Chapter 5: His Child
Sunlight filtered through the canopy of trees, casting soft golden rays along the gravel path that led to the Sterling estate. A black car rolled quietly over the white stones. Morning mist hadn’t fully lifted yet—it clung to the car windows in tiny droplets, glimmering like unshed tears.
Anna leaned her head against the window, her eyes vacant, following the fragmented light scattering outside. Her heart was still tangled in the emotions stirred up that morning at the hospital—especially the gaze of the man named Leon Sterling, the cold and enigmatic father of the child slowly growing inside her.
As the car slowed and came to a stop before the grand gate, Anna lifted her eyes to take in the view. The mansion was surrounded by towering old trees draped in moss and creeping vines. The black iron gate opened automatically, revealing a stone-paved path leading to the main hall—like a silent carpet inviting her in.
She stepped out of the car, her hand gently resting on her belly—still flat, but within it, a tiny life was quietly blooming.
A sudden chill wrapped around her. The air inside the mansion smelled of wealth—aged, dignified, and disciplined. The high walls were lined with beige wallpaper, crystal chandeliers glittered from above, and the ebony floors shone so brilliantly she could see her own reflection.
Yet all of it only deepened her loneliness.
She stood in a quiet corner of the estate, hand still resting on her belly—a place where a fragile life was silently beginning. She had just returned from the hospital, the thin wristband bearing the maternity ward’s name still clinging to her wrist. Though merely a strip of plastic, it felt like a binding chain to a contract she could no longer escape.
Just as she entered her room, her phone buzzed.
A new message appeared on the screen:
“The money has been transferred. The remaining amount will be sent once the baby is born.”
She stood still. Her eyes locked on the enormous sum displayed on her banking app. An amount that could change her entire life—or bury the very essence of who she was.
Her hands trembled. Was it from emotion? Or fear? She no longer knew.
“Everything truly begins now,” she whispered, her voice as fractured as a cracked glass at the bottom of her heart.
A faint smile ghosted across her lips. She couldn’t deny the relief—the knowledge that she could now cover her mother’s hospital bills, medication, and the long-awaited surgery. But almost instantly, that emotion was yanked back like a puppet on an invisible string—a string named doubt.
Was she doing the right thing?
A child, a life… it wasn’t a product. And she—the one nurturing that life—was she turning herself into a walking incubator?
A breeze slipped through the open window. Anna shivered. She pulled her arms around herself, as if only she could hold herself together.
Just then, the door behind her opened.
Footsteps, steady and deep. A familiar scent—cool and sharp, just like the man it belonged to.
Leon entered. No announcement. No greeting.
He stopped a few steps from her, his eyes glancing at the still-lit phone in her hand. He didn’t ask. She didn’t explain.
Only one sentence fell from his lips, cold and clear:
“Get some rest. Don’t do anything that could harm my child.”
Cold. Precise. Like an order.
And then he turned away, his tall frame fading into the long corridor, as if he had just finished a transaction with a machine designed solely to bear his heir.
Anna stood frozen in the quiet room. Sunlight through the window painted soft golden streaks across her face. Leon’s footsteps had long disappeared, but their echoes still lingered somewhere in her heart—each thud like a silent punctuation mark in a song that hadn’t yet found its end.
His silhouette—tall, distant, solitary—remained etched in her memory like a trail of smoke that refused to dissipate. There was something about him that made her uneasy. Not just the unnerving calmness he wore like armor, but his eyes—eyes brimming with things unsaid, secrets buried like frost beneath a winter that never knew sunlight.
“What is he hiding?” she asked herself, a vague, creeping unease unfurling in her chest. Every time their eyes met, she felt as though he was seeing straight through her—or perhaps looking far past her, into a place she could never reach.
She clutched the hem of her shirt tighter, a quiet storm building inside. Part of her wanted to believe that somewhere deep within that man was a heart that had once been broken—and was still learning how to love again. But another part… feared. Feared that Leon had no room for her. No room for anyone.
Anna turned away, her gaze still clinging to the door. In that moment, she felt like someone lost at a crossroad of fate—one path paved with gratitude, another tangled with emotions she didn’t dare to name. And between them… a man who had just walked away, carrying with him secrets that perhaps would never be revealed.
She thought again of what he had just said.
“Don’t do anything that could harm my child.”
My child.
Not the child.
Not our child.
Just his.
A dull ache twisted in her chest, but she understood. No matter what happened, the fact remained: she was not the biological mother of the baby inside her. She was just a vessel. A surrogate. In other words, she was nothing more than a breathing contract.
And yet, when she laid her hand gently on her stomach again, a strange warmth spread inside her. In that moment, there was no Leon. No contract. No money. Only her—and a tiny soul beginning its very first journey in the world.
Anna sat on the edge of the bed, drawing a deep breath. Her eyes drifted toward the window, where dusk had begun to fall, dyeing the sky in soft shades of violet.
“From now on, I have to live well—not just for myself, but for this baby too,” she whispered, stroking her belly.
Right or wrong, judged or forgotten… at the very least, she knew she was protecting something far more beautiful than any cold contract could ever promise.