I'm pregnant with Nikolai Alekseev's child.
That thought sends cascading waves of terror and wonder crashing through my chest in equal measure. I sink onto the closed toilet lid because my legs won't hold me anymore, and I try to process what this means. What itwillmean. Howeverything I thought I knew about my life just shattered like glass against concrete.
The nausea that's been plaguing me suddenly makes perfect sense. The exhaustion that pulls at my bones no matter how much I sleep. The way certain smells make my stomach revolt, how I can't stand the scent of coffee anymore, even though I used to live on it. I told myself it was stress. Told myself I was just recovering from the island, from the trauma of the storm and the strangeness of returning to civilization. Told myself anything except the truth that's now staring me in the face.
My hands shake as I press them harder against my abdomen, as if I can feel something different there. Some sign of the life taking root inside me. But there's nothing yet. Just the same flat plane of muscle and skin, giving no indication of the chaos brewing beneath.
A baby.
I'm going to have a baby with a man who operates outside the law, whose world is built on violence and secrets I can barely comprehend. The rational part of my brain kicks into overdrive, cataloging all the reasons this is impossible. I can barely keep Thyme & Tide afloat on a good month. The commercial kitchen rent is due in two weeks, and I'm not sure I have enough in my account to cover it. Three clients canceled while I was missing, and I've only managed to book two new jobs since returning. The envelope of cash Nikolai's people gave me helped, but it won't last forever.
And then there's Maya.
The debt to Cane Harris hangs over us like a guillotine blade waiting to drop. I scraped together two payments from themoney Nikolai gave me, buying us maybe two months before the loan shark comes collecting again. Forty-eight thousand dollars still owed to a man whose eyes went cold when I handed him the cash, whose smile promised violence if I'm late with the next installment.
How can I bring a child into this chaos? How can I be responsible for another life when I can barely manage the responsibilities I already have?
But beneath the fear, beneath the practical concerns and the overwhelming sense of impossibility, something else blooms in my chest. Something fierce and protective and utterly irrational.
Want.
I want this baby. The realization hits me with startling clarity, cutting through the panic like a blade through silk. This child is mine. Real. A piece of the island I thought I'd lost forever, a connection to that time the world narrowed to just Nikolai and me and the rhythm of survival.
The fierce, protective instinct that kept Maya and me alive after our mother died now extends to the tiny cluster of cells growing inside me. The same determination that made me jump into a storm-tossed ocean, that made me build shelter and forage for food and refuse to give up even when giving up would have been easier.
I can do this. I have to do this.
My phone sits on the bathroom counter, the screen dark and silent. Nikolai's number is buried in my contacts, a string of digits I haven't called since he put me in that car and watched me drive away. I've caught myself staring at it more times than I want to admit, my thumb hovering over his name, wonderingwhat I'd say if he answered. Wondering if he thinks about the island the way I do, if he lies awake at night remembering the feel of my body against his.
The memory of his eyes watching my car pull away makes my chest constrict painfully. The raw longing on his face, visible for just a moment before his mask slammed back into place. I've replayed that image a thousand times, trying to decode what it meant. If it meant anything at all.
He made his choice. He returned to his empire and his violence and his world of calculated brutality. He left me behind exactly as I knew he would, exactly as I told myself to expect. The Pakhan doesn't do relationships. Doesn't do vulnerability. Doesn't do anything that might compromise the absolute control he's spent twenty years building.
I've been checking the news obsessively, searching for any mention of his name. There have been reports. Vague articles about territory disputes and alleged criminal activity, the same careful language the media always uses when discussing men like Nikolai. Men who operate in shadows and leave no evidence, who inspire fear through reputation alone.
One article mentioned casualties. Bodies found in the industrial district, execution-style killings that the police are investigating but will never solve. I read it three times, my stomach churning, trying to reconcile the man who whispered poetry while weaving palm fronds with the one who orders deaths with the same casual efficiency he used to catch fish.
Both versions are real. Both versions are Nikolai. And I'm carrying his child.
The thought should terrify me more than it does. Should make me want to run as far and fast as possible from anything connected to his world. Instead, I find myself touching my stomach again, imagining what this baby will look like. Will they have his eyes? His dirty blond hair? The sharp angles of his face softened by youth and innocence?
Will they inherit his capacity for violence, or will they be something new? Something better?
"I can do this alone," I whisper to my reflection in the bathroom mirror. The woman staring back at me looks exhausted, her dark hair tangled and her eyes shadowed with sleeplessness. But there's steel in her spine, determination in the set of her jaw. "I've always done everything alone."
It's true. I raised Maya after Mom died. Worked three jobs while finishing high school and put myself through culinary school one class at a time while waitressing nights. Built Thyme & Tide from nothing, every piece of equipment purchased with money I saved dollar by dollar. Survived on an island with a man who should have terrified me but didn't.
I can raise a child alone, too.
The rational part of my brain whispers that I'm being stupid. That Nikolai has resources I can't even imagine, connections, and money, and power that could make everything easier. That he deserves to know he's going to be a father, and keeping this secret is a betrayal of the connection we forged on that island.
But the part of me that's been hurt too many times, that's learned not to depend on anyone, and that’s watched Maya break promise after promise, knows better. Nikolai made his choice when he put me in that car. When he returned to hisempire without looking back. When he let days pass without a single call or message, as if our time together meant nothing.
I won't be another responsibility he has to manage, won't be another piece on his chessboard, moved around to suit his strategies and plans. This baby is mine. My choice. My future.
My hand closes around my phone, and I navigate to my contacts with fingers that have stopped trembling. Nikolai's name stares up at me, and for a heartbeat, I hesitate, remember the way his hands felt on my skin, the rough tenderness of his voice when he called me his. The way he looked at me like I was something precious rather than a complication he didn't need.
Then I remember the coldness in his eyes when we landed, the professional courtesy that replaced intimacy, and the envelope of cash that felt like payment for services rendered.
