The Proposal

19 - Act

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Three months later...

My life had pretty much turned upside down.

Every single aspect of my life was affected by the pregnancy act. Starting from my body, I started wearing an artificial pregnancy bump, which was customised to fit my belly and skin tone perfectly, just to keep up the pregnancy facade.

The attention and care I got from Elisabeth, Alma, and everyone in the palace was sweet, but it became annoyingly depressing so quickly. Elisabeth was literally always around me. She never let me go out much, for fear of putting myself and the baby in harm's way.

The pregnancy act also affected my career. No one wanted to let the pregnant queen take the part, which was very sad for me. Well, only at first. Since I couldn't act anymore, I went into directing. I became a director and started directing my own movies. I was very much happy about it.
It felt like a very big promotion and upgrade.

Nicholas made sure that happened. After all, it was his fault this was all happening to me.
I never thought for a second at the beginning that things would turn out this way.

As for Nicholas, we still shared the same room. Elisabeth had made it clear she wasn't leaving until the baby was born, and honestly, I was pretty pissed that Nicholas couldn't just declare we be in our separate rooms.

He kept sleeping on the sofa, but after a month, I felt pity for him and asked him to sleep on the bed with me. Well, I only felt pity because he fell off the sofa one night.
We started sleeping on the bed together, using pillows as our boundary and demarcation.

And as for the surrogate, she was three months along. Nicholas had already put her in a nice house and placed a maid and a driver for her. He made sure to visit her every weekend to make sure she was fine and healthy.

The doctor would also visit her often for checkups and prenatal care.

Everything that was happening was exhausting for me. I wanted out already.
Especially because Nicholas was so committed to taking care of the surrogate because of the baby.

It was a weekend, Nicholas was going to visit the surrogate, and I decided to tag along. I had never visited her before, so I didn't know if it was jealousy or mere curiosity.

I informed Nicholas about it and got ready. I put on my fake sizable bump and threw on a knee-length dress. Oh, and the fake bump was super uncomfortable for me, but I had no choice.

We finished getting ready and proceeded to leave, but just like a ghost, Elisabeth appeared out of nowhere and started questioning me.

"Crystal dear, where are you going? You know you shouldn't be leaving the palace in your condition, " she said. Heaven knows I was sick of hearing that. I was pregnant, not paralysed.

"I have a doctor's appointment, Beth," I said. Usually, I used that excuse to just go out, clear my head, get some drinks, and so on. But today, I had a different plan.

"Oh, where is Alma? Or the guard?" She asked, looking around frantically.

"There's no need for that. Nicholas is coming with me, " I informed her.

"I will be with her the whole time," Nicholas assured her.

"Okay, that sounds much better," she said, relaxing.