Aria's POV
Sophie found me in the bushes, covered in vomit and blood.
"Oh my God, Aria!" She pulled me up, her doctor hands immediately checking my pulse. "What happened? You're ice cold—"
"He married her." The words came out flat. Empty. "Julian married Celeste. In my dress. With my flowers. On my wedding day."
Sophie's face went from worried to furious in two seconds. "That bastard. That absolute—"
"I'm going to be sick again." I lurched forward, but nothing came up. My stomach was empty. Everything was empty.
Sophie pulled me toward her car. "Hospital. Now. You're in shock and you're bleeding—"
"No!" I grabbed her arm, panicking. "No hospitals. They'll call my father. Victoria will find out where I am and—"
"My apartment then. But Aria, I need to check you properly. You're not okay."
I wasn't okay. I would never be okay again.
Sophie drove like a crazy person, running two red lights. She lived fifteen minutes away, but we made it in eight. She practically carried me up the stairs to her third-floor apartment.
"Sit." She pushed me onto her bathroom toilet. "Don't move."
She came back with her medical bag—the one she kept for emergencies. Sophie was a cardiothoracic surgeon, but she knew enough about everything to be dangerous.
She cleaned the blood off my knees. The scrapes weren't deep, just ugly. Like everything else about today.
"Talk to me," Sophie said gently, wrapping bandages. "Tell me exactly what happened."
So I did. Everything. The early morning text. Walking into the venue. Seeing Celeste in my dress. Julian's casual explanation. The security guards. Being thrown out like garbage.
"They said Celeste is dying," I finished, my voice breaking. "They said it's her dying wish to be a bride. But Sophie, she looked healthy. She looked better than she has in years."
Sophie's jaw clenched. "Because she's lying. Aria, I've suspected for months that Celeste's illness is fake. The symptoms never match up, the hospital visits are always at private clinics with no records, and she conveniently gets better whenever it suits her."
"But the medical bills—I've paid over two hundred thousand dollars—"
"To where? What doctors? Have you ever actually seen real medical records?"
I opened my mouth. Closed it. No. I'd never seen actual records. Just invoices from "Dr. Harrison's Private Clinic" that Victoria emailed me.
"Oh God." My hands shook. "It was all a lie. Everything was a lie."
"Aria." Sophie's voice changed. Became careful. Doctor-careful. "I need to ask you something important. When was your last period?"
My brain stuttered. "What?"
"Your last period. When was it?"
"I... I don't know. Six weeks ago? Seven? I've been so stressed with the wedding planning that I wasn't really—"
The world stopped spinning.
Six weeks. Maybe seven.
The nausea. The exhaustion. The vomiting.
"No," I whispered. "No, no, no—"
Sophie was already pulling something from her medical bag. A pregnancy test. She pressed it into my shaking hands.
"Take this. Right now."
"Sophie, I can't be—we only—Julian and I barely—" But that was a lie. We'd been together six years. Of course we'd been intimate. Just not recently. Not in the past three months because Julian was always "too tired" or "too stressed."
But seven weeks ago...
Seven weeks ago was Julian's birthday. We'd gone to dinner. He'd actually been sweet that night. Loving. We'd gone back to his place and—
Oh God.
"Take the test, Aria."
My hands wouldn't stop shaking as I opened the box. The instructions blurred together. Sophie had to help me.
Then we waited.
Three minutes. The longest three minutes of my life.
"I can't look," I whispered. "Sophie, please, just tell me—"
"Aria." Her voice was soft. Sad. "You're pregnant."
The bathroom tilted sideways. I grabbed the sink to keep from falling.
Pregnant.
I was pregnant with Julian's baby.
And he'd just married my sister.
"This can't be happening." I couldn't breathe. My chest felt like someone was standing on it. "This isn't real. This is a nightmare and I'm going to wake up and—"
"Breathe, Aria. In through your nose, out through your mouth. That's it." Sophie guided me through panic attack breathing exercises. She'd done this before, too many times, whenever my family made me feel worthless.
But this was different. This was so much worse.
"What am I going to do?" Tears finally came, hot and angry. "He married Celeste. He threw me away. And I'm carrying his child. Sophie, what am I—"
"You're going to survive." Sophie grabbed my shoulders, forcing me to look at her. "Listen to me. You're going to survive this. And that baby? That baby is yours. Not his. Not theirs. Yours."
"But he'll find out eventually. He'll take the baby. Victoria will use it against me. They'll say I'm unfit or—"
"Then we make sure they never find out." Sophie's eyes blazed with determination. "We disappear. Tonight. Right now. I have money saved. We can go anywhere—"
"I can't just run away—"
"Why not? What's keeping you here? The family that threw you out? The fiancé who married your sister? The company you built that they stole from you?" Sophie's voice was harsh but true. "Aria, you have nothing left here except pain. Let's go somewhere you can start over."
I looked down at my hands. At the little plastic test showing two pink lines.
A baby.
Julian's baby.
No. MY baby.
"I need to think," I whispered. "I need to—my head is spinning and I can't—"
"Lie down. Rest. We'll figure this out." Sophie helped me to her couch, covering me with a blanket. "I'm going to make some calls. Trust me, okay?"
I nodded, too exhausted to argue.
Sophie disappeared into her bedroom. I could hear her voice, low and urgent, talking to someone. Making plans.
I closed my eyes and saw Julian's face. The way he'd looked at Celeste with tenderness he'd never shown me. The way he'd turned away while security dragged me out.
Six years. Six years of loving him, supporting him, sacrificing everything for him.
And he'd replaced me in less than a day.
My hand drifted to my still-flat stomach. Somewhere in there, a tiny cluster of cells was growing. Julian's child. My child.
Our child.
No. Not our child. Mine. Only mine.
Julian had made his choice. He chose Celeste. He chose the lie over the truth. The fake princess over the woman who'd given him everything real.
So I would make my choice too.
I would choose myself. And my baby.
Sophie came back twenty minutes later, her face strange. Excited and nervous at the same time.
"Aria, I called in a favor from a friend. Someone who might be able to help you. Someone powerful enough to protect you from your family."
"Who?"
"His name is Dante Blackwood. He's a billionaire, runs one of the biggest tech companies in the country. And..." She hesitated. "He's been looking for you."
My blood ran cold. "Looking for me? Why? I don't know any Dante Blackwood—"
"Actually, you do. You just don't remember." Sophie pulled out her phone, showing me a photo. A devastatingly handsome man with dark hair and intense eyes stared back at me. Something about him felt familiar, but I couldn't place it.
"Five years ago, you helped a homeless man outside the coffee shop near campus. Bought him breakfast and coffee. Talked to him for an hour about not giving up. Told him things get better."
A fuzzy memory surfaced. A man in torn clothes, looking broken. I'd been on my way to class but stopped because he looked so sad. I'd given him my breakfast sandwich and coffee. We'd talked. Then I'd left, late for class, never thinking about it again.
"That was him?" I stared at the photo. "But he's a billionaire now—"
"He was at his lowest point that day. His company had been stolen, his family destroyed. He was literally sleeping in his car. You showed him kindness when he had nothing." Sophie's voice got intense. "And he's never forgotten you, Aria. He's been watching over you from a distance, waiting for the right moment."
"That's..." I should say creepy. Stalkerish. Wrong.
But somehow, I didn't feel afraid.
"He wants to meet you," Sophie said. "Tomorrow morning. He has a proposition. Something that could give you everything you need to destroy the people who hurt you."
"What kind of proposition?"
Sophie's smile turned sharp. "The kind that comes with a ring and a marriage certificate. And enough power to make Julian Cross and your entire family regret the day they threw you away."
My heart pounded. This was insane. I couldn't marry a stranger. I couldn't—
But what choice did I have?
I was pregnant, homeless, and betrayed. My family had disowned me. Julian had married my sister. I had no money, no job, no future.
And somewhere in this city, a man I didn't remember was offering me salvation.
Or maybe a different kind of trap.
"Can I trust him?" I whispered.
Sophie met my eyes. "More than you ever trusted Julian."
That was a low bar. But it was something.
"Okay," I heard myself say. "Tomorrow morning. I'll meet him."
Sophie squeezed my hand. "You're going to survive this, Aria. And you're going to make them all pay."
I closed my eyes, one hand on my stomach.
Tomorrow, I would meet Dante Blackwood.
Tomorrow, my new life would begin.
Tonight, I would mourn the old one.
And I would plan my revenge.