Ava
The car ride home was a silent tomb. My father drove, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. My mother stared straight ahead, her profile a mask of stiff resignation.
I sat in the back, pressed against the door, watching the glittering city blur past. My whole world had changed in the span of a morning.
Two weeks ago, I was just Clara's quiet sister. Now, I have a scandal. The problem. The solution. I was carrying a baby. I was engaged to a man who looked at me like I was a sentence to be served. I didn't love Ethan Van Horn.
I was terrified of him. And in a matter of days, I would vow to be his wife. It was the most unimaginable, unfortunate twist my life could have taken.
The grand Sterling home felt different when we entered. It wasn't a sanctuary anymore; it was just the scene of the crime.
Clara was waiting in the foyer, a storm contained in silk loungewear. She'd been pacing. The second the door shut, she erupted.
"You've succeeded, haven't you?" Her voice was a low, poisonous whip. "You got what you always wanted. I always knew you were jealous. Sitting in your corners, watching with those big, pathetic eyes. You saw what I had, and you decided to take it. You couldn't stand that I had the spotlight, the fiancé, the life. So you slithered into the dark and fucked him."
Each word was a scalpel, precise and meant to maim. I just stood there, taking it, the tears streaming down my face silently. I had no defense. In her story, I was the villain. Maybe I was.
"Clara, that's enough!" my mother snapped, stepping between us, placing a hand on my arm. But her comfort was brittle, automatic. She was consoling the vessel of the family's salvation, not me.
"Enough? It's not nearly enough!" Clara spat, her eyes blazing. "She's a lying, backstabbing bitch!"
"Go to your room, Ava," my father said, his voice weary. It wasn't protection; it was removal of the conflict object.
I didn't need to be told twice. I fled up the stairs, Clara's hissed insults following me like smoke. I locked my bedroom door behind me and slid to the floor, my back against it.
The sobs came then, ugly and wrenching, for everything lost and everything forced upon me.
It was hours later, the room dark, when I remembered my phone. I'd forgotten to call Sandra. She was my tether to reality, to a life that made sense.
She picked up on the third ring. "Hello, bestie! I was wondering where you vanished. How are you doing?"
The sound of her warm, normal voice broke the dam again. "I'm not good, Sandra. I'm… I'm not good at all."
"Whoa, okay, talk to me. What happened?"
And it all spilled out in a jumbled, tear-choked rush. The party. The champagne. The dark pool house. The one-night stand.
"With Ethan?" she interrupted, shock clear in her voice. "Ava, which Ethan? You don't mean… your sister's fiancé Ethan?"
"Yes," I whispered, the word heavy with guilt.
"Oh my gosh, Ava. What are you going to do?" Her tone shifted to immediate, practical concern. "Wait. You're not… you aren't thinking of… you can't abort that baby."
"No," I said, the first firm word I'd spoken all day. "Never. I would never." My hand drifted to my stomach. This child was an accident, a catastrophe, but it was mine.
I told her the rest. Morning sickness. The test. The awful scene at the dining table. The cold meeting at the Van Horn penthouse. The verdict.
"So… you're telling me," Sandra said slowly, processing, "that you are now engaged to marry Ethan Van Horn. The top one billionaire in New York. The guy from the magazine covers."
"It's not like that, Sandra. He hates me. I'm scared of him. He said it's a hostage situation. There's no love here."
"Okay, okay, breathe. I hear you. It's messed up. It's insane." A pause. Then, a note of her trademark pragmatic optimism crept in. "But bestie… you are getting married to a billionaire.
A handsome, powerful billionaire. Feelings can be… nurtured later. Or not! Either way, you and that baby will be set for life. This is… wow. This is big news."
It was so typically Sandra. She saw the terrifying cliff I was being pushed off and chose to focus on the possible safety net below. She couldn't see the gilded bars of the cage.
"I don't know how to do this," I confessed, my voice small.
"You don't have to know yet. We'll figure it out. I'm coming over first thing in the morning. We'll eat junk food and… process this. Okay? Hang tight."
The call ended. I sat in the dark, her words echoing. Nurture feelings later. You'll be set for life.
But all I could feel was the cold weight of the platinum band that would soon be on my finger, and the colder fire in the eyes of the man who would put it there. This wasn't a romance. It was a survival strategy, and I was the least equipped soldier on the field.
Ethan's pov
The silence of my penthouse was a mockery. It was supposed to be a sanctuary of control, of order. Now, it just echoed with the verdict
. I poured a whiskey, not the good stuff, something with a brutal burn. I needed to feel something other than this trapped, seething fury.
Clara.
The thought was a fresh wave of self-disgust. I hadn't just betrayed her; I'd annihilated our future with one stupid, reckless night.
And now I was being forced to make the betrayal permanent.
I pulled out my phone, my thumb hovering over her name. What could I possibly say? I'm sorry I got your sister pregnant, so I'm marrying her instead. The words were a farce. I pressed the call.
It rang. Once. Twice. Four times. Then went to a cold, robotic voicemail. She knew. Of course she knew. And she would never forgive me
. The finality of that unanswered ring felt like a door slamming shut in a part of my life that was supposed to be my future. I threw the phone onto the sofa. It bounced off the leather.
My own phone rang immediately, the screen lighting up with a group call from Oliver. I snatched it back.
"X up, Ethan. What the hell was that? Your father's summons sounded like a code red," Jae-min's voice came through, laced with concern.
I didn't speak. I took a long, burning swallow of whiskey.
"Ethan?" Oliver's voice, calmer. "What happened?"
"Ava's pregnant," I said, the words blunt and ugly in the pristine air.
The silence on the other end was a total of three full seconds.
"What?" Ji-hoon finally breathed.
"How?" Jae-min blurted. "I mean, we know how, but… how do your parents know?"
"She told hers," I said, the bitterness coating my tongue. "They convened a war council with mine. The marriage to Clara is cancelled."
Another chorus of stunned exclamations. I could picture their faces.
"So… what now?" Oliver asked, the question hanging heavily.
Now. Now I was in a cage. Now I was being forced to pay for a mistake my entire life. The anger, white-hot and desperate, focused into a single, sharp point: her. Ava Sterling. If she had just kept her mouth shut, if she had dealt with it quietly…
A plan, cold and clear, formed in the chaos. A strategy.
"Now," I said, my voice dropping to a flat, determined calm, "I marry her. I give the child my name. I fulfill the family's precious contract."
I paused, finishing the whiskey. "And I make sure it is the most miserable experience of her life. I will treat her with such consistent, frozen contempt that by the time the child is delivered, she will be begging to sign the divorce papers and run. She will leave on her own, and I will have upheld my duty without being permanently shackled to a stranger."
The line was quiet. It wasn't the reaction I expected.
"Ethan…" Oliver began, his tone cautionary.
"It's the only logical move," I cut him off, the logic a lifeline. "I didn't choose this, but I can control the outcome. She entered this to trap me into a family. I will show her the trap is lined with ice. She'll break. They always do."
I ended the call before they could argue. Their silence felt too much like judgment.
I looked out at the city lights, my kingdom of steel and glass. I'd built an empire in control. This was just another hostile takeover, another situation to be managed with ruthless precision.
My
wife would be my prisoner. And I would be her coldest, most unyielding warden. It was the only way to survive the sentence.