“She’s really daring enough to carry the CEO’s baby?” the CEO’s secretary hissed behind the glass door.
I froze in the hallway outside Ethan Carter’s office, my palm flattening over my stomach like I could hide the truth under my sweater. I was eight weeks pregnant—barely past the first ultrasound where the technician had smiled and said, “There’s a heartbeat.” Ethan wanted to keep it quiet until we were ready to tell the board. I wanted to keep it quiet because the last time a woman in this company got pregnant, she got “restructured” out.
The secretary’s name was Madison Blake. Perfect hair, perfect nails, perfect smile that never reached her eyes. She’d been with Ethan for years—everyone assumed she ran his life. When I walked into the office a second later, Madison looked up from his calendar and said, sweet as syrup, “Good morning, Claire.”
Ethan didn’t notice my tight smile. He was on the phone, pacing, talking about quarterly numbers like my entire world wasn’t wobbling on the edge of a cliff. After the call, he kissed my forehead and said, “Lunch later?” Then he got pulled into another meeting.
Madison lingered behind when I turned to leave. “I’m just trying to protect Ethan,” she murmured, low enough that only I could hear. “Scandals ruin men like him. Babies… complicate things.”
“I’m not a complication,” I whispered back, my voice shaking.
Her eyes flicked to my stomach, and for a split second her expression cracked—something hard, hungry. “We’ll see,” she said.
That afternoon, Madison appeared at my desk with a porcelain cup. “Ethan asked me to bring you tea. Ginger helps nausea.” Her lipstick left a neat crescent on the rim, like proof she’d touched it first. The tea smelled floral and too sweet—clean in a way that made my instincts scream.
I should’ve refused. But I didn’t want to look paranoid. I took a sip.
By evening, my lower back ached like I’d been hit. In my apartment, I tried to breathe through it—until the cramps turned sharp, relentless. When I went to the bathroom, my knees buckled.
Blood.
I fumbled for my phone, trembling, and a new message flashed on the screen from an unknown number:
“Stop drinking anything she gives you.
I stared at the message until my vision blurred. My first instinct was denial—maybe it was a scam, a prank, a cruel coincidence. But the timing was too perfect. My throat tasted like that tea even after I’d rinsed my mouth three times.
At the ER, the fluorescent lights made everything feel unreal. A nurse led me to an exam room, her face neutral in a way that said she’d seen this a hundred times. The doctor’s voice was gentle but direct: “We’re going to run tests. Try to stay calm.”
Stay calm. Like calm could stitch a heartbeat back together.
While I waited, I texted Ethan: I’m at St. Mary’s. Something’s wrong. Please come now. He called immediately, panic rising in his voice the moment I answered. “Claire, what happened?” I tried to speak but my throat closed. All I could say was, “Madison brought me tea.”
There was a pause—too long. “I’m on my way,” he said, and hung up.
The tests came back with enough medical language to make my head spin, but one thing was clear: the doctor asked, carefully, “Have you taken any herbal supplements? Anything unusual today?” I remembered Madison’s syrupy tone—Ginger helps nausea. I nodded. “Tea. From my boss’s assistant.” The doctor’s eyes narrowed, professional concern sharpening into suspicion. “We’ll document everything.”
Ethan arrived looking like he’d sprinted the whole way—shirt wrinkled, tie loosened, jaw clenched so tight the muscle jumped. He grabbed my hand. “I’m here. I’m so sorry.” Then he noticed my silence, the way I wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Claire… tell me.”
I showed him the message. He read it once, twice, his face draining of color. “Who sent this?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But they knew.”
His thumb pressed hard into my knuckles. “Madison wouldn’t—” He stopped himself, because even he couldn’t make the sentence sound believable.
The doctor came back in, and the words I’d feared landed like a body blow: “I’m sorry. We can’t find cardiac activity.”
The room tilted. Ethan swore under his breath and pulled me into his chest. I didn’t cry at first. I felt hollow, like someone had scooped me out and left the shell standing.
After, while I sat in numb shock, my phone buzzed again. Another message from the same unknown number:
“She’s done this before. Check the supply closet camera by the executive floor. 3:12 p.m.”
Ethan saw it. His eyes went sharp. “We have cameras there,” he said, more to himself than to me. “Madison told me that angle doesn’t record. She said it was broken.”
He stood, anger finally cutting through the grief. “I’m not letting her get away with this.”
I swallowed, voice small but steady. “Neither am I.”
The next morning, I went back to the office with Ethan—my face pale, my body aching, but my mind painfully clear. Madison looked up the second we stepped into the executive suite. Her smile appeared on command.
“Claire, I heard you weren’t feeling well,” she said, voice soaked in sympathy. “How awful. Ethan, your schedule—”
“Cancel it,” Ethan snapped.
Madison blinked. “Excuse me?”
Ethan didn’t raise his voice, but his tone was colder than I’d ever heard. “IT is pulling security footage from the supply closet camera. The one you said was broken.”
For the first time, Madison’s composure slipped. Just a fraction. Her gaze darted to me, then back to Ethan. “That camera—”
“Works,” Ethan cut in. “Always has.”
We sat in the conference room while IT loaded the clip. My heart hammered like it wanted out of my ribs. When the footage started, I saw myself at my desk, typing, pretending everything was normal. Then Madison appeared in frame carrying a tray. But before she came to me, she stopped at the supply closet. The camera caught her clearly: she opened the cabinet, pulled out a small vial from her purse, and tipped something into a cup.
I covered my mouth. Ethan’s chair scraped back hard. “Jesus,” he breathed.
Madison’s face went white. “That could be anything,” she stammered. “You can’t prove—”
Ethan leaned forward, eyes blazing. “We will. HR is on the way. Legal is on the way. And Claire is filing a police report.”
I expected Madison to beg. Instead, she looked at me with hatred so raw it shocked me. “He was supposed to be mine,” she hissed. “You walked in and stole everything.”
I surprised myself by standing. My legs shook, but my voice didn’t. “You didn’t lose him to me,” I said. “You lost him to your own choices.”
HR arrived, then corporate counsel. Madison was escorted out with her badge collected, her heels clicking like gunshots down the hall. Ethan wrapped an arm around my shoulders, but I barely felt it. Justice didn’t rewind time. It didn’t bring back the baby we’d already started loving in secret.
Later, in Ethan’s office, he knelt in front of me. “I should’ve seen it,” he said, eyes wet. “I should’ve protected you.”
I looked out at the city, swallowing the grief that still sat like a stone in my chest. “We can’t change what happened,” I said. “But we can make sure she can’t do it again.”
Before I left, my phone buzzed one last time—from the unknown number:
“You’re not alone. If you want to know who I am, I’ll tell you when you’re ready.”
I stared at the screen, then at Ethan. Somewhere between heartbreak and fury, a new question formed—one that wouldn’t let me go.
Was the anonymous texter a friend… or someone with their own reasons?
If you were in Claire’s shoes, would you meet the person who warned you—or block the number and try to move on? Tell me what you’d do, because I think your answer decides what happens next.
