Pregnant and Spoiled by the Billionaire — Episode 19
Fiancée. The word swept through the corridor faster than any rumor Regina had spread. Amelia looked up at Leo, startled by the title after rejecting his proposal, but the anger in his face was directed entirely at the people surrounding her. He had not come to claim her. He had come to make the university understand the seriousness of what it had allowed.
Regina recovered enough to insist there had been a misunderstanding. She claimed Amelia had lied about their confrontation just as she lied about the bar. Leo asked Derek to play the security footage from the café meeting where Bethany confessed to drugging and selling Amelia. The clean audio stripped Regina’s borrowed story of every defense.
The university president turned pale. He ordered campus security to preserve every recording and identify each student who had restrained Amelia instead of helping her. Professor Thomas demanded immediate medical attention, but Amelia refused to leave until the people who hurt her understood that Leo’s money was not the only reason their actions mattered.
“You broke my property, tore my clothes, and put my baby at risk because a rumor gave you permission to hate me,” she told Regina. Her voice steadied as she spoke. “Even if I had never met Leo Preston, none of you would have had the right to touch me.”
Shame shifted through the crowd. Students lowered their phones, suddenly aware that their recordings documented complicity rather than entertainment. Regina still clung to her father’s influence, warning that the Vale family donated too much money for the university to punish her.
Leo’s expression became dangerously polite. “Then the university can choose between the Vale contribution and the thirty million dollars I pledged this morning.” He glanced at the president. “My donation was meant to create the Amelia Gates Library. It will not fund an institution that protects people who assault her.”
Amelia stared at him. A library bearing her name was so far beyond the boundaries of their agreement that she could not immediately speak. Leo noticed her reaction and realized he might once again have turned care into spectacle, but there was no time to explain while her face remained pale.
The president announced that Regina and the other attackers would be suspended pending formal expulsion proceedings. He also promised an independent investigation into the faculty response and the spread of Bethany’s allegations. Regina shouted that Amelia had manipulated everyone by getting pregnant by a billionaire.
Leo stepped toward her, but Amelia caught his sleeve. “Don’t.” She wanted consequences delivered by the law and school policy, not fear of the Preston name. Leo stopped immediately, demonstrating before everyone that protecting Amelia did not mean replacing her choices with his own.
Campus security escorted Regina away as she threatened lawsuits and revenge. Her final words vanished beneath the questions erupting through the hallway. Leo ignored every camera and wrapped his coat around Amelia’s torn dress, creating privacy where the crowd had tried to strip it away.
“Are you hurt?” he asked. Amelia admitted that her back ached but insisted the baby was probably fine. The word probably changed his face. He lifted her before she could object and carried her toward the exit while Derek cleared a path.
Amelia rested against his chest, exhausted enough to surrender the argument. “You called me your fiancée,” she murmured. Leo did not slow. “It was the fastest way to make them understand you are under my protection.” The explanation sounded practical, yet his arms tightened around her.
“I don’t want to be protected only because people think I belong to you.” Her quiet correction reached him despite the noise. Leo looked down at her. “Then let them learn the truth. I belong beside you because I choose to be there.”
Outside, reporters had already gathered after hearing about the donation. Cameras turned toward Leo carrying Amelia, and questions collided in the air. He refused to discuss the pregnancy without her permission. When asked whether the engagement was real, he said only that Amelia’s safety mattered more than any announcement.
They reached the car before a cramp tightened across Amelia’s abdomen. She gasped and gripped Leo’s lapel. The color drained from his face as she whispered that something was wrong.
Leo ordered the driver to the hospital and called ahead for the obstetric team. The city blurred beyond the windows while Amelia fought to breathe through each wave of pain. She had survived her father, Jason, and Bethany, yet terror now reduced her world to the life she could not feel inside her.
“Stay with me,” Leo said, holding her hand. He had uttered the same words when asking her to remain at the penthouse, but now they sounded like a plea. “You and the baby are going to be all right.”
“You can’t promise that.” Tears slipped across Amelia’s cheeks. Leo pressed her knuckles to his lips. “Then I promise you won’t face whatever happens alone.” It was the first promise he had made that neither wealth nor influence could guarantee, and therefore the one she believed most.
At the hospital, Leo carried her through the emergency entrance and demanded a doctor. Nurses rushed Amelia behind a set of double doors, stopping him at the threshold. The loss of her hand left him standing motionless beneath the clinical lights, her torn blue sleeve still clutched between his fingers.
Minutes stretched without news. Matilda arrived to find her son staring at the closed doors with a fear he could not conceal. Before she could reach him, an alarm sounded inside the examination room. Leo heard Amelia cry out, and a nurse hurried through the doors calling for the obstetric specialist.
