Chapter 2 - THE IMPOSSIBLE TRUTH
Inside the sterile,
lavender-scented room of the elite fertility clinic,
Adrian sat with his chest puffed out.
He held Chloe’s hand with a possessive grip,
as if she were a vessel carrying the gold of the Castillo empire.
Vanessa stood by the window,
already texting her social circle about the impending "heir" announcement.
Margaret,
the matriarch,
sat in the corner,
her eyes fixed on the blank monitor.
She had never liked me,
but she adored the idea of a grandson who looked like Adrian.
Chloe leaned back on the exam table,
her smile triumphant,
her hand stroking her barely-visible bump.
“I can’t wait to see his face,” she whispered,
her voice like honey and poison.
Adrian leaned in and kissed her forehead,
“He’s going to be a king,
Chloe.”
“A Castillo who will lead us for the next fifty years.”
The door opened,
and Dr. Reynolds walked in,
but he wasn't smiling.
He wasn't carrying the usual excitement of a doctor about to show a new life.
He carried a thick blue folder,
and his face was the color of old parchment.
He didn't go to the ultrasound machine.
He went to his desk,
sat down,
and took a deep,
uncomfortable breath.
“Adrian,” he began,
using a first name because the Castillos had donated millions to this hospital.
“We ran the preliminary blood work from your last check-up,”
“alongside the genetic screening for the fetus.”
Adrian frowned,
his hand tightening on Chloe’s.
“And?
Is there a problem?
Is he healthy?”
Dr. Reynolds looked at Margaret,
then Vanessa,
then finally at Adrian.
“Mr. Castillo,”
“according to the records from your surgery three years ago,”
“and the follow-up tests we just concluded,”
“you are sterile.”
The silence that hit the room was deafening,
a physical weight that crushed the air out of the lungs of everyone present.
Adrian’s laughter was nervous,
a sharp,
jagged sound.
“That’s a joke,
right?
I have two kids,
Doctor.”
“Noah and Lily.”
The doctor shook his head slowly,
his eyes filled with a clinical pity.
“The surgery you had for that infection three years ago,”
“the one that was supposed to be a simple procedure,”
“had complications you were briefed on.”
“The scar tissue was extensive.”
“We told you then that your count had dropped to zero.”
Adrian’s face turned a ghostly shade of white,
his eyes darting to Chloe.
Chloe’s hand dropped from her stomach,
her breath catching in her throat.
“But...
Chloe is pregnant,” Adrian stammered,
his voice rising in pitch.
“She’s twelve weeks along!”
Vanessa stepped forward,
her voice shrill.
“What are you saying,
Doctor?
That the test is wrong?”
“Genetic testing is 99.9% accurate,
Vanessa,” Dr. Reynolds said,
opening the folder.
“Not only are you unable to father children,
Adrian,”
“but the DNA profile of this fetus has absolutely no markers,”
“that connect it to the Castillo bloodline.”
Margaret stood up,
her pearls clinking against her chest like a death rattle.
“Chloe?”
Adrian turned to the woman he had called his "real future,"
his eyes wild with a realization that was beginning to burn.
“Chloe,
what is he talking about?”
Chloe didn't answer at first.
She looked at the door,
then at the floor,
her eyes searching for an exit that didn't exist.
“Adrian,
I...
I can explain,” she whispered,
but the words were hollow.
“Explain?”
Adrian roared,
standing up so quickly the chair flipped backward.
“Explain how you’re carrying another man’s child,”
“while I was divorcing my wife for you?”
“While I was calling my own children ‘dead weight’?”
Vanessa backed away,
disgust written all over her face.
“You little tramp,” she hissed at Chloe.
“You used him.”
“You used all of us!”
Margaret walked over to Chloe and slapped her,
a sharp,
cracking sound that echoed in the room.
Chloe began to sob,
but there was no one to comfort her.
Adrian grabbed the medical folder and threw it across the room,
papers scattering like fallen leaves.
“Get out,” he said,
his voice a low,
menacing growl.
“Adrian,
please—”
“GET OUT!”
Chloe scrambled off the table,
grabbing her designer purse—the one I had seen in the bank records—and ran.
Adrian sat back down on the edge of the exam table,
his head in his hands.
“Three years,” he whispered to himself.
“Three years ago?”
His mind raced back to Noah and Lily.
If he had been sterile for three years,
it meant Noah and Lily were his.
The doctor had confirmed he was the father of the first two.
He had just thrown away his only biological children,
his only real legacy,
for a lie.
And Elena knew.
That was the thought that hit him like a physical blow to the stomach.
She knew about the surgery results.
She had been there for the follow-up appointments he had skipped.
She had tried to tell him,
and he had told her to shut up.
He reached for his phone,
his fingers trembling so much he almost dropped it.
He needed to call her.
He needed to stop that plane.
But as he dialed her number,
all he heard was the cold,
robotic voice of a disconnected line.
May you like
She wasn't just in Barcelona.
She was gone.
