Crown of the Empire

Chapter 37

Chapter 37

The Takedo estate had four hundred staff, sprawling gardens manicured like they'd been touched by angels with hedge clippers, and a library bigger than most people's houses. But right now? It was silent. Too silent.

Solene and Jules had left an hour ago, still laughing about their little pharmacy theater production. I should've been amused. Hell, any other day I would've written their performance into my personal mental comedy file: "Chapter 48, Queer Couple Buys Pregnancy Test."

But all I could do was stare at the little white stick sitting on the nightstand like it owned me. Two pink lines. So simple. So absolute.

Pregnant.

It wasn't a word you could argue with. It wasn't a number on a balance sheet you could massage into looking better. It wasn't a scandal you could reframe with a press release. It wasn't even like my father's boardroom threats, which could be shredded with enough wit and stock percentages.

This was biology. Brutal, undeniable biology.

I paced the room for what had to be the fiftieth time, silk pajama pants brushing against marble floors. My reflection in the mirror looked feral—hair falling out of its clip, mascara smudged from earlier tears I'd deny to my grave, and a gaze I didn't even recognize.

"This wasn't supposed to happen," I muttered, glaring at the stick. "Not now. Not like this."

The timing was cruel. ME Bank had barely sprouted and already it was eclipsing Vergara Banking like an empire swallowing a dying dynasty. The world was finally starting to see me for who I was, not just my father's daughter, not just an heiress with sharp teeth and prettier gowns. I was building something real. Something mine.

And now... this.

Pregnant.

I pressed my palms to the edge of the dresser, bowing my head until my hair curtained my face.

Karsten Vergara would laugh himself hoarse if he knew. He'd sneer about how predictable it was that in the end, I'd be "reduced" to motherhood. He'd say I was proving his point, that a woman could never be more than her womb. He'd raise his glass of brandy and toast my downfall.

The thought made bile rise in my throat.

I wanted to scream. But screaming wouldn't help. Screaming wouldn't change the fact that I had two pink lines telling me the universe had other plans for me.

The cruelest part?

A flicker inside me didn't hate it.

That flicker terrified me.

Because I had never, ever wanted to be like my mother. Trapped in that gilded Vergara estate, her worth whittled down to the one daughter she managed to produce before her body failed her. Watching her husband treat her like a defective machine instead of a partner. I had sworn to myself—sworn—that would never be me.

And now here I was. A woman, alone in a bedroom, wondering if she'd just become the very thing she spent her whole life running from.

I sat down on the edge of the bed, elbows on my knees, staring at my bare feet like they might have answers. My chest was tight. My head buzzed with questions that felt heavier than any quarterly report I'd ever handled.

Do I want this?

Can I do this?

Will Nikolai want this?

The last question lodged like glass in my throat.

Nikolai Sebastian Romanov Takedo. Clinical, calculating, maddeningly calm. A man who turned every boardroom into a chessboard and every conversation into a negotiation. The man who looked at me like I wasn't fragile porcelain but forged steel—and then infuriated me by being right.