13
Miguel’s hands trembled so violently he could hardly lift the weightless sheet of paper.
He tried again and again, but it slipped through his fingers each time.
“Belle…”
He was on the verge of collapse, struggling to focus on the name printed on the document.
In his panic, he knocked the entire box over.
The ultrasound sheet drifted slowly to the ground.
On it, a tiny figure was curled up, with small hands and small feet, peacefully asleep.
Something snapped inside Miguel.
He lunged forward and clutched the page.
There, at the top, it clearly stated: Mother: Belle.
Which meant the child was his.
That realization struck him like lightning.
His fingers traced over the little shadow again and again.
Suddenly, he remembered the doctor’s hesitant face at the hospital that day.
That one sentence he hadn’t fully caught now came crashing back, word for word. “Your wife los the baby, and you didn’t even know?”
Back then, what had he been thinking?
He had thought, ‘How annoying. Why is Belle always ending up in the hospital?’
But on the outside, he’d worn a perfect mask, playing the caring partner, pretending to worry pretending to love.
In truth, he hadn’t even noticed when she lost their child.
Suddenly, Miguel remembered that day he had been shopping with Saoirse.
She had pulled him into the baby section, giddy with laughter, insisting they choose clothes for her stuffed doll.
“Miguel, which one looks cuter on it?”
He had casually pointed at one, not thinking twice.
Saoirse’s eyes had curved into delighted crescents.
At that exact moment, I had been lying alone in a cold hospital bed, silently grieving the child I had just lost.
“It’s all my fault…”
Miguel’s vacant eyes flickered as he whispered, “Maybe this is what I deserve…”
While helping someone else pick out doll clothes, he had forever lost the only child that might’ve truly been his.
When Miguel first entered the industry, a physical exam revealed his low sperm count.
The doctor had bluntly told him that if he wanted a child of his own, it would depend entirely on
fate.
2:02 pm D
fate.
To avoid attracting paparazzi, he’d hidden herbal remedies inside thermoses and choked down the bitterness day after day.
He tried every method, no matter how strange, even swallowing live insects, clinging to hope. Suddenly, the door creaked open. Miguel looked up sharply. “Belle-”
But when he saw the face before him, his tone fell like a stone. “Why is it you?”
It was Saoirse.
She smiled sweetly, her tone teasing. “Miguel, you left your room card on the table, so I brought it over.”
“Oh. Well, now that you’ve delivered it, you can go.”
Miguel lowered his head again, continuing to rub the ultrasound photo in his hand as if trying to feel what he had lost through touch alone.
Saoirse bit her lip, eyes flashing with frustration.
She couldn’t understand why Miguel had become even colder after my death.
Her gaze flicked across the floor and landed on the scattered papers. She gasped.
“Sister resigned?”
Then, pretending to think aloud, she tilted her head and feigned innocence. “And there’s even a miscarriage report? Could it be that Sister got pregnant by someone else and didn’t dare face you, so she quit?”
But this time, Miguel didn’t indulge her.
He slowly looked up. Eyes rimmed with red, his expression filled with fury held barely in check. Through clenched teeth, he spat out just one word. “Get out.”
