Everything here is controlled. Intentional.
Which should comfort me.
Instead, it makes every internal alarm start ringing.
Because I learned at an early age that taking up too much space wasn’t rewarded.
As the youngest of three overachieving sisters, I was the afterthought by default—the one who learned how to be low-maintenance because it was easier than asking to be seen. My parents loved me, but love stretched thin teaches you quietly: handle it yourself.
Approval came when I didn’t add to the load.
And then there was Josh.
Four years of proving I was worth staying for.
Working two jobs while getting my MBA part-time so he could survive law school. Swallowing my own opportunities so we could stay in Boston. Planning a wedding he let me shoulder alone.
I bent and adjusted and made myself smaller and more accommodating because love, I thought, was about compromise.
Until I came home early from a conference to surprise him.
And I found him in our bed with his boss.
I stop walking, fingers curling against the counter as the memory snaps sharp and unwelcome.
That was the lesson that stayed. That dependence doesn’t make you lovable. It makes you replaceable.
And moving in means admitting I can’t do this alone.
It means letting someone provide.
It means trusting that the ground won’t disappear the second I putmy heals down.
I take another slow lap of the kitchen, grounding myself in motion, movement I control.
Until I realize that Donovan is standing in the kitchen doorway.
Watching me. Fully dressed.
In perfectly pressed slacks and a crisp white button-down, he is the very picture of the perfect CEO.
Except…his hair is still slightly damp, silver strands slicked near his temples, his sleeves unbuttoned at his wrists. His gray eyes take me in slowly, and for the hundredth time, I’m acutely aware...
Of how much trouble my heart is in when it comes to him. How crazy it is to have to depend on a man like Donovan Titan.
And how screwed I’ll be, if he ever changes his mind again.
He takes a step towards me, gaze sweeping the oversize shirt on my shoulders. It’s his—a charcoal gray tee that’s soft from too many washes, long enough to skim against my thighs.
Thighs that Donovan openly ogles as he reaches the kitchen island and places his palms on top.
“Coffee?” he asks mildly, as if he didn’t spend the last forty-eight hours ruining me in increasingly creative ways.
“I can’t have coffee,” I remind him, lifting an eyebrow. “Pregnant.”
He doesn’t miss a beat, turning to the counter and pouring from a different carafe. “Decaf.”
He slides the mug toward me and adds exactly the right splash of cream. “I ordered it Friday.”
