Page 15 of Goldrage (The Chrysophilist Trilogy #3)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

JULIAN

Aurelia shifts on the couch across from me.

She keeps touching her stomach and it looks so unconscious it has to be real.

Doesn’t it? The baby is real? There’s a fierce, possessive ache in my chest and it makes me feel lighter than I’ve felt in months.

So if she’s fucking lying, I’m killing her right here and now.

I brace my forearm on the window and stare out at the garden so I stop checking my phone. No, I’ll kill Valentine in front of her first. Then her friend. Then, when she’s completely devastated, I’ll kill Aurelia.

Lying about me having a child is a step too far.

A father. Me .

Shit . That isn’t something I’ve ever thought about.

My entire life has been about survival, so I never imagined having my own kid, never let myself want it.

Children were for men who didn’t have darkness lurking in their blood, who didn’t wake up tasting violence on their tongues.

But now the possibility dangles before me, and I’m drowning in the need for it to be true.

A son. Or a daughter. Fuck, I don’t care which. It would just be… someone pure who has never betrayed me or lied. Who I could protect and actually love.

An innocence who would love me back. I’d never threaten or hurt them. I wouldn’t let them see the violence of this world until they were eighteen and old enough to handle it. I’d be a good fucking father and earn their respect and love through actions, never threats.

My gaze slides to Adrian without permission, drawn by the magnetic pull of old wounds.

I caught the way his whole body seized up when he first saw Aurelia.

There was a naked relief that flooded his expression before he could mask it.

His hands trembled before he tucked them under the blanket on his lap.

Love. Raw and undeniable. And it’s a love that’s going to try to pull him away from me.

I won’t let it, even though the realization that him and Aurelia played me is like an acid corroding what’s left of my sanity.

They plotted betrayal behind my back. Faked Adrian’s death.

Tried to put the blame on my mother. Then they hid away at Lorenzo’s, hoping I’d ruin the Consortium and look like the world’s biggest idiot.

The thought takes root, spreading through every rational thought, and I’m back to wondering if this pregnancy is a lie. What if none of this is real? What if the pregnancy is just another move in their twisted game?

My mind races down dark corridors, constructing nightmares. They faked his death—that much is certain. They wanted to be together without the Consortium’s interference, without me in the way. But then what?

They saw how well I handled the transition to power and realized they’d miscalculated. So they pivoted, creating this pregnancy story as leverage.

Fuck, it makes sense.

If I hadn’t found out they were at Lorenzo’s, I bet the plan was to reveal Adrian’s miraculous survival and present Aurelia as the mother of the Harrow heir. Use the child—real or imagined—to challenge my authority. Reclaim power through sympathy and scandal.

But I fucked up their timeline when I stormed Lorenzo’s estate. I caught them before they could finish things.

I pound my fist against the window and the glass rattles. I ruined their initial plan, so Aurelia must’ve decided to try a different angle. Now she’s here, trying to make me believe she could be carrying my child. I glance at the bitch again. She’s holding her stomach and staring at the floor.

I don’t know. I can’t tell what’s real anymore. I can’t separate the lies from the truth.

I study her profile, the way she keeps her face angled away from everyone. But she can’t help herself—her eyes drift to Adrian. Each stolen glance is her twisting the knife deeper into my back.

She loves him. She always has. And everything with me was a lie .

This is a fucking lie.

The knowledge should destroy me, but something darker curls through my chest instead.

A vicious satisfaction that tastes like victory.

Because despite her longing, despite whatever plans they made in secret, I’m the one with all the power.

Adrian wears my chains. Aurelia sits in my house, at my mercy.

She can pine all she wants, but Adrian isn’t going anywhere. He’s mine—my brother, my blood, my responsibility. And if she thinks a fake baby will change that, she’s about to learn how wrong she is.

Aurelia’s gaze flickers to me, quick as a hummingbird, before darting away. But I catch what lurks in those green depths.

Fear.

Good. She should be afraid. Because when the doctor calls with the results, when her lie crumbles, she’ll understand exactly what she’s lost. No more games. No more manipulation. Just the cold reality of what happens to people who betray Julian Harrow.

“Julian.” My mother’s voice cuts through my blind rage and I blink. She’s near the fireplace, one finger beckoning me toward the far corner. “We need to talk.”

Sighing, I push myself off the window. Responding to her is automatic at this point, but something’s different. The mindless obedience that usually propels me toward her has gone sluggish, weighed down by the memory of her lies.

Aurelia’s dead. Burned to ash.

No, Mother. She fucking wasn’t. Why the goddamn lie ?

We tuck ourselves into a corner and she launches into a speech.

“This changes everything,” she whispers.

Her fingers grip my elbow, nails digging through my shirt, like I’m still her willing confidant.

“You can’t possibly believe her story. She’s not pregnant.

It’s too convenient, too perfectly timed?—”

“Why did you lie to me?” The question erupts from somewhere I’ve been trying not to look. My voice stays low but there’s venom in it, the kind that makes grown men step back. “You told me she was dead. You said you burned her body. You looked me in the eye and fucking lied.”

Her lips part in a light gasp and she releases my elbow.

Her eyes flash wide for a split second before she frowns like I’m in the wrong.

That second of fear on my mother’s face may be more unsettling than this possible pregnancy.

My mother never slips. She never falters.

Yet here she stands, composure cracking like old paint.

“I was protecting you.” The words tumble out too fast and rehearsed. “She escaped, and I knew how it would affect you if?—”

“You thought I couldn’t handle it?” My voice climbs despite my efforts to contain it. I catch myself, glancing back at Adrian and Aurelia, but they’re locked in their own silent war. “You thought I was too fucking weak to deal with one woman?”

Her voice wavers. “O-of course not, darling. I only—” Her hand reaches for my arm again, those fingers that used to smooth my hair after nightmares, that held ice to my bruises when Father’s lessons got too enthusiastic.

I jerk away before she can make contact, and something in her eyes dims. ”Julian, I?—”

“What else have you lied about?”

My words are a guillotine over her neck. I watch her pupils dilate, watch the subtle shift of her weight that means she’s calculating and deciding what pieces of truth to feed me.

Fuck. There are other lies. Other secrets she’s been spooning into my mouth like medicine.

What are they?

Her phone’s melody pierces the silence and we both freeze. The entire room goes still as she pulls it from her pocket, the name on the screen making my pulse hammer against my ribs.

She answers. “Dr. Reynolds. What did you find?” Her voice shifts to that polished tone she uses for business, all traces of our confrontation erased.

I study her face as she listens, reading the story in the tightening of her jaw, the way her free hand clenches against her thigh. Her eyebrows pull together first. Then her skin loses color, draining until she looks ill.

“I see.” The words come out clipped. “And the paternity?”

My heart stops. Just stops, suspended between beats while I wait for the answer that will either damn us all or?—

“What do you mean?” Her lips press into a line so thin they almost disappear. “Yes. Yes, of course. In a month, then.”

The call ends with a soft beep that might as well be a gunshot for how it echoes through the room.

Everyone’s watching us now—Adrian straightening in his wheelchair, Aurelia’s hands twisted together in her lap, white-knuckled and trembling.

Valentine glances from the corner of his eyes and Bianca is on the verge of tears.

Fuck, Bianca is annoying. How could Adrian marry such a weak woman?

I return my focus to Mother. “Well?” I demand, though her expression has already given me the answer.

“She’s pregnant. Approximately seven weeks along.”

Seven weeks.

The number blazes through my mind, and I’m already tracing backwards through the calendar. Seven weeks puts us right before everything went to hell. Before I sold her to Lorenzo and?—

Mine.

It’s my baby.

The thought pounds through me with each heartbeat. It has to be mine. It happened during one of those nights I lost control and pinned her beneath me. When she still gasped my name in the dark, and at least pretended to be completely, utterly mine.

Bianca screeches and then whimpers. Her irritating voice scrapes against my eardrums. Valentine’s shoulders drop, resignation etching lines into his weathered face.

But it’s Adrian’s reaction that makes my muscles seize up—shock bleeding into concern, then morphing into something primal.

It’s the kind of look that says he’d tear through his chains if he could, consequences be damned.

“The paternity test was inconclusive,” Mother adds. “Some issue with their equipment. The doctor will draw more blood and try again in a month. For now, the father is unknown.”

A month. Four weeks of not knowing, of wondering, of?—

No. I know. The math doesn’t lie, even if everyone else in this room does.

My child. My blood. Someone I’ll shield from every shadow that ever darkened my doorway. I’ll raise this child right—not with Lucian’s fists and fury, not with his cruelty disguised as lessons. I’ll be the father I never had, because I’ve spent twenty-eight years learning exactly what not to do.

And fuck… I just need someone to love.

I’m already moving toward the couch. “Aurelia stays here. She doesn’t leave the estate. I won’t risk her running off with my child.”

Adrian’s head snaps up, chains singing their metallic song as he strains forward. “Why are you so sure it’s yours?”

I let the silence stretch, let my smile answer for me. Cold. Calculated. The kind of expression I learned from watching Lucian conduct “business.” The timeline speaks louder than any words could. Seven weeks ago, Aurelia was in my bed, under my hands, crying out my name. Not his.

“Guards.” My voice carries the weight of command now, settling into my bones like it was always meant to be there.

“Grab her things.” I watch in satisfaction as a guard snatches Aurelia’s purse, leaving her without a phone or any way to contact the outside world.

After the guard hands me the purse for safe keeping, I say, “ Prepare one of the guest rooms. Ms. Draven will be staying with us until the child is born.”

Aurelia jumps to her feet with fire in her eyes. “No. You’re not trapping me in a room again.”

I turn to face her fully, drinking in the sight of her—alive, defiant, carrying my child. The contrast to how I last saw her, bleeding on marble floors, hits a tender spot in my chest. The same damn spot I’ve been trying to ignore.

But finally, that tenderness is no longer for her. It’s for my child.

“You’re carrying the Harrow heir,” I say.

“You think I’m going to let you wander around Seattle, risking my child’s life?

You’ll stay on the estate grounds. You’ll be comfortable, well-fed, properly cared for.

” I let my voice drop, soft as silk over steel.

The same tone Lucian used before he struck.

“But you will not leave. Not until that baby is born. After that, I’ll show you a mercy you don’t deserve.

You’ll be free to live your pathetic life as long as it’s not in Seattle. I’ll be raising the baby alone.”

The cry that tears from her throat is pure anguish, and tears gather in those green eyes like storms on the horizon. Her mouth opens, closes, the words trapped behind whatever wall she’s built to survive this.

Perfect . Let her feel what I felt when she betrayed me. Let her understand what it means to lose everything that fucking matters.

Aurelia’s face drains of color, but there it is—that stubborn lift of her chin I know better than my own reflection. Adrian looks ready to shatter his wheelchair with the force of his fury, muscles coiled despite the chains holding him down.

But he won’t move. He can’t. I hold all the cards now, and the knowledge fills me like the finest whiskey. This is what Lucian felt. This intoxicating rush of absolute control, of bending the world to your will through force and fear.

Why did I resist this for so long?

Valentine steps forward and clears his throat casually. “Julian, perhaps?—”

“No. This is how it’s going to be. She made her choice when she walked through those gates.” I lock eyes with Aurelia. “You’ve been desperate to be part of this family your whole life. Welcome home.”