The Comments Said My Baby Was Worth A Billion-Dollar Empire Chapter 01

The Comments Said My Baby Was Worth A Billion-Dollar Empire Chapter 01

I was pregnant, holding a suitcase, and halfway out the door when a wall of comments started scrolling through my field of vision.

[Why are you running?? You’re literally going to die if you leave!]

[Chloe is so dumb lol. She’s carrying the ONLY heir the Vance family has. You really think they’ll just let her disappear?]

[Victor’s family has had a single heir per generation for thirteen generations straight. After his car accident, the doctors said he’d almost certainly never have kids. That baby means everything to them.]

[The second Chloe runs, the FL swoops in and takes the child as her own. She’ll marry into the Vance family with a ready-made heir and ride that status straight to the top.]

I froze in the doorway. A moment later, I kicked the suitcase back into the walk-in closet.

I grabbed the ultrasound report and drove straight to Vance Enterprises.

Victor Vance was in a meeting on the top floor.

I pushed through the conference room doors and slapped the report down in front of him.

“Victor. I’m pregnant. It’s yours.”

Dead silence. Every head in the room swiveled toward me.

Victor sat at the head of the table, his black shirt buttoned to the throat, his jaw set like he’d been carved from stone. He was the kind of man no one got close to, and he made sure of it.

But everyone in their world knew the rest of the story. Three years ago, a car accident had nearly killed him.

The Vance family’s private hospital had run every test there was and come back with the same answer. Victor would almost certainly never father a child.

Thirteen generations of single heirs. His grandmother had been desperate, flying in specialists from around the world, quietly setting him up with women, and he’d shut every single one down.

So when I threw that ultrasound on the table, the executives’ faces cycled through more emotions in a matter of seconds than mine had when I first saw the comments.

Victor picked up the report. He glanced at it for barely a second.

“Miss Sterling. Get out.”

My throat closed.

“You don’t believe me?”

He looked up, and there was nothing warm in those eyes. Nothing at all.

“What do you want?”

That hit harder than a slap. I’m Chloe Sterling, the spoiled, headstrong youngest daughter of the Sterling family, and I’ve done plenty of terrible things in my life.

I’d been chasing Julian Hayes for a decade. I only went to that cocktail party to make Julian jealous, but I got drugged and ended up throwing myself at Victor instead.

I woke up the next morning in tears and screamed at Victor for taking advantage of me. He never said a word in his own defense.

He just draped his jacket over my shoulders and had his driver take me home.

A few weeks later, I found out I was pregnant. My first instinct was to run.

My parents would kill me and whoever got me pregnant if they saw that report. But the comments said running was a death sentence.

Lily Thorne would end up with the baby. Lily was the real female lead of this story—sweet, resilient, and impossibly kind. She was the woman Victor was destined to fall in love with.

I was just the throwaway side character clearing the path for their happy ending.

The comments lit up again.

[Chloe, CRY. Start crying right now!! Victor can’t handle tears. He’s immune to attitude, but he FOLDS the second someone cries!]

[Don’t back down, girl. You’re the ONLY person carrying his child rn.]

[The FL is already getting cozy with his grandmother. You hesitate now, you lose him AND the baby!]

I dug my nails into my palms and let my eyes burn.

“So you’re just going to sleep with me and pretend it never happened?”

Someone in the room sucked in a breath. A muscle jumped near Victor’s eye.

I walked around the table, took his hand, and pressed it flat to my stomach.

“You don’t have to believe me.” My voice cracked. “But you don’t get to walk away from this.”

His fingers went rigid under mine. I held his stare, my heart hammering so hard I could feel it in my throat.

He watched me for what felt like forever.

“Meeting adjourned.”

Everyone filed out without a word. The door clicked shut behind them.

He pulled his hand back and picked up his phone.

“Get the chief of OB up here.”

The breath I’d been holding finally broke loose. Then the conference room door swung open again.

A woman in a white dress stood in the doorway, a sleek lunch tote in her hands.

“Victor, did I come at a bad time?”

The comments exploded.

[LILY IS HERE!]