EMMA'S POV

The second trimester arrived not with the gentle whisper of a new beginning but with a tidal wave of strange, unfamiliar changes. The nausea had finally receded, replaced by a deep, bone-weary fatigue that no amount of sleep could seem to conquer. My body was no longer my own, a vessel transformed, swelling and stretching to accommodate the tiny life within. The reflection in the mirror was a stranger, a woman with a new softness to her curves, a rounded swell where a flat stomach had been. The sleek, tailored power suits that had felt like armor now felt like a costume, a reminder of the person I was, not the person I was becoming. A quiet, insidious insecurity began to bloom in the corners of my mind, a garden of self-doubt. Did Adrian still see the woman he fell in love with? Or did he just see this... this ever-expanding temple to his heir? The thought was a whisper of poison, dark and unwelcome.