PREGNANT BY A STRANGER,CLAIMED BY A BILLIONAIRE

I woke up and did not know where I was.

The ceiling above me was not mine and neither was the color of the walls. The smell of an unfamiliar cologne soaked into the fabric, and my stomach turned before my brain had even fully switched on.

I sat up slowly, my head banging like it would split olin that way that only comes from drinking things you should not have mixed. I pressed two fingers to my temple and breathed through my nose and waited for the room to stop tilting.

That was when my eyes fell on the body beside me.

There was a man, and I had never seen those shoulders before. He wasn't Ryan.

There was a stranger in bed beside me and I was naked and my head hurt and I could not remember how any of this had happened.

I instantly jerked up, pulling the blanket over my open body. He had the blanket pulled up over his face, only dark hair visible against the pillow, his breathing slow and even.

I was disgusted by the sight of him beside me but he was sleeping like he had nothing to be ashamed of.

Last night was my birthday and Ryan had planned a surprise party. I remembered that part. I remembered walking into the hall and everyone shouting and the warmth of it, all those people I loved in one room. I remembered taking more champagne than I should have. I remembered dancing to the blaring music and laughter and Ryan spinning me once on the dancefloor with that stupid grin of his.

But that was all. My mind was like a clean, blank wall where the rest of the night should have been.

"Hey! Wake up." I reached over and shook the man.

He made a sound but didn't move.

"Wake up." I shook him harder, my voice dropping low without meaning to, like some part of me was scared of what would happen when he opened his eyes. "Get up right now."

Just then, the door burst open and I turned.

Ryan stood in the doorway still wearing his jacket, his keys in his hand. He had clearly been out looking for me. I watched his eyes move across the room from the strange shoes on the floor to the clothes that were not mine trying very hard to understand what they were seeing.

And then they finally fell on me, sitting up in the sheets of a bed that was not ours.

"Ryan."

His face was blank and unreadable and he said nothing and that terrified me.

"It is not what you think." I was already struggling on the bed, already dragging the sheet around me and moving toward him. "I swear to you, I do not know what happened. I don't remember, I can't remember anything after the party, I would never…"

The man in the bed stretched and reached for me without opening his eyes. His hand found my arm.

"Last night was something else," he murmured, pulling me toward him. "Come back here."

I snatched my arm away so fast I stumbled. "Don't you dare touch me."

He opened his eyes then and took in the image of Ryan standing in the doorway.

Ryan's jaw tightened and the vein at his temple instantly went visible.

"Get out." He said it quietly, the calmness of his voice worse than any yell. "Get out of this room before I help you out."

The man didn't seem terrified. On the contrary, he was too relaxed. But he read the room fast enough. He grabbed his things off the floor and slipped past Ryan without saying a word or meeting anyone's eyes.

The moment the door clicked shut behind him, the silence he left behind became suffocating.

"Ryan." My voice was barely audible. "Please look at me."

He looked at me.

"I don't know him. I have never seen him before in my life. If something really happened last night, I swear.”

“Oh, please, Sera. That’s a very convenient story.”

“I swear someone put something in my drink because I would never…"

“You disgust me.” He said and walked out, leaving me to the aching impact of his words.

I stood in the middle of that room wrapped in strange sheets and I could not move. I wanted to cry but the ache didn't go past the ball in my throat and the tears refused to fall.

………….

Six weeks after.

Six weeks of Ryan sleeping on the same bed but facing away. Of dinners where the only sounds were cutlery and the television neither of us was watching. Of him saying "fine" when I asked how his day was and of me saying "fine" back, both of us performing a marriage that had stopped feeling like one.

I stopped trying to explain after the second week. I had said everything there was to say. I truly didn't remember and I obviously would never.

He said he did believe me but his eyes and actions said otherwise.

Until five days ago. I don't know what happened but I was in the kitchen and he came and stood behind me and put his arms around me. He didn't say a word, just held on, and I felt him exhale like he had been holding his breath for the last five weeks.

When I turned around he kissed me the way he used to kiss me before everything, and I held onto him like he was the only solid thing in the room.

That night we found each other again. Ryan fucked me so hard it felt like he was letting go of all the pain with every thrust.

But I didn't mind. I had told myself it meant we were going to be alright.

But now, here I was standing in the bathroom and staring at two pink lines on a white stick. And as the coldness spread through my chest, I came to a realisation that nothing was ever going to be alright. Nothing was anywhere close to alright.

A pregnancy test does not turn positive in five days. Every woman knows this. I knew this.

So I knew what these two lines meant. And I knew whose this was not.

The stick was shaking in my hand. Or I was shaking... I couldn't tell anymore.

"Sera?" Ryan's voice came from the hallway. His footsteps stopped outside the door. I panicked in my heart but my body refused to move. So when he opened, he saw the stick.