Blair, who opened her eyes with difficulty, blinked slowly. Her hazy vision gradually cleared, and memories from before losing consciousness also returned.

She overheard a conversation between Haldin and Ruth at the National Foundation Gala and had an argument with Haldin upon returning as a duchess. After rejecting him and turning to leave the bedroom, and then…

As Blair retraced her memories up to that point, her heart pounded heavily. Her trembling hands instinctively covered her lower abdomen.

“Sweetheart, my baby…”

It shouldn’t have been forced during the early stages of pregnancy. No matter how angry she was, she should have endured it, considering the child in her womb…

Everything after returning to the past was for the sake of that child. If Asiel’s assumption was wrong, she felt she could no longer endure it.

When Blair worried about the possibility of something being wrong with the baby in her womb, a chilly voice from the side spoke.

“The child is unharmed.”

Turning her head, Blair saw Haldin’s face looking at her with cold eyes. Blair’s eyes wavered intensely as she faced him.

He must have called a doctor for an examination after she suddenly collapsed. And what the doctor said could be inferred from his words just now.

In the end, he found out about her pregnancy.

Blair sat up, one hand still instinctively covering her lower abdomen, and her large eyes glaring at him with a guarded expression.

It seemed as if she was protecting the child in her womb from him.

Haldin’s lips twisted at the sight.

It was absurd for her, who was none other than the child’s father, to want to protect the child from him.

So really, this woman only thinks of escaping from me. In the future she envisions, I simply don’t exist.

After spending countless nights with her and now even carrying my child in her womb…

Thinking she would naturally stay by his side once pregnant was a misconception from the beginning.

The fact scratched at his heart.

Haldin tilted his head and opened his mouth.

“Judging by your reaction, it seems like you already knew about the pregnancy.”

“…”

“Since when have you been hiding it?”

“…”

“Exactly when did you start entertaining the cute idea of divorcing me with my child?”

“…It’s my child.”

Her vehement response was merely a claim to ownership of the child.

Haldin casually retorted, looking at her flat belly covered by the blanket and her delicate hand.

“And it’s my child too.”

“No!”

Blair objected vehemently to his words.

It was the child you ignored. My baby, who grew up without knowing a father’s love.

Only I loved this child, making Asiel rightfully my child, no matter what anyone said.

“Did you create this child alone, then?”

“…This child is… Mihail’s…”
Before Blair’s awkward lie could end, Haldin grabbed her cheek and met her eyes. His blue eyes were colder than ever.

“If you’re going to lie, at least make it believable.”

“…”

“You’ve been tossing and turning day and night, claiming that the child in your belly is someone else’s? And you expect me to believe that?”

“But the pills…”

Blair, about to counter his statement, hesitated. He knew she had been diligently taking contraceptive pills. However, his reaction now was not questioning the unexpected pregnancy but rather an expected one.

No, rather… It seemed as if he had been waiting for this news.

The moment she realized this, the words they exchanged when she collapsed after their argument flashed through her mind. His words about needing her for negotiations with Ivan.

Simultaneously, a creepy assumption crossed her mind.

“No way, did you… know everything? That I would become pregnant.”

Blair’s voice trembled as she asked.

Please let what she was thinking not be true.

She desperately hoped that going up on the negotiation table was only about herself, not this child as well.

However, the answer that came out of his mouth after a brief silence plunged Blair into despair.

“Yeah. I was waiting for it.”

His indifferent response, without even trying to hide it, left Blair speechless.

For him, this pregnancy was something he desperately wanted.

In the past life, it was because she loved him, and in this life, it was solely to meet Asiel, that child, again.

But to him, who sought to use her, he never needed her consent from the beginning. As long as it served his purpose.

‘In the end, both in the past life and this life, you’ll do anything to use me.’

The fact that he wouldn’t have hesitated to bring her down in this situation gave her chills and made her teeth chatter.

This situation was so absurd that she couldn’t help but laugh. No, it felt more like crying.

“…Do you really understand how horrifying you are?”

In this moment, he felt so unfamiliar.

The man who once climbed the clock tower with her, who fed her roasted marshmallows, felt like a completely different person.

The discomfort overwhelmed her, and a wave of nausea surged.

“Ugh…”

Blair couldn’t bear the rising nausea and covered her mouth with her hands.