Five Months Later
Valerie looked at the boy in her arms, and her heart trembled.
The baby had the same green eyes, she and her brother shared. His hair was dark like his dark hair.
...
Her friend Celeste had thrown her a party for graduating at the top of their class, and the next thing she knew, she woke up naked in a luxurious suite with a blank cheque and a name card—Azrael Hawthorne.
He didn't need an introduction in their world. He was dangerous, powerful, and already engaged.
Her heart sunk and her phone began flooding with notifications.
When the Campus Belle has a little too much fun!
Diploma in Hand, Decency Out the Door—Graduation Party Pics Leak
Top Student's Wild Nights Exposed—Is his How She 'Earns' Those Grades?
Photos of her, swaying drunk, holding onto a stranger, and entering a hotel suite, were going viral on the university forum.
Her face ashen. She didn't even remember drinking!
...
"Mmm...Nnn."
The boy's cooing got her attention. He was fisting her hair and laughing. Blisfully unaware, he tugged her hair as if desperately holding onto her.
"Vivi," Victor approached. "It's time."
He was standing with a man and a woman behind him. They had decided to discreetly give the boy up for adoption.
The boy tugged her hair again and her throat tightened.
"No… no wait. It's too soon! I-I just got him..."
She clutched the baby to her chest, feeling like her heart would burst.
"Vivi..." Victor's mouth fell open. "We talked about this! You can't ruin your whole life because of one mistake!"
"No!" She clutched the boy tighter, backing away as Victor tried to snatch the baby from her. "See! He looks like me! He's… mine. Look at him—he doesn't want to leave. I… I can't."
"Valerie!"
"Vicky, please!"
"Just listen to yourself, Valerie." Frustrated, he ruffled his hair, "You're just twenty-two! Are you crazy? You want to be a single mother to a bastard?"
"He's not a bastard! He's mine!"
Cursing under his breath, he stomped to her, "Valerie!"
Victor tried to snatch the baby, but Valerie grabbed a knife from the fruit basket.
"Don't come near me!"
Aunt Eleanor quickly held Victor back as the situation got out of hand. "Let's all calm down." She turned to the couple. "I'm really, really sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Hudson. Can we get back to you?"
The couple looked heartbroken but nodded.
"It's fine. We're happy the child is loved," they said, leaving with teary smiles.
Victor scoffed, kicking the table. "The fuck… what the fuck!" The crash made everyone jump.
"Victor—"
He slammed the door, storming out.
Aunt Eleanor sighed and looked at Uncle Charles, who seemed done. Then she smiled softly and spread her arms toward the baby.
Valerie hesitated before handing him over.
The baby smiled up at her, making Eleanor feel a pang in her chest. Her maternal instincts surged—she wanted the child.
Charles momentarily softened upon seeing the adorable little boy cooing in his teary-eyed wife's arms.
His wife had always yearned for a child.
Perhaps it was God's will too...
"Have you thought of a name for him?" Eleanor asked eagerly as Valerie took the baby back.
"Roe Sinclair," Valerie tiredly smiled.
Eleanor frowned. "You are naming him after a food?"
Valerie had been craving fish roe lately.
"Isn't it original?" She nodded gleefully. "My little Roe should have a name like no other!"
Charles sighed at his niece's naming sense. He felt sorry for his… the child.
"Then how about Roman Sinclair for paperwork, and we call him Roe?" Eleanor suggested.
Valerie frowned but shrugged, eliciting a sigh of relief from her uncle and aunt.
"Anyways," Eleanor inched closer, stroking little Roe's limbs. "What's important is thinking about how Little Roe will fit in our family?"
Valerie slowly nodded, looking at Little Roe. Her baby was the purest thing in her world. She couldn't let him go, but she knew how the world would look at a single mother.
It hurt that she had been treated like a prostitute by his father and mocked as a slut by her friends and colleagues, but all of that didn't matter anymore.
"This child is mine. From now on, my son is a member of the Sinclairs."
Charles wanted to speak, but seeing the looks on Eleanor's faces, he could tell his wife was thinking of raising the boy herself.
But what Valerie did next was something none of them ever thought of.