“Everything okay?” Luca asks from across the breakfast table, his dark eyes tracking my expression with that careful attention I’ve come to recognize. He notices everything about me now—every mood shift, every hesitation, every moment of discomfort.
“Fine,” I say automatically, setting down the cup and reaching instead for water. “The coffee just tastes off today.”
He frowns, looking down at his own mug. “I’ll have Ramirez check if the beans have gone bad.”
I stare at the cup again, moving it around. “That might be a good idea.” It’s not like Ramirez to not check the beans. The man isfastidious about his coffee. The one time I asked him for an iced coffee, he clutched his chest like I was giving him a heart attack.
Luca accepts it with a nod before returning to his tablet and the morning reports Danny sent over. I watch him for a moment—the way his jaw tightens when he reads something that displeases him, the slight furrow between his brows when he’s concentrating—and try to ignore the way my stomach is churning.
I pull out my new phone, intending to review my schedule for the day. I need to check on the animals in the sunroom and maybe call the supplier about new surgical equipment Luca approved. I tap my finger against the table in thought. Maybe I should research some of those specialized training programs he promised?—
My calendar app is open, showing this month’s dates. And that’s when I see it.
The little red dot that usually appears like clockwork every twenty-eight days. Except it should have appeared almost two weeks ago.
My hand freezes on my phone. My mouth goes dry.
No. No, that can’t be right. I must have miscounted. I’ve gotten confused with all the chaos of the wedding and adjusting to married life.
But even as I frantically scroll back through my calendar, checking and rechecking dates, the math doesn’t lie.
I’m late.Verylate.
The realization feels like a punch to my gut, stealing the air from my lungs. The coffee cup in front of me suddenly makes perfectsense—the metallic taste, the nausea that’s been plaguing me for the past few mornings that I attributed to stress or rich food or literally anything except the obvious.
Oh god.
“Gigi?” Luca’s voice seems to come from very far away. “You look pale. Are you sure you’re alright?”
“I’m fine,” I hear myself say, my voice unnaturally bright. “Just—” I grapple with anything to say to him to not make him suspicious. “I need to check on something in the sunroom. One of the rabbits has been acting strange.”
It’s a weak excuse and one that normally Luca would see right through, but he’s already distracted by whatever Danny’s report says. He waves me off absently, and I practically flee from the breakfast room, my heart hammering so hard I can feel it in my throat.
This can’t be happening. This absolutelycannotbe happening.
Except it might be. It probably is, given the late period and the nausea and the sudden aversion to coffee that I’ve never experienced before in my life.
I’m maybe pregnant.
The thought spirals through my mind as I make my way through the estate, not really seeing where I’m going. Pregnant. With Luca’s child. After everything that’s happened, after all the complicated mess of our circumstances?—
I end up in my old suite, the one I haven’t used since the wedding. It feels strange being here now, like visiting a museum exhibit of my former life. The bed is still made with hospitalcorners, the surfaces dust-free thanks to the maids’ diligent cleaning, but it feels abandoned. Empty.
I sink onto the edge of the bed and try to breathe through the panic threatening to overwhelm me.
A baby.
I press my hand to my still-flat stomach, trying to process the reality of what this means. There could be a life growing inside me right now. Luca’s child. A tiny person who would be half me, half him—half veterinarian who saves wounded animals, half crime lord who destroys his enemies without mercy.
The duality makes me want to laugh and cry simultaneously.
I never thought children would be in my future. Not after Mom died and Dad fell apart and I spent years just trying to survive and prove I could take care of myself when everyone I loved kept self-destructing. Kids felt like a luxury for people with normal lives—people who weren’t carrying the weight of an addict father and a dead mother.
And then Luca happened. And suddenly my future became even more uncertain, more complicated, impossible to plan for because I didn’t know if I’d even have a future beyond serving his revenge plot.
Except now. Now things are different. Aren’t they?
The past two weeks of marriage flash through my mind in a cascade of moments that feel simultaneously real and surreal. Luca holding me in the morning before we’re fully awake, his arms tight around my waist like he’s afraid I’ll disappear. The way he looks at me across the dinner table when we’re having a conversation, like I’m the most fascinating person he’s everencountered. His touches are loving now and when he grabs me, it’s usually to pull me close, not to hurt.
