THE BILLIONAIRES SECRET SON BETRAYAL AND BLOODLINE

"Wake up, Mother!" I shouted at the top of my lungs. My voice cracked as I held the cold hands of my mother and shook her softly. "I'm here! I've brought the money with me! Mother, wake up!"

There was silence in the room.

The beeping machines had stopped. The doctors and nurses stood stock still, their faces filled with pity. No one moved, no one sprang forward to help.

I clutched the lapel of the doctor's apron frantically. "What do you just stand there for? I have the money now-look! Here's the $10,000 you insisted upon to save my mother's life! Do something!"

His face was unreadable. His eyes flashed with something I did not want to see-the end.

"Miss Carter..." his voice was gentle, but I didn't want gentleness. All I ever desired was my mother.

"No!" I shook my head frantically, clinging to my mother's hand as if my own could compel her back. "Doctor, do something! See-she's speaking to me! She's breathing, she's clinging! You must try-"

"Sorry," he said to me, and those two words sliced through me like a blade. "She's gone."

Gone?

No-no-no. That wasn't possible. I was only a few minutes late. I rushed. I begged. I did everything I could.

"No! She's not gone! You can't do that! Do your job and get her back!"

Nobody moved.

The ground tipped away from me. All the things I had-all the things I coveted-every battle, every reason I'd ever had to survive-slipped through my fingers in the split second.

A harsh, ugly sob tore out of my throat as I clasped my dead mother's body against mine. She'd been my diamond, my only ray of light in this hard and oppressive world-and she was dead.

Tears blurred my vision as I buried my forehead against hers, my body convulsing with shuddering spasms. "Mother, please... don't leave me. I need you. I have no idea how to do this without you."

Before I was even able to still reel in my sorrow, a hand brushed across my shoulder. I startled.

"Miss Carter, we need-"

"Don't touch me!" I yelled, my words echoing off the cold hospital room. My chest labored hard, the weight of my sorrow crashing down on me like an iron cage.

I couldn't breathe.

I couldn't think.

I couldn't exist in a world that she was not in.

When I didn't think that it could possibly hurt anymore, there was yet another tragedy.

The weight of yet another shattering reality slammed me like a hurricane.

I was pregnant.