Chapter 11
I secretly threw my birth control pills into the fireplace and watched them crackle into ash. One by one. Pill by pill. Like burning away the only thing standing between me and the crown I’ve been clawing toward since the day I stepped into this cursed family.
I started sleeping in Harvick’s bed every night. Not just lying beside him like some forgotten wif -but making noise. Loud noise. Just enough for the staff to hear, just enough to echo down the hallway and remind them I was still the one in his sheets.
One night, he was drunk. Real drunk. I could smell it on his skin, on his breath, on his sweat. And I knew, this was my chance.
He didn’t resist when I climbed on top of him. He didn’t flinch when I whispered sweet things intc his ear. He touched me. He entered me. He groaned into my neck and gripped my hips like he meant it.
And when it was over, he collapsed into the mattress and said her name.
“Danica…”
Just like that. Soft. Drunken. Broken.
I froze.
Everything inside me twisted like a snapped violin string, and before I could stop myself, I slapped him across the face. Hard. He didn’t even respond. He just blinked and rolled over like I
wasn’t even there.
I packed a robe and stormed out, slamming the door behind me, and I slept in the guest room like some discarded mistress. I cried until morning–not because I was hurt, but because I was furious. Because even in death, that bitch still had power over him.
So I did what any woman like me would do.
I faked it.
Two weeks later, I came down to breakfast pale and trembling, with a stick clutched in my hand and real tears I triggered with eyedrops. I walked barefoot down the stairs like a ghost. Like a girl who didn’t mean to get pregnant but now carried the last piece of a man still haunted by a dead
iancée.
He looked up from his coffee. Blank. Hungover. Quiet.
took a shaky breath and whispered, “I didn’t plan this, Harvick. I swear. But maybe this… maybe his is a sign. Maybe it’s a new beginning for us.”
He said nothing. Just stared.
waited. Then I knelt beside him and placed the stick on the table.
‘Two lines,” I whispered, voice cracking. “You’re going to be a father again.”
Still silence. I leaned closer and brushed his hand with mine.
‘I won’t call you Jeremiah anymore. Just Harvick. I know she’s gone now. And I know deep down Danica wanted us to be happy. Please… don’t let this baby die too. She killed your first child, but
me? I would never do that.”
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I wiped away the fake tears, sniffled like a scared girl, and added, “I only have a few months left but I hope to God I live long enough to deliver your child.”
I didn’t blink as I said it. I didn’t flinch. I just begged like I was on a fucking stage. He moved slowly. Wrapped his arms around me and kissed my forehead. Whispered, “I’m sorry,” like a mar trying to convince himself of something that never existed.
Later that night, I saw him in the study again, drunk, dead–eyed, and swaying. He threw something across the room and it shattered against the wall. I crept closer and saw it.
Danica’s ultrasound photo.
Ripped. Destroyed.
I smiled in the dark and whispered, “Checkmate.”
DANICA’S POV
After my fake death, my brother Peter brought me to a private estate deep in Nerona, where the trees were tall enough to keep secrets and the walls were thick enough to keep ghosts out. It was quiet here. No more guards watching my every move. No more Elodie’s perfume poisoning the air. No more Harvick pretending to be someone he wasn’t.
Just silence.
It’s been weeks since the crash. Maybe more. I stopped counting. I didn’t care to. Time didn‘ mean much when you were grieving someone who was still alive.
This morning, I woke to the sound of the old TV humming in the corner of the study. I hadn’t touched it in days, but it switched on automatically like it wanted to haunt me. My legs dragged me to the couch, and I sat there half–numb, staring at the screen with a cup of cold tea in my
hands.
And then I saw him.
Harvick.
Not the man who held me during our engagement nights or the man who used to say I was his only peace in this twisted world. No. This was the man I died for. The one who let me burn.
He was on the screen, at the crash site. Screaming. Shoving guards. Face pale, hair a mess, veins visible on his throat as he yelled something I couldn’t hear. And then they showed the remains. The fire. The body. And him collapsing to his knees like the weight of it all finally
crushed him.
I didn’t cry.
Not this time.
I just whispered, “You chose her. Now live with it.”
I tilted my hand slowly and stared at the scar across my palm. A single, deep slice from the night I ran. I made it with my own blade while sitting in that cold hotel bathroom, shaking, bleeding, not knowing if I’d even survive the next hour. It was ugly. Crooked. But it was mine. A promise. A reminder. Never again.
The door creaked open behind me, and Peter stepped in. Always sharp. Always a shadow where
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4:47 pm D
I needed one.
He didn’t smile. Just walked over and handed me a folder.
“New identity papers are ready,” he said quietly. “From this point on, Danica Monroe no longer exists.”
I held the documents in my hand. A new name. A new birthday. A fresh fingerprint on a fake file. Clean. Untouchable.
I didn’t say thank you. Peter didn’t expect one.
I walked over to the mirror and stared at the woman looking back at me. I barely recognized her, Pale lips. Hollow cheeks. Eyes that had seen too much and cried too hard. But there was something else now… something colder. Clearer.
touched the glass and said, “Good. I’m done grieving. I’m done begging.”
My voice didn’t shake. My hand didn’t tremble.
“From now on–I choose me.”
