FORBIDDEN THRONE Stepfathers Claim

I'm staring at a document that just erased the last thread of my sanity.

I've pinched myself so many times that my skin has turned bright pink. Yet...I haven't woken up from this nightmare that seems to be my life and reality.

Dr. Carter sits across from me, his hands folded over a tan folder, looking everywhere but at my face.

"Can...can you repeat yourself?" I ask the doctor, hoping that I misheard him the first time. Because this can't be real. This can't be real.

"I'm sorry, Miss Emily," he says. His voice is small, lacking the professional confidence he usually carries. "There was a clerical error in the lab. A mislabeling during the cryopreservation retrieval."

"What...what does that mean?"

He adjusts in his seat. "The embryo we implanted... it wasn't created with Julian Thorne's samples. The sperm used belonged to another donor."

I wrap my arms around my middle, feeling the slight curve of my belly through the thin fabric of my floral dress. This child is my anchor. Since Julian's car spun out on that rain-slicked highway a month ago, this pregnancy has been the only thing keeping me from sinking. The doctors said Julian might never wake up from the coma, and his parents begged me to use the samples he'd frozen before we even got engaged. They wanted a piece of him to live on. I wanted it more.

"No," I say, shaking my head slowly. My voice is so calm it surprises me. "No, that's not right. We... we used Julian's sample. That's what we agreed on. That's what I signed for."

"Miss Emily-"

"I went through weeks of treatment," I snap, and the calm in my voice is gone. "Hormones. Injections. Blood tests. You told me everything was fine. You told me this would work."

"It did work," he says gently. "You are pregnant." Then his voice reduces. "But the biological father is not Julian Thorne."

A tear rolls down my cheek before I can stop it, and I angrily swat it away.

"That's not my child," I say confidently, as if my confidence can erase the truth.

"It is your child," he says. "Genetically, you are the mother."

I glare at him for a few seconds and then I laugh. It's a bitter, humorless sound. "It's not my child with my fiancé. I wanted a baby with the man I love. The man I'm going to marry. I did everything right. I followed every step. I trusted you."

"I understand how difficult this is-"

"No, you don't!" I yell, banging my shaking hands against the table. "You don't understand what this means."

Because Julian might never wake up. Because this child was supposed to be the only piece of him I'd have left. Because I built my entire future around this one thing.

"I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?" I scoff. "You didn't lose my luggage, Doctor. You lost the last living piece of my fiancé. Julian is in a coma. He might never wake up, and you've filled me with-with what? Some random guy's DNA?"

The irony is a jagged pill in my throat. I spent six weeks pumping myself full of hormones, bruising my thighs with needles.

"I want it out," I say calmly. "Terminate the pregnancy. We'll redo the cycle. I'm not carrying a 'coding error' to term."

"Miss Emily. The hospital board is prepared to offer you a settlement of one million dollars," Dr. Carter continues quickly, his face pale. "Along with a full refund and the best prenatal care money can buy, provided you sign a non-disclosure agreement."

I stand up so fast my chair screeches against the linoleum. One million dollars. They want to pay me off for a stranger's child. I look at the framed degrees on his wall, the anatomical charts, the little plastic models of life, and I feel a wave of heat wash over my neck. My skin feels too tight for my body.

"One million dollars?" I whisper. Another tear slides down my face and that chilling calm returns. I am slipping between calm and rage, and I have no way of controlling it.

"I... I don't want your money," I say. "I want this," I point to my belly. "Gone."

His expression tightens. "I'm afraid that may not be advisable-"

"I don't care. Get. Rid. Of. It."