The beeping accelerated. The nurse stepped forward, then hesitated again, caught in that awful purgatory where humans wanted to do the right thing but systems trained them not to.
Emma swallowed, tasting iron. “If he doesn’t sign,” she said hoarsely, “what happens?”
The nurse’s eyes softened. “We do what we can,” she said, which meant: we do what we’re allowed.
A door clicked open down the hall.
Footsteps approached with an arrogance that didn’t belong in a hospital. Not the hurried shuffle of doctors, not the soft pace of families. These were confident footsteps, heels and polished soles, the sound of people who believed the world moved out of their way.
Emma’s body tensed.
She knew that rhythm.
She’d heard it in country clubs and corporate lobbies, in rooms where people smiled while sharpening knives.
The door swung open.
Derek filled the doorway like a man arriving not to save someone, but to announce an ending. Six feet of tailored suit and tidy hair, his jaw clenched as if compassion was a muscle he refused to exercise. He looked expensive, not because he was rich, but because he wanted to look like he belonged in rooms where rich people lived.
Beside him was Veronica Chase.
Veronica wore power like perfume. It clung to her. Her designer heels clicked against the tile, her hair glossy, her lipstick a precise red, her eyes sharp with a kind of victory that had nothing to do with love and everything to do with conquest.
Her manicured hand rested possessively on Derek’s arm.
Emma’s chest tightened so abruptly it felt like the air had turned to glass.
“You came,” Emma whispered. Relief flickered, foolish and automatic, like a candle trying to survive in a storm. “Derek, I need—”
He didn’t step closer.
He didn’t look at the monitor.
He didn’t look at the blood seeping through the sheet.
Instead, he exhaled as if she’d inconvenienced him. “I talked to my lawyer,” he said.
Emma blinked. “Your… lawyer?”
Veronica’s mouth curved upward. Not a smile. A blade.
“I’ve been manipulated,” Derek continued, voice rehearsed, polished, practiced in the mirror of someone else’s approval. “Veronica helped me see that. You’ve been playing me, Emma. Acting like some… simple girl from nowhere, keeping secrets, refusing to contribute. And now, suddenly, you’re pregnant, and I’m supposed to sign a blank check for your medical drama?”
Medical drama.
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