“This pregnancy...” My voice softened just a fraction. “It isn’t Matteo’s.”
Silence fell again.
He didn’t move.
“It’s yours,” I said.
The words felt heavier this time.
More real.
“I conceived the night I gave you my virginity.”
The room seemed to shrink around us.
Everything narrowed down to the space between us.
He stared at me.
Not like before—not assessing, not controlled.
Searching.
His eyes moved over my face, slower this time.
As if he were looking for something—any crack, any hesitation, any sign that this was a lie he could tear apart.
I didn’t give him one.
I couldn’t.
Because it wasn’t.
When he finally spoke, his voice was barely there.
“Mine?”
It wasn’t a question filled with anger.
It was something else entirely.
Disbelief.
I nodded.
Slowly.
His fist loosened.
Gradually.
Like his body was catching up to something his mind hadn’t fully processed yet.
His fingers uncurled, tension bleeding out of them in small, uneven increments.
Then—
He moved.
