I get two days of pretending everything's normal before Dr. Volkov calls my father.
I'm in my room when I hear Dad's voice echo through the house.
"AURORA! GET DOWN HERE NOW!"
Oh God.
I take the stairs slowly. Every step feels deliberate, like I'm giving myself time to build walls I know won't hold.
Dad's in his office. Dr. Volkov's gone. The test results are spread across the desk — my test results, the ones I hid in the back of my drawer, the ones I thought no one would find. I can see the highlighted numbers from here.
HCG: Positive.
Estimated gestation: 4 weeks.
Dad's not looking at the papers. He's looking at me.
That's worse.
I've seen him angry before — seen him put men in hospitals, heard the quiet phone calls that ended careers, ended lives. But those times, his face was readable. Fury I can understand. This is something else. His expression is closed, settled. Like he already did the calculations while waiting for me to come down the stairs, and he didn't like the answer, but he has one.
"Sit down, Aurora."
I sit.
He doesn't. He moves to the window, hands clasped behind his back, and looks out at the gardens for a long moment.
"You're pregnant."
Not a question.
"Yes."
"Who is the father?"
Axel.The name sits behind my teeth. I can't say it — can't tell him I gave myself to a man I just met.
"I don't know," I say. The lie tastes like rust.
He turns then. Looks at me with an expression that makes me feel twelve years old and caught and ashamed.
"You don't know," he repeats, very quietly.
"It was—" I stop. There's no version of this sentence that helps me.
"It was what? A mistake?" He crosses to his desk and sits. Steeples his fingers. "I sent you to university to get an education, Aurora. To come back with a degree, credentials, and a future that made the investment worthwhile. I gave you four years of freedom, more than most girls in your position ever see." He pauses. "And you came back with this."
This.Notyou're pregnant.Notmy grandchild.This. Already, it's just a problem to be managed.
"I'm sorry," I say, because I don't have anything else.
"Sorry is a beginning." He opens a drawer, pulls out a notepad. Uncaps a pen. The casualness of it is more frightening than shouting would be. "Now we deal with it. You'll go to the countryside estate tomorrow. You'll stay there until the baby is born. Marco will arrange a doctor who comes to you — no hospital, no records that trace back to this house."
"Dad—"
"I'm not finished." He doesn't raise his voice. Doesn't need to. "When it's over, we'll discuss what happens next. What arrangements will be possible for your future, given your circumstances. There are options." He writes something on the notepad I can't read from here. "There are always options for a woman who knows how to be discreet."
My hand goes to my stomach before I can stop it.
