Toxic Deception

Clara

The examination table paper crinkles beneath my palms as the doctor lowers her clipboard, offering me a sympathetic look.

“I’m so sorry to bring you this news, Clara,” my physician says gently. “The test results show that your ovarian reserve is severely depleted. Honestly, these numbers typically belong to women ten or fifteen years older than you.”

“What?” I breathe out, unable to process what she is telling me. I have been actively trying to conceive for years. At just thirty years old, my body should still have plenty of viable eggs left.

“When it comes to your fertility window, you are practically out of time,” she continues softly. “If you still want to carry a biological child, you have to conceive right away—before your next menstrual cycle starts.”

“Before my next cycle?” I echo, my jaw dropping in disbelief. I adore children more than anything in this world, and while it might not be every woman’s ultimate goal, becoming a mother is all I have ever wanted.

I need to get home and tell my boyfriend immediately. We do not have a single second to lose.

Rushing back to our apartment in record time, I push open the front door and part my lips to call out for Trent, only to freeze in the entryway. Sitting right by the threshold are a designer handbag and a pair of high heels—and neither of them are mine.

Tilting my head toward the hallway, I feel a wave of nausea roll through my stomach as loud, unmistakable moans filter out from our bedroom, paired with a rhythmic *thump, thump, thump* of the headboard slamming against the drywall. Realizing Trent is in our bed with another woman is awful enough, but recognizing who she is makes it infinitely worse. I know those heels and that purse by heart; they belong to Sloane, my best friend.

“God, Clara is such an idiot,” Trent laughs from inside the room. “Can you believe she seriously expects me to knock her up?”

Sloane lets out a derisive snort. “She’s completely delusional. I honestly have no clue how you’ve tolerated her for this long.”

“If she wasn’t so damn hot, I wouldn’t have looked twice at her,” Trent scoffs. “Luckily, slipping her daily doses of Plan B kept her from ever getting pregnant.”

“Wait, the morning-after pill?” Sloane asks. “How on earth did you get her to take that without noticing?”

“Mixed it right into her morning coffee,” Trent chuckles, sounding thoroughly pleased with himself.

Red clouds my vision as every agonizing piece of the puzzle finally clicks into place. Now I know why years of unprotected sex multiple times a week never resulted in a pregnancy. It also explains why a thirty-year-old woman suddenly has the egg count of a forty-five-year-old. My own partner has been covertly dosing me with emergency contraception every single morning—and God only knows what kind of permanent damage those hormones have inflicted on my reproductive system.

Acting on pure instinct before I can second-guess myself, I reach over and yank the fire alarm lever on the wall, desperate to terrify and punish them before I lose control and physically attack them both. Freezing water immediately bursts from the ceiling sprinklers as an ear-splitting siren blares through the apartment, followed by sharp yelps of panic from the bedroom.

Seconds later, the two of them bolt out into the hall, skidding to a halt when they spot me standing near the front door. Trent’s eyes bug out of his head. “What are you doing back so early?”

The nerve of this snake, sounding offended that I caught him off guard when he has been fooling around behind my back for who knows how long. Realizing how damning it looks for him and Sloane to be standing there dripping wet in their underwear, he scrambles to cover his tracks. “Sloane stopped by so we could plan a surprise party for your birthday, and then we accidentally spilled hot coffee all over ourselves and had to strip down.”

Fury burns through my veins. He really must think I am brainless if he expects me to swallow such a pathetic lie.

Still, I schools my features into a gullible, naive mask, and it speaks volumes about how little they respect my intelligence that they actually buy my act. Silently, I swear to make them both pay for what they have done. I wasted the best years of my life on this trash, and his deceit might have just cost me my dream of motherhood. The moment that reality hits me, I know I cannot waste another minute standing here with Trent when my biological clock is ticking down.

Making a quick excuse to leave, I hurry back out the door and race across the city for the second time today, heading straight for the safe haven of my surrogate sister, Tessa. We grew up side by side in the same orphanage, and she went on to become an OBGYN at the most prestigious sperm bank in town. I never asked for her professional help before because I assumed Trent and I would have a baby naturally, but that dream is dead now.

Even if I could miraculously find a willing guy before my cycle starts, Trent’s betrayal has completely shattered my ability to trust another man. I have to do this alone, and Tessa is the only person who can help me make it happen. My bank account isn’t huge, but I have enough tucked away in savings to cover a single intrauterine insemination—which is all the time my body will allow anyway.

Every intention of calmly explaining my predicament vanishes the second I walk into Tessa’s office and see her face. Breaking down completely, I collapse into her arms while she holds me tight and presses comforting kisses to my hair, coaxing the whole ugly truth out of me between sobs. Hearing about Trent and Sloane’s affair has her cursing a blue streak, yet that pales in comparison to her explosive anger when I tell her about the spiked coffee and my ruined egg reserve.

“That little bastard! I’ll murder him!” she rages, her expression shifting to deep concern as she examines my face. “Clara, if your doctor’s assessment is accurate, you literally have one single shot left to get pregnant.”

“I know,” I sniffle, wiping my cheeks. “And since this is going to be my only child, I can’t afford any mistakes. I need the absolute best donor in your facility.”

“You don’t have to worry about quality here,” Tessa promises, rubbing my shoulder. “We hold samples from top scientists, models, and actors—only the absolute elite make the cut.” Glancing toward her closed office door, she drops her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “You didn’t hear this from me, okay? Even Kaelen Thorne recently sent his genetic material here for specialized testing.”

“Kaelen Thorne?” I repeat, blinking in shock. “The billionaire?”

I have spotted the man around the neighborhood before, though we obviously live in completely different worlds. His massive estate sits right down the street from the wealthy family I work for as a nanny, and while he occasionally greets the kids when we walk past, he is perpetually flanked by armed security and radiates such an intimidating aura that just thinking about him gives me chills.

“Oh, god!” Tessa claps both hands over her mouth, her eyes wide. “I should not have said that out loud! I don’t know what came over me. Word is he’s dealing with some private fertility complications of his own, and he chose our lab over every other clinic in the country to test his swimmers. His sample is literally sitting in the next room right now.” She grabs my hands, fretting anxiously. “Clara, you have to swear you won’t breathe a word of this to anyone.”

“I swear!” I assure her right away. “I know how strict medical confidentiality is here.”

“Thank you,” Tessa exhales in relief. “Alright, let me grab the client dossiers so you can browse the available profiles. Once you pick your guy, we’ll get this procedure done before you can even blink.”

Flipping through the thick binder is overwhelming, yet I eventually settle on a gorgeous orthopedic surgeon whose photograph nearly takes my breath away. Tessa steps out into the adjacent lab to prep the vial, and although she looks noticeably pale and flustered when she walks back in, she carries out the insemination with swift professionalism, squeezing my hand warmly once it is over.

“Everything is taken care of, Clara,” she says softly. “Come back to see me in ten days, and we’ll run a test to see if it took.”

Ten days, I think, staring up at the ceiling in a daze. Just ten days to find out what the rest of my life will look like.

I have no idea that by the time those ten days are up, my future won’t belong to me anymore—it will belong entirely to Kaelen Thorne.