A cold dread seized Elara. Alexander stood over her, his eyes blazing, the DNA report crumpled in his white-knuckled fist. Each ragged breath he took vibrated with an unspoken fury, a silent roar more terrifying than any shout.
“Explain,” he ground out, his voice a low, dangerous growl. “Tell me how you could keep my daughter from me. For five years.”
Elara’s chest tightened, a desperate plea catching in her throat. She gripped the hospital bedrail, knuckles equally white. Lily’s soft, even breathing was the only sound breaking the suffocating silence.
“Alexander, please,” she finally managed, her voice barely a whisper. “It wasn’t like that. You have to understand.”
He scoffed, a harsh, humorless sound. “Understand? I understand that you lied. That you stole five years of her life from me. Five years I could have watched her grow, taught her, protected her.”
His gaze pierced her, accusatory and full of betrayal. “What kind of person does that, Elara? What kind of monster?”
A fresh wave of tears welled in her eyes, blurring his enraged face. “I never meant to hurt you. Or Lily.”
“Then why?” His voice rose, a sharp edge cutting through her fragile composure. “Give me one good reason. One honest explanation for this colossal deception.”
Her mind raced, desperately searching for the right words, the words that wouldn’t make her sound like the villain he clearly saw. The fear she’d lived with for so long resurfaced.
“I was alone,” she began, her voice trembling. “After… after that night, you just disappeared. I couldn’t find you.”
Alexander’s jaw clenched, a muscle twitching near his temple. “I called. I left messages. You never returned them.”
“My phone was stolen,” she blurted, the memory vivid. “A few days after. Everything was gone – my contacts, my photos. I had no way to reach you.”
He glared, unconvinced. “And that excuses five years of silence? No other way to contact me? No one else knew where I was?”
“I considered it,” Elara admitted, looking away. “For weeks. But then… I saw the news. About your engagement. To the heiress.”
She risked a glance back at him, seeing the surprise flicker in his eyes. “You were everywhere. Magazines, tabloids. The perfect couple, the powerful families uniting.”
A bitter taste filled her mouth. “I knew then. You had moved on. You had a life, a future, planned with someone else.”
Alexander’s anger seemed to falter, replaced by a flicker of confusion. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Everything!” she cried, a raw vulnerability breaking through. “I was a nobody, Alexander. An intern. No family, no connections. What would I have said? ‘Congratulations on your engagement, by the way, you’re also going to be a father’?”
Her voice cracked. “I imagined the headlines. The scandal. How it would ruin your life. Your career. Your family would despise me. They would tear me apart.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, remembering the terror. “I was so scared. Scared of what they would do. Scared of what *you* would do. Would you believe me? Would you think I was trying to trap you?”
Opening her eyes, she met his stare, pleading. “I truly believed you wouldn’t want her. Not with everything you had. I thought it would be easier for everyone if I just… handled it myself.”
“Easier?” Alexander roared, his calm shattering once more. His fists clenched and unclenched. “You think denying a child her father, denying a father his child, was the *easier* option?”
He paced the small space, each step heavy, a predator cornered. “You made a choice, Elara. A selfish choice. You decided what was best for *me* without ever asking me. Without ever telling me the truth.”
“I was young,” she whispered, tears streaming freely now. “Naive. Terrified. I didn’t have anyone to guide me. My mother was gone, I had no father. I just wanted to protect Lily. From the scrutiny. From the judgment.”
Her gaze drifted to Lily’s sleeping face. “I wanted to give her a normal life, a quiet life, away from all of that. I thought I was doing the right thing for *her*.”
Alexander stopped his pacing, his broad shoulders heaving. He stared at her, his expression a mix of fury and something else she couldn’t quite decipher – hurt, perhaps, or profound disappointment.
“You thought,” he bit out, each word a shard of ice. “You made decisions for us, for our child, based on assumptions and fear. You took away my right to know. To choose.”
He moved closer, his towering presence engulfing her. “You kept Lily’s existence a secret, even when I found you again. Even when we worked together. You never once hinted at the truth.”
“I was going to,” she insisted, shaking her head. “After… after what happened tonight. I saw her here, so small, so vulnerable. I knew I couldn’t keep it from you anymore. I was going to tell you.”
Alexander’s eyes narrowed, cold and hard. “Too little, too late, Elara. The truth came out because *I* found it. Not because you finally decided to be honest.”
He straightened, his voice dropping to a dangerous register that sent shivers down her spine. “You have stolen my child and my trust. Now, you will pay the price.”