There she was.
Beautiful. Gorgeous. And yes, nervous. Standing there in her pajamas, she stood there after all this time apart while being in the same building. Without any greeting, without waiting for me to say anything, she strode in and shut the door behind herself.
Now that she was in the dim light of my bedroom, I saw her clearly. I noticed her tension as she stared me down.
She wasn’t nervous. She wasscared.
Every protective instinct flared to the surface. Adrenaline coursed through me with this need to be her hero. To save her. To rescue her from whatever was bothering her.
“Kalina?” It felt too good to say something to her after holding back for weeks. “What is it? Tell me, please.”
I didn’t care if she got mad that I was asking her pointed questions, as if I were ordering her to explain. Yes, I expected answers because goddammit, if something was wrong, I had to fix it for her.
She licked her lips, opening her eyes wide as she watched me.
Maybe the shock of finally facing me after avoiding me for almost two months was getting to her. Perhaps she was second-guessing herself to come and approach me at all. Especially like this, in the quiet darkness of the night, out of the blue.
I itched with the need to reach out to her, to take her hand and hold it just to give her a grounding sense that she wasn’t alone. That she didn’t have to ever struggle on her own.
“I…” She swallowed, her delicate neck straining with the force of it. Clearing her throat, she only watched me. Then she swallowed again and took one step closer to me.
The chasm stretching between us wasn’t more than a couple of feet, but it felt like miles, tugging at my heart. The longing to hold her and reconnect, to reconcile with these differences between us, was hell.
“I…” She shook her head and cringed, as if she were in pain.
Nothing showed on her. No injuries were obvious to my eyes. Blood was absent. Of course, she was uninjured. She was protected and safe in the Dubinin fortress.
Instead of telling me anything, she closed her eyes briefly as if she regretted coming at all.
No words came as an explanation. She showed me.
Lifting her arms, she extended her hand toward me.
In it was an object.
I locked my eyes on her, frantic and impatient to figure out what I could do to help her, to make her smile.
As she slowly rotated her wrist and uncurled her fingers, I saw a slim stick. White plastic.
What? What is this?
She raised it higher, and I peered at it while she waited for me to identify it.
As her fingers slid over the plastic item, a plus sign was revealed.
My mouth hung open.
Time stood still.
Instant realization swept over me with the force of a tidal wave.
A pregnancy test.
She was holding a pregnancy test stick—a positive one.
Kalina waspregnant.The shock of what this meant stunned me, making my body go rigid.
“Kalina…”
