Ficorpio
Chapter 1
Chapter 1
I miscarried after Ethan Sterling’s daughter with his ex-wife shoved me down the stairs.
When I woke up, Ethan was sitting beside my hospital bed, working.
Without looking up for long, he found a spare second to say, “I’ll have Daisy come apologize to you in person.”
I looked at him. “And that’s enough?”
That finally made him lift his eyes from the paperwork.
“What else do you want?”
His expression turned cold. “What, should she get on her knees? Bang her head on the floor? Or do you want my daughter to pay for it with her life over a pool of blood?”
So that was it.
He had never really cared about the baby inside me.
Of course he hadn’t. He’d once promised his ex-wife that Daisy would be his only child.
The day I found out I was pregnant, I’d been overjoyed.
He hadn’t.
He’d spent the entire night in his study, smoking, his face heavy with thought.
Thinking of that, I looked at him and asked softly, “Now that the baby’s gone… do you feel relieved?”
Ethan stared at me as if he hadn’t understood.
“What?”
I fixed my eyes on the hospital blanket, still carrying that sharp disinfectant smell.
“Isn’t that how you feel?”
“The day I told you I was pregnant, you probably already wished I’d get rid of it.”
That was the day Vanessa Sterling—his ex-wife—had come by to see Daisy.
At dinner, the moment she learned I was pregnant, her face went white and the bowl slipped from her hand, crashing to the floor.
Afterward, she and Ethan argued in the study.
“Did you forget what you promised me?”
“You said Daisy would be your only child.”
“Then why is she pregnant, Ethan?”
Ethan’s voice had been as cool and detached as ever.
“I thought you understood. I divorced you so I wouldn’t have to keep having arguments like this.”
Vanessa went quiet.
A moment later, muffled sobs drifted through the crack in the door.
I stood outside the study, leaning against the wall, and the joy I’d felt that morning when I saw the positive test drained out of me completely.
Through her tears, Vanessa said, “Daisy is already sensitive. Ever since our divorce, she’s only gotten more withdrawn.”
“If she has to share your love too, have you even thought about how badly that will hurt her?”
A long silence followed.
Then Ethan said, “Let me think about it.”
He never came out of the study that night. He smoked until morning.
At breakfast, I was sitting at the table when he finally emerged.
I tightened my grip on my spoon.
“You’re… going straight to the office without eating?”
“The housekeeper leaves after breakfast.”
“I can make you a grilled sandwich to take with you.”
I got to my feet too quickly, flustered and clumsy, and nearly tripped over the chair.
Ethan caught my arm, then lifted me easily and set me down on the couch.
“I have a meeting this morning. I’m running late.”
Chapter 2
Chapter 2
I nodded quietly.
A few seconds later, he rubbed the back of my head and said, “Don’t overthink it. Take care of yourself. Take care of the baby.”
He was trying to comfort me.
But the weight in his eyes made it look like he was facing some impossible problem.
“The day I told you I was pregnant, you were probably already hoping I’d get rid of it.”
The words had barely left my mouth when a faint smile touched Ethan’s lips.
“So that’s what you think of me?”
My eyes burned, but I held his gaze anyway, stubborn to the end.
Ethan rose to his feet and looked down at me from above.
“I think you need some time to calm down.”
He paused, his voice turning even more matter-of-fact.
“The company’s been busy lately. I’ll have a caregiver come stay with you for a while. I won’t be coming by for now.”
The hospital room door opened, then quietly shut again.
Harsh white sunlight poured through the window and spread across the floor.
The room was so silent I could almost hear dust drifting through the beam of light.
My hand moved back to my lower stomach.
It felt like something had been carved out of me, leaving behind nothing but emptiness.
I didn’t move.
I felt hollow all the way through.
A nurse told me I needed to go upstairs for another exam.
I pushed open the door and stepped out. As I reached the corner, I heard Ethan’s voice—and his sister’s.
“Even if you only married Claire because she was good to Daisy back then—”
“But plenty of people were good to Daisy. Claire had to be different to you.”
“If that’s true, then can you please talk to her like a human being for once? Stop giving her the cold shoulder.”
Ethan answered in that casual, dismissive tone of his.
“It wouldn’t have mattered who I married. I just didn’t feel like wasting time looking.”
“If I’d known she’d be this hung up on having a child, I should’ve married someone else.”
The nurse tapped me on the shoulder.
“Why are you still standing here?” she asked. “You need to go in for your exam.”
The two of them turned at the sound.
Ethan was already angry with me. Now he couldn’t even be bothered to pretend otherwise. He glanced at me once, then walked away without a word.
His sister hurried over and took my arm.
“Um… Claire, I’ll go with you.”
“Thank you.”
“What my brother said just now—he didn’t mean it. He was speaking out of anger.”
“You know what he’s like. He never knows how to say things properly. But he does care about you, he really does.”
She kept trying to explain him to me.
“Last time, when he was at the London branch, he worked three straight days with barely any sleep just so he could clear one day to spend your birthday with you.”
“My brother’s just been in a bad place lately…”
She hesitated, then sighed.
“The baby is gone. He’s hurting too. And on top of that, he and Vanessa had a huge fight because he wanted Daisy to come apologize to you. Vanessa kept insisting Daisy didn’t mean it, so there was no need to apologize. Honestly…”
By then we had reached the exam room.
“I’m going in,” I said.
Chapter 3
Chapter 3
“Okay. I’ll wait for you out here, Claire.”
I lay back in the reclined exam chair and waited.
The birthday she’d mentioned had only been two months ago.
I’d thought Ethan was still away on business in London.
Then he had appeared in front of me without any warning.
Even now, I could still remember the shock of happiness, the way my heart had leaped.
I just didn’t know why I could no longer feel what that version of me had felt.
I spent a week in the hospital.
And during that entire time, Ethan never showed up again.
A strange kind of emotional exhaustion had settled over me. I no longer had the energy to care the way I used to—to wonder whether Vanessa would use Daisy as an excuse to get close to Ethan while I was gone.
When I was discharged and got home, Ethan was still at the office.
The moment I pushed open the door, my eyes met Daisy’s. She was sitting on the couch watching TV.
A five-year-old didn’t know how to hide her feelings.
She went rigid the instant she saw me.
Her two small hands were clenched around something.
I lowered my gaze and went straight to my room.
I knew then that I would never be able to treat her the way I had before, without any resentment at all.
That afternoon, Vanessa came.
She dragged an empty suitcase into the living room, dropped it onto the floor, and immediately started packing Daisy’s things.
The nanny hurried over to stop her. “Ms. Sterling, what are you doing?”
“I’m taking Daisy to stay with me for a while.”
Her voice was sharp, full of righteous anger.
“Someone loses her baby because she wasn’t careful, and now she wants to blame my daughter for it?”
“I’m not letting anyone make my child suffer for that.”
“If Ethan has a problem with it, he can take it up with me.”
Daisy was still clutching that unknown object in her hands, standing there silently like a little statue.
The nanny looked at me helplessly. “Mrs. Sterling, please say something.”
“Please tell her you’ll treat Daisy the same as before.”
“Mr. Sterling specifically said she wasn’t allowed to take Daisy.”
Daisy lifted her head and looked at me with those dark, glossy eyes.
Maybe I imagined it, but I thought I saw a flicker of hope in them.
“Let her take her,” I said.
“I really don’t want to see her right now anyway.”
The next second, a crisp sound of something shattering rang out beside us.
Whatever Daisy had been holding slipped from her hands and hit the floor.
It looked like it had been ceramic, but after the fall, it was impossible to tell what it had once been.
She crouched instinctively, reaching to pick up the pieces.
Vanessa caught her by the arm and stopped her.
“What is that?”
“A toy?” she said dismissively. “If it broke, it broke. Mommy will buy you another one.”
Then she turned to me with a tight, false smile.
“Daisy is Ethan’s daughter.”