” I lift my eyes to Damien, shaking all over now, and say the only thing that makes sense. “Someone is signing my name to promises I never made.”