Chapter 1: The Phantom Heartbeat
The cold gel on her abdomen was a shock, as always. It smelled faintly of antiseptic and lavender, a sterile attempt at calm. Hana stared at the ceiling tiles, counting the perforations, trying to detach from the pressure of the transducer gliding over her skin.
“And there we are,” the sonographer said, her voice softening from its previous clinical tone. The screen swiveled. “Look at that.”
Hana turned her head. There it was. A grey, shifting universe on the monitor, and at its center, a tiny, ghostly shape. A peanut. A seahorse. A person. It pulsed with a quick, relentless rhythm—a frantic, flickering light in the amorphous dark.
Bum-bum, bum-bum, bum-bum.
Her hand came up, fingertips trembling, as if she could reach through the screen and touch it. Her throat closed. The only piece of Xavier she’ll ever have. Stolen.
The memory didn’t wash over her; it crashed. It was always there, a live wire under her skin, but now, with the visual proof of its consequence blooming in black and white, it short-circuited everything else.
He’d been incoherent. Mike, the bartender at The Gilded Cage, had called her personal cell, not the office line. “Hana, it’s Xav. He’s… he’s in a state. Can’t stand up. Keeps saying her name. Lily. You gotta come get him.”
She’d been in her pajamas. She went.
Finding him slumped in the back of the bar, his thousand-dollar suit jacket stained with whiskey, felt like a physical blow. This wasn’t the Xavier who commanded boardrooms. This was a shattered boy. “Lily,” he’d slurred into the wood of the table as she hauled him up. “Why’d you go back to him? He’ll just hurt you again. I could… I could have…”
He’d vomited in the alley beside her car. She’d held his forehead, cleaned his mouth with the tissues she always kept in her purse, and maneuvered him into the passenger seat. He’d wept, quiet, broken sounds. “I love you,” he’d whispered to the window. “You don’t know. You’ll never know.”
His penthouse was a tomb of silent luxury. She got him inside, to his bedroom. He collapsed onto the mattress. She started to remove his shoes, her movements efficient, practiced. This was part of the job. Managing his life.
His hand shot out and caught her wrist. His eyes opened, glassy and unfocused, seeing through her.
“Lily,” he breathed.
Her heart stopped. “Xavier, it’s Hana.”
“Don’t go,” he begged, his voice ragged. His grip tightened, pulling her down. “Please. Don’t go back to him. Stay here.”
She could have pulled away. She should have. She was stronger than he was in that moment. But his other hand came up, cupping her cheek. His thumb brushed her lip. His eyes searched her face, seeing a phantom. The longing in them was a depth of feeling he’d never shown her, Hana, in twenty years of friendship. It was for Lily, but it was spilling onto her. She was parched, and it was water.
“I’m here,” she heard herself say, her voice foreign.
He kissed her. It was sloppy, tasting of whiskey and salt. He fumbled with the buttons of her coat, then her blouse. His hands were rough, desperate. “I need you,” he mumbled into her neck. “God, I need to feel you.”
Every cell in her body screamed. This was wrong. He was drunk, devastated, blind. He thought she was someone else. But his mouth was on her skin, his hands mapping her body, and it was everything she’d ever dreamed of and nothing like it. She was a vessel. A warm body replacing the woman he truly wanted.
She let him. More than let him. She helped. She shucked her own clothes, guided him when he fumbled. She absorbed his frantic, hungry kisses, each time he murmured “Lily” like a knife twisting in her gut. She imagined the words were for her. That the passion, the rough, almost clumsy way he touched her, was his buried love for her finally breaking free.
When he pushed inside her, there was a sharp, shocking pain. She gasped into his shoulder. He didn’t notice. He was lost in his own fantasy, his rhythm building, his breaths coming in harsh grunts. “Love you,” he chanted, his face buried in her hair. “Fuck, Lily, I love you so much.”
She clung to him, her nails digging into his back, her eyes wide open in the dark. She was a virgin. He had taken that from her, and he didn’t even know it was her taking it. She had raped him. The thought formed, cold and clear, amidst the chaos of sensation. She had taken advantage of a broken man. And she felt no remorse. Only a fierce, terrible possession. This was hers. However she got it, it was hers.
He finished with a broken sob, collapsing his full weight onto her. Within seconds, his breathing evened out into the deep, oblivious rhythm of sleep.
She lay there for an hour, pinned, until the ache in her body outweighed the warmth of him. She slid out from under him, cleaned herself up in his pristine bathroom, and dressed silently. She smoothed the covers over his sleeping form. She erased all evidence, like she always did.
The next morning, her phone rang. His voice, hoarse but clear. “Hana. Bad night. I think I… fuck. I need you to do a sweep. There might have been someone. Last night. Find her. Do the usual. Big settlement. Make sure she’s quiet.”
She’d stood in her kitchen, the phone slick in her hand. “Of course, Xavier. I’ll take care of it.”
“You’re the best,” he’d said, genuine gratitude in his tone. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Everything looks perfect,” the obstetrician was saying, her smile warm. “Strong heartbeat, measurements right on track. Due date looks to be…”
Hana tuned out the date. Perfect. It was perfect. Her secret was growing perfectly.
She wiped the cold gel from her stomach, her mind drifting back through the years. He’d always seen her as a little sister. The annoying kid next door who followed him around. When her parents died, his family took her in. He’d been her protector, her bully, her first and only crush. She’d built her life around his. Becoming his PA was logical. Managing his one-night stands was a way to stay close, to control the women who passed through his life. She’d hand them envelopes of cash, NDAs, always polite, always final. Each one hurt, a tiny erosion of her hope, until she’d convinced herself it was fine. He didn’t love them. It was just lust.
Then he met Lily. A client’s wife, trapped in a gilded cage with an emotionally abusive husband. Xavier changed. The casual encounters stopped. He talked about her with a light in his eyes Hana had never seen. He tried to save her. And when Lily, still bound by fear or duty or something Hana couldn’t understand, rejected him and went back to her husband, it broke him. It led to that night in the bar. It led to her, on his bed, in the dark.
He’d forgotten everything. Asked her to clean up his mess. Not knowing the mess was growing inside her.
She dressed slowly, the crisp linen of her pants smooth against her skin. She placed a hand on her still-flat stomach.
Her phone buzzed in her purse. Xavier’s face flashed on the screen.
She answered. “Hana speaking.”
“Hey. You at the office?” His voice was distracted, already moving on to the next thing.
“Just finishing an appointment. What do you need?”
“The file on the Bryson merger. I left it on my desk. Can you bring it to the restaurant? I’m meeting Lewis at one.”
“I’ll be there in twenty.”
“Good. And Hana?”
“Yes?”
“Thanks. For everything.”
She ended the call. She stared at the ultrasound image, now tucked into a discreet black folder. The only piece of Xavier she’ll ever have. She slid the folder into her large tote bag, next to the file for the Bryson merger.
She would bring him his file. She would sit across from him, calm and professional, and she would know. She would carry his child and his secret, and she would watch him look right through her, just like he always had.
For now.
The metallic taste of the parking garage filled her mouth, chasing away the clinic’s sterile lavender. She slid into the driver’s seat of her sensible sedan, the ultrasound folder a burning weight on the passenger side. She sat for a full minute, hands on the wheel, listening to the distant hum of the city above.
Her phone, resting on the folder, lit up.
A message. From Lily.
Hana’s breath hitched. She picked it up, her thumb smudging the screen.
Lily: Hana. I wanted to tell you before… it’s public. Marcus is relocating. Singapore. I’m going with him. We leave next month.
The words blurred. Hana blinked. She didn’t hate Lily. How could she? Lily was a mirror held up in a cruel light. Both of them, stupidly, destructively in love with a man who was tearing them apart. Lily stayed with her wealthy, controlling husband because some part of her loved him, or was addicted to the pain of him. Hana stayed in Xavier’s orbit, taking his scraps, because she loved him. The resentment was a cold, hard stone in her gut, but it wasn’t hatred. It was recognition.
Her fingers moved.
Hana: Does Xav know?
The reply came fast, as if Lily had been waiting.
Lily: Not yet. I’m telling him later.
A pause. Three dots pulsed.
Lily: Hana, thank you for everything. You’ve been good to me. Kinder than I had any right to expect. I don’t know how to reciprocate.
A hollow laugh escaped Hana’s throat. Good to her? She’d been civil. Professional. She’d facilitated the flowers, the discreet restaurant bookings, the brutal cleanup after each of Lily’s retreats back to her husband. She’d done it all to patch up Xavier’s heart, again and again, so he could keep functioning. So he could remain the man she loved.
Hana: It’s okay. I just did it because of Xavier. He loves you.
She tossed the phone back onto the folder. The grainy black-and-white image seemed to pulse through the leather. Singapore. Xavier would be wrecked. Again. He’d get drunk, again. He might call for her, again. But he wouldn’t be broken enough this time. He’d be angry, sharp-edged, not vulnerable and soft. He wouldn’t mistake her for anyone.
She started the car. The engine purred to life, a mundane sound in the face of the seismic shift coming. She pulled out into the midday traffic, navigating automatically toward the restaurant where Xavier waited, oblivious. The file for the Bryson merger was in her bag. His future, his empire. Right next to the ghost of his child, and the proof of her betrayal. She was a vault, and the pressure inside was starting to crack the seams.
She found a parking spot two blocks away, needing the walk. The sun was bright, mocking. She squared her shoulders, becoming Hana the Assistant, the Fixer, the Ghost. The woman who carried secrets instead of a child. For now.