chapter 4

Chapter Four: Cracked Porcelain

The hallway spun before Ashley’s eyes like a carousel gone berserk—too bright, too hot, too loud. The marble floor shimmered. Her fingers fumbled for the wall, but there was nothing to grip, only the slow, sick rush of nausea and heat crashing over her skin like a fever tide.

She hadn’t eaten.

She hadn’t slept.

And the baby inside her—tiny, demanding, alive—was beginning to rebel.

Her knees buckled.

The silver tray she was carrying slipped from her hands, tumbling in slow motion. A glass shattered. The echo rang out like a gunshot. Her breath hitched.

Then the hallway vanished.

Darkness swallowed her.

Her body hit the floor like dropped china—soft thud, delicate limbs folded wrong. The hotel silence returned, indifferent and still. Just the scent of spilled whiskey and blood where glass had kissed her skin.

And then—

“—Ashley?!”

Footsteps.

Fast. Heavy.

Then he was kneeling beside her, his voice sharp and sudden. Not calm anymore. Not cold.

“Kyle,” she whispered, barely conscious.

His breath caught.

“You do know me,” he murmured.

Then louder, to someone unseen, “Get an ambulance. Now.”

He pulled her up into his arms like she weighed nothing—like she was a doll and he was made of steel. Her head lulled against his chest. She felt the thrum of his heart, too fast, unsteady. His hand brushed hair from her face with a tenderness she hadn’t expected from a man who forgot her name.

“You’re bleeding,” he said, eyes scanning the scrape on her leg, the jagged line of red where glass had bitten her. But that wasn’t what made his voice shake.

It was her stomach. Soft, curved slightly in a way he hadn’t noticed before.

Something flickered in his expression. Disbelief. Suspicion.

Then the realization hit him.

Not gently.

Not gradually.

His arms tightened.

He looked down at her like she’d slapped him across the soul. “Are you—?”

She closed her eyes.

“Yes,” she whispered.

He didn’t speak again.

Not when the paramedics arrived.

Not when they asked her name.

Not when they wheeled her away.

He just stood there in the hallway, glass crunching beneath his thousand-dollar shoes, watching the girl he fucked and forgot be carted off carrying something that now, unmistakably, belonged to him.

The hospital room was a clinical shade of cruel. White walls. White sheets. White light that made Ashley’s skin look ghost-pale and her lips bitten raw. She sat upright now, legs covered, IV trailing from the crook of her arm like a leash.

She was exhausted.

But not dead.

And Kyle Ashford—billionaire, heartbreaker, baby daddy by accident—was sitting in the vinyl chair across from her like someone had handcuffed him to it.

His tie was gone. His collar undone. His usual perfect composure hung off him like a wrinkled coat. He looked like a man trying to solve a problem that refused to fit into a spreadsheet.

Ashley didn’t say a word.

Neither did he.

Until:

“Is it mine?”

She turned her head slowly, eyes burning. “No, Kyle. I went on a world tour of anonymous drunken tech bros and spun a wheel.”

He flinched. Not physically. Just—his mouth tightened. His jaw ticked.

“Ashley...”

“Don’t. You don’t get to say my name like that. Not after forgetting it.”

He leaned forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped like a prayer he didn’t know how to offer.

“I didn’t know. You have to understand—I was blackout drunk. That night’s a blur.”

Her laugh cracked out, sharp and bitter. “A blur? That’s how you describe the night you came inside a stranger with no condom?”

His head dropped, shame creeping up the back of his neck. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Well, you did.” Her hand moved protectively over her stomach. “And now I’m carrying a child I can’t afford, by a man who doesn’t remember touching me, and works in a building where I serve hors d'oeuvres to rich men who wouldn’t blink if I died in a supply closet.”

He was quiet. Too quiet.

Then: “I’ll take care of it.”

She blinked. “What?”

“The cost. The hospital bills. The pregnancy. The baby.” He looked at her now, fully, eyes dark and unreadable. “I can handle it.”

“Oh, can you?” she said, laughing again. “What does that mean, exactly? A check? A trust fund? A contract signed in gold ink so you can go back to forgetting I exist?”

He stood up, voice low. “It means you wouldn’t have to suffer.”

She stared at him.

Then said, very slowly, “You think this is about money?”

He hesitated. “Isn’t it?”

“No,” she hissed. “It’s about the fact that I was nothing to you. Just a warm body you barely remember. And now I’m stuck with a life you made in me, and you’re standing there offering hush money like you didn’t leave pieces of yourself between my legs.”

He looked like he’d been slapped.

She didn’t care.

“I don’t want your money, Kyle,” she said, quieter now. “I want to know if you’re going to be a father. If you even give a damn. If this means anything to you.”

Silence.

Then, finally—he sat back down.

And looked her in the eyes.

“I don’t know how to be a father,” he said.

Ashley didn’t move. “Then you’d better learn. Fast.”

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