Chapter 312 - 0312: Marry My Son

Chapter 312: Chapter 0312: Marry My Son

Lillian’s Point Of View

The ceiling was a blur of blinding, antiseptic white that seemed to pulse in time with the dull, rhythmic throb in my lower back. I tried to move my arm, but it felt like someone had replaced it with a lead weight. Every inch of me felt wrecked, as though I’d been dragged behind a speeding car and then expected to smile for a photo op.

My limbs were heavy, my skin clammy, and the air in the room reeked of bleach and spent adrenaline. Somewhere beneath the chemical smell, I caught the faint metallic tang of blood... my blood, probably, and it made my stomach turn.

I blinked, my eyelashes sticky with dried tears I didn’t remember shedding. The world swam in and out of focus, shapes bleeding into one another like watercolors left out in the rain.

Finally, the room came into focus. Matilda stood by the window, silhouetted against the morning light that streamed through the blinds in harsh, geometric patterns. She looked as polished as ever, not a hair out of place even after a night in a hospital waiting room.

How did she manage that?

Her cream-colored blouse was still crisp, her pearls still perfectly aligned at her throat, as though she’d stepped out of a boardroom rather than an overnight vigil. In her arms, she held a bundle... my bundle, wrapped in a crisp blue blanket. The sight of it sent a jolt through my chest, something between terror and wonder, a feeling so enormous I couldn’t name it properly. My son. The word still felt foreign, unearned, like something I hadn’t quite grown into yet.

Sebastian leaned against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest, looking more like a bored investor reviewing quarterly reports than a doting grandfather meeting his first grandchild. His silver cufflinks caught the light as he shifted his weight, and I noticed the faint shadow of stubble on his jaw... the only sign that the night had affected him at all.

Even exhausted, even rumpled at the edges, he carried himself with the same detached authority he probably used in boardrooms, the same cool remove that made me wonder if anything ever truly touched him.

But the chair next to my bed was empty. The space where he should have been sitting, holding my hand, telling me I was a hero, telling me I’d done something miraculous... it was cold. Just an empty plastic chair with a discarded newspaper on it, the pages already yellowing under the fluorescent lights.

That emptiness felt like a physical weight pressing down on my chest, making it harder to breathe than the exhaustion already did. I’d imagined this moment so many times during the pregnancy. Graham’s face, tear-streaked and awed. His hand in mine, squeezing tight enough to hurt.

His voice, rough with emotion, telling me he loved me. I had pictured it so many nights, lying awake with my hands on my swollen belly, that the fantasy had become almost real, almost solid enough to touch. But there was nothing. Just that damned empty chair mocking me with its silence, a silence louder than anything I’d ever heard.

"She’s awake," Sebastian muttered, his voice gravelly and devoid of warmth.

Matilda didn’t even glance up from the baby. She just nudged him with her elbow, her movements precise and controlled, as if she were conducting a board meeting rather than meeting her grandson.

"Don’t just stand there, Sebastian. Give her some water. The girl looks like she’s about to turn into dust."

The girl. Not my name. Just "the girl," as if I were some temporary inconvenience they’d have to manage until I served my purpose and faded into the background. The words stung more than I wanted to admit, landing somewhere deep and tender, a place already raw from exhaustion and fear.

Sebastian grabbed a plastic bottle from the bedside table, uncapped it with practiced efficiency, and guided the straw to my lips. I drank greedily, the cool water hitting my parched throat like a miracle, like the first rain after a drought. Each swallow felt like salvation, washing away some of the cotton-thick fog that had settled in my mouth.

For a moment, I almost forgot the ache in my chest, almost let the simple relief of water drown out the dread building beneath it.

I pulled back after a few seconds, my breathing shallow, and tried to sit up a little straighter. Pain shot through my abdomen... a sharp, vicious flare that made me gasp and clutch at the thin hospital blanket. The stitches pulled, and I felt the echo of what my body had just endured, the violence of bringing life into the world. For a fleeting second, the pain eclipsed everything else, even the fear, even the question burning in my throat.

"Easy there," Sebastian said, though his hand didn’t move to help me, didn’t reach out to steady my shoulder or adjust my pillows. His tone was clinical, detached, as if he were advising a stranger. "You’ve been through a lot."

I ignored the pain. I ignored the baby for a split second, though guilt immediately twisted in my gut for doing so. What kind of mother doesn’t immediately ask about her child? But I needed to know. I had to know. My eyes darted around the room, checking the bathroom door, the hallway beyond, the corners, everywhere. Searching for the one person who should have been here. The one person whose absence felt like a gaping wound, a wound no amount of morphine could numb.

"Where is he?" The question came out as a raspy whisper filled with a dread I couldn’t hide, couldn’t swallow down no matter how hard I tried. My voice cracked on the last word, betraying the fear that had been building since the moment I’d opened my eyes. "Where is Graham?"

Silence. The kind of silence that speaks volumes, that screams what words won’t say. Matilda kept humming a low, tuneless song to the baby, her fingers adjusting the blanket with meticulous care. She smoothed an invisible wrinkle, then another, her movements almost obsessive in their precision, as though focusing on the fabric could keep her from meeting my eyes.

Sebastian studied the floor as if the scuffed linoleum held the secrets of the universe. A muscle twitched in his jaw, the only crack in his carefully maintained composure. The tension in the room thickened, turning into something suffocating, something that made the sterile air feel even harder to breathe.

My pulse quickened. Something was wrong. Something was terribly, horribly wrong.

"I asked a question," I said, my voice getting louder, sharper, despite the exhaustion that made my bones feel like they were made of wet sand. My heart hammered against my ribs, each beat a painful reminder that I was alive, awake, and being deliberately ignored. "Where is the father of my child?"

Sebastian finally looked up, his expression a mix of pity and annoyance. The fluorescent hospital lights cast shadows under his eyes, making him look older than his years, older and somehow more tired of the whole affair than I was.

"He left about twenty minutes ago, Lillian," he said quietly. "He said he had something urgent to attend to. Business, I assume."

"Business?" The word tore from my throat in a shriek that scraped against my already raw vocal cords. I didn’t care about the nurses passing in the hallway or the other patients trying to rest. My entire body trembled with rage and exhaustion. "I just delivered his son! His firstborn! His only child, his heir! I almost died on that table, and he abandons me in a hospital bed because of business?"

"Calm down, Lillian," Matilda said, finally turning around from the window where she’d been standing. Her eyes were hard as polished stone, though her voice remained level and controlled. "The shouting isn’t good for the baby. We are here with you. The Sinclairs are here."

I shook my head violently, my hair tangling around my face in damp, sweaty strands. The movement made my head spin, but I didn’t care.

"No! This doesn’t count, Matilda! You’re not the one I did this for! He should be here! He should be the one looking at his son, not out there chasing shadows!"

Hot tears... bitter, angry tears that burned like acid, blurred my vision. My hands clenched into fists against the starched hospital sheets.

"I know where he went. He didn’t go to the office. He went to find her, didn’t he? He’s losing his mind over his ex-wife again! In case he has forgotten, I’m the one who gave him a child! I’m the one who made him a father! I’m the one who ensured the Sinclair name carries on into the next generation!"

"Lillian, breathe," Sebastian warned, rising from his chair with concern etched across his features.

"I won’t breathe!" I yelled, clutching the thin hospital blanket so tightly my knuckles turned white. My voice cracked with emotion. "He’s hung up on the one who couldn’t give him so much as a miscarriage! Elena spent years in that house and gave him nothing but a headache and a divorce. I give him a son, and I’m treated like a temporary surrogate? It’s insulting! It’s pathetic! Does he even realize what I’ve sacrificed?"

The room fell silent except for the soft beeping of monitors and the baby’s gentle breathing. I could feel my heart pounding against my ribs, each beat a reminder of how close I’d come to not surviving the delivery. The adrenaline that had carried my fury began to ebb, leaving something hollow and frightened in its place.

"I know," Matilda said, her voice dropping to a low, conspiratorial hum that sent a chill down my spine. She walked over to the bed with measured steps, the baby still cradled in her arms like a precious trophy. She looked down at the tiny, sleeping face... so peaceful, so unaware of the chaos surrounding his arrival, and then up at me. "And I agree with you, Lillian. Graham is being... difficult. He’s distracted. He’s acting like a man who doesn’t understand the treasure he has right in front of him."

I scoffed, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand, smearing tears and mascara across my cheeks.

"A treasure? He treats me like a liability he can’t wait to write off. I saw the way he looked at me in the study before my water broke. He didn’t see a woman; he saw a nuisance. An inconvenience disrupting his perfect, controlled world."

"Men are fools, Lillian," Matilda said, her lips thinning into a straight line. A muscle twitched in her jaw. "Especially Sinclair men. They have a tendency to chase things that are broken while ignoring what is whole. But I won’t let this slide. I don’t want my grandchild to grow up without a proper home. I don’t want a Sinclair heir being raised in some scandalous, unofficial arrangement while Graham chases a ghost through the city."

I squinted at her, my heart hammering against my ribs with a mixture of hope and suspicion. There was something in her tone... a sharp, calculated edge that made my skin crawl even as it intrigued me, a glimmer of something that felt dangerously close to opportunity.

"What do you mean by that? A proper home? I’m the mother. I’ll give him a home."

Matilda leaned in, her perfume... something expensive and floral, probably French, overwhelming the antiseptic smell of the hospital. The scent was suffocating, almost dizzying. She looked at me with a terrifyingly clear sense of purpose, the kind of look that suggested she’d already mapped out every move in a game I hadn’t realized we were playing.

"I mean exactly what you think I mean," she whispered, her eyes locking onto mine with the grip of a predator who’d just spotted wounded prey. "I’m going to fix this. I’m going to make sure you have the status you deserve, and that my son stops this madness once and for all."

My breath caught in my throat.

"How?" I whispered, afraid to hope, afraid to believe.

Matilda’s grip on the baby tightened just a fraction... not enough to disturb him, but enough that I noticed. A small, triumphant smirk appeared on her face, transforming her elegant features into something almost predatory.

"Marry my son."