That’s what it is, most days—the fantasy, the ache, the rush I get every time I reach for one of those hidden tests. I don’t cry when it’s negative. I don’t even hope. I imagine.
I imagine the moment it turns positive. The way Enzo’s eyes would darken with something more than hunger, something wrecked and reverent, pride etched into every line of his face. I imagine him dropping to his knees, pressing his mouth to my stomach, swearing to protect what’s his before he’s even heard a heartbeat. I imagine him sliding into me again, not with his usual veracity, but carefully, as if every thrust is a vow and every breath a promise that his legacy already lives inside me.
My fingers curl around the edge of the counter, the marble cool against my skin, grounding me. I tell myself it’s not desperation, not some hollow need. But the truth is, I do want it. I want the softness and the permanence of motherhood. I want a family born not of fear or obligation, but of love, of care. I want to carry him with me in the most visceral way possible, to swell with his children, one after another, until my body is a map of everything we built together.
And yet, layered beneath that want, there’s still the darker hunger—the raw, reckless thrill of knowing he could leave me marked in a way no one else ever could. Of being the woman he trusted enough to risk it with. The one he didn’t pull out of. The one he wanted to be full of him.
The twisted sweetness of believing that something real could grow out of the wreckage of our obsession.
I pick up the test from the counter, its plastic smooth against my fingers, and carry it with me as I sink onto the edge of the tub. My knees draw together, the stick balanced across my lap like something sacred, a piece of ritual I’ve performed more times thanI can count. The foil wrapper lies crumpled where I discarded it, the box still open on the counter—evidence of a secret I’ve never shared.
I’m in that space now, the one between fantasy and reality, where the lines blur and the act itself feels as important as the result. It isn’t shameful. It isn’t desperation. It’s something deeper, something woven into the marrow of me. A ritual of wanting, of claiming, of imagining what could be.
The quiet of the room folds around me, heavy, almost meditative—until it fractures. The soft click of the suite door carries in, followed by the recognizable sound of leather soles against tile.
“Zara?” Enzo’s voice drifts closer, casual, unguarded. “I just came back for my laptop.”
My pulse spikes. My body jolts upright as if caught doing something bad, though I make no move to hide the test. My heart thrums hard and fast, every beat echoing the intimacy of what he’s about to see.
And then he’s there. Filling the doorway, his laptop tucked under one arm, his shirt sleeves rolled, his watch flashing beneath the light.
His gaze tracks the scene—the crumpled foil on the counter, the open box, the single test resting across my lap—and he stops. Not sharply. Not with shock. He simply stills, the kind of silence that feels heavy with understanding, with possibility.
The silence stretches, charged but not heavy. His expression gives me nothing—blank, assessing, like he’s cataloging the scene without jumping to conclusions. Then he moves, careful, as though I’m something fragile, something that might spook if he reaches too fast.
“Is everything okay?” he asks, voice soft as he sets his laptop on the vanity.
There’s no edge or suspicion. Just quiet concern wrapped in curiosity, and that makes it worse—makes the words tumble out before I canstop them.
“I’m not pregnant,” I blurt, too fast, too loud. My throat feels tight, heat creeping up my neck. “I mean…I don’t think I am.”
His eyes hold mine. Patient.
I grip the sides of the tub, nails biting porcelain as if that might anchor me, and force the words out before my courage withers. “I just…like to test.”
One dark brow arches. Not in mockery. Not in judgment. Just…listening.
“It’s not about the result,” I rush to explain, my voice breaking into nervous fragments. “It’s part of the kink. The ritual. The possibility. The idea that maybe, just maybe…” My words falter. I bite down on my lip, heat rushing to my cheeks. “I know it sounds crazy.”
“Angel.” His voice cuts clean through my spiral, steady and commanding. “Stop.”
I blink, breath caught.
“Nothing you want is crazy,” he says, like he needs me to hear it, to believe it.
The air cracks, and the words spill softer now, more like confession than defense. “I’ve done it for years. Even when I wasn’t with anyone. Even when I knew there was no chance.” My throat tightens, but I keep going. “It’s the fantasy. The rush of it. Waiting for the lines to appear, imagining what it would mean if they did. Sometimes it’s the closest I’ve ever felt to…possibility.”
His jaw flexes, his gaze dragging down to the test across my lap before lifting back to me, sharper now. “And when it’s after us—after I’ve been the one inside you—it hits differently.”
A shiver rolls through me. “Yes,” I whisper. “It feels real. Like I’m not just pretending anymore.”
He kneels then, right in front of me, lowering his broad frame until his knees brush the tile and he’s looking up at me. His hand finds my thigh, warm and anchoring. “You think I wouldn’t understand this, Angel? That I wouldn’t want every piece of what drives you?”
I swallow hard, my chest aching at the truth in his eyes. “I don’t want you to think it was…too much.”
“Too much?” His mouth curves, dark and reverent. “Zara, you think I don’t lie awake at night picturing you pregnant with my child? That I don’t get hard just thinking about it?” His thumb strokes the inside of my knee. “This doesn’t scare me. It wrecks me in the best way. Because it means you want exactly what I do.”
Something in me loosens. The breath I’ve been holding slips free, shaky, wrecked.
