*****Flashback ****
It had been exactly a week since Aurora had left Mark's house. She could still remember the look on his face when she walked out that door rage coated in desperation. But what he didn't see was the storm inside her chest, the ache of leaving a man she loved more than her own pride, and the weight of knowing they were broken beyond repair.
She was staying with her father now. In a room she hadn't slept in since she last visited It was filled with luxury, but it didn't feel like home. Nothing did anymore.
She'd brushed off the dizziness as exhaustion. Dismissed the nausea as stress. But when she found herself snapping at Gianna for no reason and crying uncontrollably because her toast was burnt she knew something was off.
That morning, she took the test.
The bathroom was quiet. Almost too quiet. She couldn't even hear the bodyguards outside or Gianna humming downstairs. Two minutes later, her heart stopped.
Two pink lines.
Her knees gave way and she collapsed to the cold marble floor, the test clutched in her trembling hands. Tears flooded her eyes not from regret or fear but a strange, heavy mix of joy and grief.
She was going to be a mother.Mark's child was growing inside her. Her hand instinctively traveled to her stomach, even though there was barely a bump to touch. "You're real," she whispered through a soft sob. "You're real…"
She cried until she couldn't anymore.
The betrayal, the violence, the confusion it all faded away for a moment. And in its place stood a quiet kind of love. The kind that wrapped itself around her like a secret blanket. But just as quickly, reality returned like a slap.
He would never know. She stood up, wiped her tears, and made a decision. Mark had already proven what he was capable of when pushed. She couldn't risk him being in her child's life not until she knew for sure who he really was. Until then, this baby was hers and hers alone.
She told Angel that evening.
The moment the words left her lips, her best friend screamed and hugged her tightly, crying into her shoulder.
"Are you okay?" Angel asked between sniffles. "I don't know," Aurora admitted. "But I'm going to be. And you cannot tell Mark."
Angel hesitated, clearly torn, but nodded. "I swear."
But Maxwell?
Maxwell was Mark's brother in every way except blood. She told him two days later curled up beside him on the their estate's private rooftop, trying to make sense of it all.
"Promise me you won't tell him," she begged.
Maxwell nodded, but something in his eyes shifted. And she knew, right then, that the promise would break. Mark received the news while on a flight back from Miami. Maxwell had called him with a voice thick with emotion.
"She's pregnant, man. Aurora's pregnant."
Silence. Then a single word from Mark, choked out like it had been caught in his throat for hours: "What?"
"She didn't want you to know. Angel told me, and I shouldn't have said anything but… I couldn't not tell you." Mark closed his eyes, hands trembling. A baby. Their baby.
Despite everything the hurt , the accusations, the silence Aurora had been carrying their child. He was silent the entire flight. Not a word.
But when he touched down in New York, he didn't go to her. He stood outside the Riverson mansion in the rain that night, watching the windows of her room light up briefly. And he whispered to the wind, "You're not keeping my child from me, Aurora."