"Did you see this?" Tessa asked, popping her head over my cubicle wall, phone in hand. "A pic of you and Rhys Montgomery going at it on the balcony last night just hit Arch-Gossip."

"Rumors. We were discussing a project," I said, keeping my eyes locked on the screen.

"Right." She raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Because the rumor is you nearly shoved him off the balcony. And by 'shoved,' I mean hands, body, and eye contact that could melt steel."

I clicked open a complex CAD file, a little too forcefully. "That source needs to get their eyes checked."

Across the atrium, Rhys was leaning against the coffee bar, effortlessly charming some socialite trying to get into real estate. He whispered something in her ear, and she giggled, tilting her head back like he'd just delivered the wittiest line in history. I hated the perfect way his shirtsleeves were rolled up his forearms. I hated even more that I noticed.

I cleared my throat. "Don't you have a model to print?"

Tessa huffed. "Fine, fine. But I'm calling dibs on your corner office if he declares all-out war over the next landmark project."

She vanished. I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding and leaned back in my chair. A sudden wave of nausea rolled over me, making the lines on my monitor swim. My stomach churned.

I snapped my laptop shut and stood.

It was nothing, I told myself. Too many late nights, too much caffeine. A weekend of sleep would fix it.

A month later, the morning sickness hadn't gone away; it had intensified. The world tilted precariously every time I stood up too fast.

At the corner drugstore, I bought seltzer, saltine crackers, and—because I was apparently now the star of my own terrible romantic comedy—three different brands of pregnancy tests. It was just stress, I rationalized. Hormones. A late period. Project deadlines. It was not champagne and a penthouse and Rhys's hands on my waist as I drunkenly argued with him over who owned the goddamn skyline.

Back home, I paced the length of my bathroom as if the motion could somehow alter reality. The three tests lay on the marble counter, a jury waiting to deliver its verdict.

Three minutes.

I turned on the exhaust fan. I counted the floor tiles. I tried not to look.

I looked.

Two pink lines.

And another two pink lines.

No.

I snatched up the third, the digital one, my hand shaking.

The screen was brutally clear: PREGNANT.

PREGNANT.

It felt like being handed an impossible building commission, a fatal miscalculation. I sank to the floor, the cold bathroom tiles a shock against my spine.

Somewhere in the apartment, my phone buzzed.

A text from Chloe:

"Survived the gala? And what's the real story with you and Rhys?"

I flipped the phone facedown on the floor.

Tomorrow at the office, people would keep gossiping about the same petty rivalries. About who landed the new high-rise. About whispers in conference rooms.

But I would be walking around with a secret big enough to change the entire Chicago skyline.

I placed a hand on my still-flat stomach. There was nothing there. Just a silent, terrifying, foundational truth.

My career. My future. My baby.

Hiding behind a hat and sunglasses, I slipped into a discreet OB-GYN clinic on Chicago's Gold Coast for my first ultrasound. Anonymous. Safe. Or so I thought.

Until I saw him.

Rhys Montgomery.

I froze mid-stride.

He was gliding through the waiting room like he owned it, all sharp lines in a bespoke shirt, one hand resting possessively on a supermodel's waist. They were laughing. She held a pregnancy pamphlet, pointing something out to him.

My stomach twisted into a knot tighter than any morning sickness had managed.

I spun on my heel, my heart hammering against my ribs. The appointment card in my wallet felt like a razor's edge. My ultrasound.

I didn't move. I couldn't.

I stared at the abstract art on the wall for a full thirty seconds, my mind a blank wall of static, and then I bolted.

Outside, the sun was too bright, the sky too blue. I walked. Fast. Aimlessly. Just to put distance between me and that waiting room. My flats were giving me blisters within three blocks, but I didn't stop.

Not until I reached the Chicago River.

There, I shoved the appointment booklet deep into a public trash can, burying it under discarded coffee cups and newspapers.

He had someone.

Of course he did.

Why wouldn't he?

He was Rhys Montgomery—real estate wunderkind, media darling, the Prince of the Chicago Skyline.

I was Sloane Ashford. The Blueprint Queen. How bitterly ironic.

A gull shrieked overhead. I wished I could do the same.

When I finally dragged myself home, I collapsed onto the couch. I opened a new folder on my laptop, titled "Project Phoenix," and began mapping out single motherhood with the same ruthless efficiency I'd apply to a project kickoff.

Budget calculators. Grinning bloggers with pregnancy-safe recipes. A forum post titled: How to Tell the Father to Get Lost (When He's Already Moved On).

I slammed my laptop shut.

Stared at the ceiling.

Listened to my heart beat, a metronome knocked painfully out of sync.

The image of that discarded booklet was seared into my mind.

A reminder.

A structural fracture that showed no signs of healing.