The plastic stick stares up at me from the bathroom sink, and my entire future has been reduced to two pink lines.
Pregnant.
The word doesn't compute. I read the instruction pamphlet again, my fingers numb. Two lines indicates a positive result. I flip it over, desperate for a loophole. Faint lines still indicate a positive result. The lines are not faint. They are screaming at me.
I slide down the tiled wall, my back cold against the cheap subway tile of my studio apartment bathroom. The floor is not clean. I should clean it. I should do a lot of things. Instead, I sit here, on the floor of my post-Mark, post-Vegas, post-everything life, and stare at a plastic stick that has just rewritten my entire existence. Three weeks ago, I was someone else. I was Belle-with-a-fiancé, Belle-with-a-five-year-plan, Belle-who-didn't-do-things-like-leave-bars-with-strangers-named-Luca.
Three weeks ago, I didn't know what sandalwood smelled like on skin.
Three weeks ago, I didn't know that a single night could undo everything.
***
The days after Vegas were a blur of damage control. Chloe—bless her chaotic heart—didn't ask questions. She just hugged me when I showed up at her door at nearly 4am, still smelling of him, my mascara raccooned down my cheeks.
"You okay?" she whispered.
"No," I said. "But I will be."
She didn't push. She made tea. She let me sleep on her couch. She was the kind of friend you don't deserve but somehow get anyway. Mark called seven times. I let them all go to voicemail until the seventh, when I picked up and said, "We're done," and hung up before he could apologize, explain, or lie.
I expected to feel lighter. I didn't.
I expected to forget Luca. I didn't.
His face haunted the edges of my vision. His voice, that low rumble, echoed in quiet moments. You can call me Luca. But I couldn't call him. I didn't have a number, a last name, a city. Just a ring and a ghost I couldn't shake.
I told myself it was the betrayal talking. The whiplash. The alcohol. I told myself a lot of things.
And then my period was late. And then it was later. And then I was standing in a CVS at midnight, staring at a wall of pregnancy tests like they were a foreign language.
***
My phone is on the bathroom floor beside me. The screen is dark, but it holds the answer to a question I've been too afraid to ask until now. I pick it up. My hands are shaking as I open Google. What do I search? "Man from Vegas bar"? "Green eyes dark hair suit"? "Lion crest ring"? I start with what I know.
Luca. Vegas. Hotel Aethelstan.
Nothing. A thousand Luca's, none of them mine. I mean—him.
I try again.
Lion crest ring platinum
The search results load. My heart stops. There, in the image results, staring back at me: the ring. The same lion rampant, the same shattered sword. It's photographed on a white background, pristine, museum-quality.
The Lombardi Family Sigil. A legacy of power and prestige. Read more about the Lombardi dynasty.
My thumb hovers over the link. I don't want to know. I need to know. I click.
***
Lombardi Group. Global empire. Real estate, finance, technology. Net worth: undisclosed, estimated in the billions. Headquarters: New York. Founded: 1923. Current CEO: Antonio Lombardi.
Heir apparent: Luca Lombardi.
The photograph steals my breath. It's him. Of course it's him. In the photo, he's wearing a charcoal suit, standing behind a podium, his expression the same unsmiling mask from the bar. He looks like he's posing for a magazine cover, not answering questions about quarterly earnings.
Luca Lombardi, 32, has been credited with expanding the family's holdings into Eastern Europe. Known for his reclusive nature and ruthless business acumen, Lombardi rarely grants interviews. He is unmarried and has no children.
Unmarried. No children.
Yet, my brain whispers. He has no children yet.
I drop the phone. It clatters against the tile, and the screen goes dark, but the image is burned into my retinas. Luca wasn't just rich. He wasn't just powerful. He was a Lombardi. And I was carrying his child.
***
Two Weeks Later
The clinic is clean and cold and smells like antiseptic hope. The ultrasound wand presses against my belly, and I stare at the ceiling, trying not to cry.
"There," the technician says, her voice gentle. "See that flicker? That's the heartbeat."
I look at the screen. It's just static and shadows to me. But then I see it—a tiny, rhythmic pulse. Fast. Fierce. Alive. I don't cry in the clinic. I wait until I'm in my car, parked in the far corner of the lot, my forehead against the steering wheel. And then I sob.
I am 25 years old. I have $847 in savings. I work in marketing for a company that's about to undergo "restructuring." My ex-fiancé cheated on me. My mother calls every Sunday to ask when I'm giving her grandchildren, and I've been lying to her face for weeks. And now, I am pregnant with the heir to a billion-dollar empire.
The father doesn't know I exist beyond one night. The father doesn't know his name. The father is a man whose family crest features a lion holding a shattered sword—a symbol that now feels less like heritage and more like a threat.
I have two choices.
I can find him. I can track down Luca Lombardi, heir to the Lombardi dynasty, and tell him that a woman he spent a few hours with in Vegas is carrying his child. I can watch his green eyes turn cold as he calculates the PR implications, the paternity tests, the custody agreements, the non-disclosure forms.
Or I can disappear.
I can raise this baby myself. I can find a better job, a cheaper apartment, a new city. I can be Belle-from-the-bar, the woman he almost remembers, the ghost who got away. A thought flits through my mind—a solution, clinical and final. I reject it before it fully forms. Not this. Not this life growing inside me. I don't know how I know, but I know: this baby is mine. I'm keeping her. Or him. I'm keeping this child.
I think about the ring. The lion. The shattered sword.
I think about the way he didn't look back.
I start making a list.
Things I Know About Luca Lombardi:
His favorite drink is whiskey, neat. His hands are warm but his eyes are cold. He gets tested every 3-6 months. He said "we are using each other. Equally." He didn't say goodbye.
Things I Know About Being a Mother:
I love this baby already. It's insane and irrational and I don't care. I am terrified. I will figure it out.
35 weeks later, my son is born on a Tuesday, three weeks early, during the first snow of December. He has his father's eyes.
The nurse places him on my chest, and I look down at this tiny, furious, perfect creature, and I whisper the name I've been carrying in my heart for nine months.
"Leo."
Not Luca. Not Lombardi. Leo. My lion. Small and fierce and entirely mine.
He grips my finger with a strength that makes me laugh through my tears.
"Hi, baby," I breathe. "I'm your mom. I'm so sorry it's just me. But I promise—I promise—it's going to be enough."
Outside, the snow falls silently on a city that doesn't know our names. Inside, I hold my secret.
Two Years Later
Leo says "Mama" now. He says "more" and "no" and "up" and a garbled, enthusiastic version of "pancake." He has his father's dark hair and his father's serious, studying gaze. He also has my stubborn chin and my habit of biting his lower lip when he's concentrating.
He is the best thing I have ever done. I have not googled Luca Lombardi in eighteen months. I have not searched for his face, his name, his ring. I have built a life—small, precarious, mine—and I have protected it with every ounce of my being.
I work remotely now. Freelance copywriting. It pays less but it means more time with Leo. Our apartment is still small, still cheap, but I've hung string lights above his crib and painted his room a soft, hopeful blue.
Chloe is his aunt. She brings overpriced organic snacks and reads him picture books with silly voices. She doesn't ask about his father anymore. She doesn't need to.
I have almost convinced myself that this is enough.
Almost.