"My wife," I murmur. "My baby. Mine."
And she is. Completely. Irrevocably.
Exactly as I always planned.
9
Vera
Six Months Later…
"Here's your daughter."
The doctor's words hang in the air. On the ultrasound screen, a tiny profile appears in grainy black and white—a perfect button nose, a small chin. I stare at it, trying to process what I'm seeing.
Beside me, Pyotr goes completely still. His hand tightens around mine until my fingers ache.
"Daughter?" His voice comes out rough, barely above a whisper.
"Yes." The doctor smiles, adjusting the wand on my gel-covered belly. She points to the screen with her free hand. "Healthy girl. Perfect size for twenty-four weeks. Strong heartbeat—hear that?"
The rhythmic whoosh-whoosh fills the small room.
I glance at Pyotr. He's staring at the screen like it holds the secrets of the universe, jaw tight, eyes burning with somethingfierce and overwhelming. His Adam's apple bobs as he swallows hard.
"Are you disappointed?" The question tumbles out before I can stop it. "I know you wanted a son—"
His head whips toward me so fast I flinch. "Disappointed?"
He releases my hand only to cup my face with both of his, fingers sliding into my hair. His ice-blue eyes are wet—actual tears gathering at the corners.
"You're giving me a daughter. A perfect, healthy daughter." His voice cracks on the words. "How could I possibly be disappointed?"
"But you always said—"
"I don't care what I said." He kisses me, hard and claiming, not caring that the doctor is still in the room. When he pulls back, his forehead rests against mine. "She's ours. That's what matters."
The doctor clears her throat delicately. "I'll just... go update the charts. Give you two a moment."
The door clicks shut behind her.
Pyotr turns back to the frozen image on the screen, his hand sliding from my face to my very visible bump. His palm spreads wide, possessive, like he's trying to cover as much of our daughter as possible.
"A daughter." He says it like he's tasting the word, testing it. "My daughter."
"Our daughter," I correct softly.
"Katya." The smile that breaks across his face is genuine, open, unguarded. "Katya Maksimova."
I cover his hand with mine on my stomach. "She's not even born yet and you're already—"
"Already planning how I'll terrify every boy who looks at her." His other hand joins the first on my belly, both of them spanning the swell. "My little girl."
***
In the car afterward, he drives with one hand on the wheel, the other resting on my thigh. Silent. Processing what we just learned.
I watch the city slide past the window, winter gray and cold. His thumb strokes absently over the fabric of my maternity jeans—a unconscious gesture of possession that's become as natural as breathing for him.
