Emma POV
The next morning, I woke up feeling like I'd been hit by a truck.
My whole body ached- my arms, my legs, even my neck. Everything hurt. For a second, I just lay there with my eyes closed, trying to remember how I'd ended up feeling this broken. Then it all came rushing back. Last night, I was with Dylan. The way he'd looked at me with so much hate.
Before I could even fully process it all or figure out what time it was, something landed on the bed with a dull thump right next to my head.
I flinched. My eyes flew open.
A small box sat there on the white sheets. I stared at it, confused and still half-asleep.
"Take it."
That voice, it was cold and commanding. I knew it instantly.
My head jerked up so fast my neck cracked. Dylan was standing at the foot of the bed, and he looked... completely different from last night. His suit was perfectly tailored and crisp, not a wrinkle anywhere. His hair was styled just right. He looked like he'd stepped out of a magazine, all polished and put-together and intimidatingly handsome.
Like last night had never even happened. Like he hadn't thrown me onto this same bed with violence in his eyes just hours ago.
I looked back down at the box, my brain still foggy and slow. Then I saw what it was.
Birth control pills.
My heart stopped. Actually stopped for a beat before it started racing double-time.
No. No, no, no. I couldn't take those. I was pregnant. The pills could hurt the baby, or worse. Way worse. My hand instinctively moved to my stomach, protective, before I caught myself and let it drop.
"What are you waiting for?" Dylan's voice cut through my panic. "You need me to spell it out? Or do you want me to shove them down your throat myself?"
I couldn't move. My body felt frozen, my mind screaming at me to do something, say something, but nothing came out.
I saw his jaw tighten. That little muscle that always twitched when he was getting angry. His patience, what little he had for me, was running out.
"Emma." He said my name like it tasted bad in his mouth. "Listen to me very carefully, and don't make me repeat myself."
I looked up at him. His eyes were like stone. Hard and cold and completely unfeeling.
"Don't even think about having my baby. Don't you dare try to trap me with some pregnancy scheme." He took a step closer, and I had to fight the urge to shrink back. "You're nothing but a pathetic, shameless gold-digger who'd bite the hand that feeds her. You don't deserve to carry my child. You don't deserve anything from me."
Each word landed like a physical blow. I felt them in my chest, in my throat, in that place behind my eyes where tears were building up but I refused to let fall.
It was July. The middle of summer. Hot and humid outside with the sun already blazing through the curtains. But I felt cold. So, so cold. Like someone had injected ice water directly into my veins and it was spreading through every part of me.
I'd been so stupid. So ridiculously, painfully stupid. I'd actually thought that maybe, just maybe, the baby would change things between us. That it would be this breakthrough moment, this thing that finally made him see me as more than just an obligation or a mistake. That maybe he'd put his hand on my stomach and smile, and we'd start over.
God, I wanted to laugh at myself or cry. Maybe both.
Now I couldn't even tell him the truth. The words were stuck somewhere deep in my throat, tangled up with fear and shame and heartbreak.
So with Dylan standing there, watching me like a warden watching a prisoner, I didn't have any choice.
My hand shook as I reached for the box. I popped one of the pills out of its foil wrapper, brought it to my mouth, and pretended to swallow it. But at the last second, I tucked it under my tongue instead, letting it sit there bitter and dissolving slowly.
I felt disgusting doing it. Guilty and terrified all at once. My heart was pounding so hard I was sure he could hear it. What if he noticed? What if he made me open my mouth to check?
But right at that moment, like some twisted miracle, his phone started buzzing on the nightstand.
He grabbed it immediately, glanced at the screen, and his whole face transformed. The cold mask cracked. His eyebrows pulled together with actual emotion. Worry. Fear, even.
"What?" he barked into the phone. Then his face went pale. "Sophie tried to kill herself? I'm coming right now!"
