“Distractingly.”
She gave me the dimple. I went back to painting before I did something that got paint on both of us.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I didn’t check it. It buzzed again five minutes later. I kept painting. A third time and Andrea looked at me.
“You can check it.”
“It can wait.”
It could wait. The nursery was yellow, the color she picked because she refused blue or pink. The crib was assembled in the corner. The wolf stuffed animal from Luca sat on the dresser. My phone was full of messages about Conrad’s alliances and George’s recruiting, but I was not going to let the outside into this room. Not now. This room was for my son, for Andrea, for the life I was building on the other side of whatever war was coming.
That night, in bed, her belly pressed against my stomach, her face close to mine in the dark. Her hair was still damp from the shower, smelling like the coconut shampoo she’d switched to because the vanilla one made her nauseous now. Her green eyes were open, watching me in the low light, and I traced the line of her jaw with my thumb because I could do that now, because she let me, and every time she let me it felt like a gift I hadn’t finished earning.
“You know I’m going to forgive you soon, right?”
My breath caught. “Yeah?”
“Not yet. But soon. I can feel it coming and I wanted to warn you so you don’t do something stupid and ruin it.”
“I’ll try not to.”
“That would be a first.”
I put my forehead against hers. She closed her eyes. The baby kicked against my stomach through the space between us, strong, insistent, like he was seconding whatever his mother just said.
“I’ll be here,” I said.
“I know.”
She fell asleep with her forehead against mine, her breath evening out, her hand loosening where it had been gripping my shirt. I watched her face relax, the tension leaving her jaw, her lashes dark against her cheeks. I looked at her and I saw my whole world. She was carrying my son, she was about to forgiveme, and I was lying in the dark with a storm building outside these walls wondering if I’d get the chance to receive it.
The phone on the nightstand had six unread messages from Luca. Conrad held another meeting today, larger than the last. George talked to four more junior Alphas. And Lorraine had been spotted at the south perimeter for the first time, a new position, closer than any of her previous routes.
Andrea breathed slow and even against me. The nursery down the hall was painted yellow. The baby was quiet. The forgiveness was coming.
And outside the walls, the Ashtor family was closing in.
41
— • —
Andrea
I was on the floor of the animal wing with Buddy because getting down there at thirty-two weeks was an ordeal that involved a controlled descent, a prayer, and the acceptance that getting back up would require outside assistance. But Buddy had been glued to my side all day, whining if I left the room, pressing against my legs, and I figured he deserved some floor time.
I scratched behind his ears and talked to him about Finneas’s latest argument with the nursery furniture delivery company, which had sent the wrong dresser twice. “He called them and used the King voice. On a furniture company. The poor customer service woman probably quit on the spot.”
Buddy put his chin on my knee.
“He’s going to be an insane father. You know that, right? Alex is going to be the most overprotected child in Georgia.”
I shifted my weight to push myself up and a pain lanced through my abdomen so sharp I gasped and grabbed the edge of the window seat. My whole body locked. Buddy whined and pressed his nose against my side.
It passed. I sat still, breathing through it, my hand on my belly. Braxton Hicks. I’d had them before, the practice contractions the doctor warned about. Brief. Irregular. Nothing.
I waited a minute, caught my breath, and started pushing myself up again.
The second one hit harder. A tight band of pressure across my belly that made me double over. I grabbed Buddy’s collar because he was the only solid thing within reach and the pain was different. Sharper. Lower. It didn’t pass in a few seconds. It held, squeezing, and I couldn’t breathe through it.
