The restroom is narrow and clean, a single sink and a locked stall. I bolt the door behind me and set the paper bag on the counter. My hands are steady. That’s what scares me.
I open the box, tear the foil, and read the instructions once. I set the box aside and follow the steps exactly, my movements precise and detached, like I’m handling paperwork instead of something that can change the direction of my life.
Minutes later, I’m sitting on the closed lid, the test on the edge of the sink, my phone face down beside it. I stare at the tile floor. I count the grout lines. I listen to footsteps outside the door and the hiss of the espresso machine through the wall. Someone laughs near the counter. A chair scrapes across the floor.
I don’t move when the first line appears, but my chest contracts and expands all together until a time comes when I’m feeling far too sick to see straight. My vision blurs for a second, and I grip the edge of the sink to steady myself, fingers pressing into porcelain.
It’s only one line.
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. I almost laugh, but it catches halfway up my throat and turns into something tight and unsteady.
Then the second line shows up slowly, darkening until there’s no room for doubt.
I stare at it like it might change if I look long enough. Like it might fade. Like I might have misread something simple. But naturally, that doesn’t happen.
My first thought isn’t fear.
It’s Cillian.
I see his face in my mind, not the one he wears in the war room, not the one he wore at Roarke’s grave, but the one at the kitchen table with his nephew balanced on his knee, arguing about a toy boat. I see the way he wiped mashed potato from that child’s cheek and didn’t think anyone was watching. I see him looking at me in the car, telling me we weren’t going back to how it was.
You’re allowed to want normal parts.
My hand moves toward my phone before I’ve decided anything. I could call him. I could walk out of here, get into a car, and tell him everything before the day even turns.
He would look at me first, then at the test, then back at me. And I have a good feeling he’d choose something that’d concern my health… unlike my father.
The thought hits hard enough to make me sit back against the wall. I slide down until my shoulders press into cool tile and my knees pull up toward my chest.
This isn’t just his child.
It’s mine.
And that makes it real in a way I didn’t prepare for.
My hand drifts to my stomach without thinking. There’s nothing there yet. No curve. No sign. Just the faint echo of nausea and a line on a cheap plastic stick in a café bathroom.
I swallow.
My father’s voice cuts in, uninvited.
You move now. You destabilize him fast.
I picture telling him. I don’t even get to finish the thought before I know I won’t. He wouldn’t see a grandchild. He would see leverage, timing, weakness in Cillian and an opportunity to split him open. He threatened to send messages, to burn me down with a single click. If he knew this, he would escalate. He would use it, make it a weapon before I had time to decide what it meant to me.
My throat tightens, and this time the nausea is not from hormones. I stand slowly and move closer to the sink. I pick up the test and hold it closer to my face, like proximity might reveal some technical flaw. The lines are clear. Even. Unmistakable.
Positive.
My mind starts running through dates. The cliffside. The week before. The nights in his office when the war maps were still open on the table and he carried me upstairs without breaking a sentence. I had taken the pill. I think I had. Once late. Once unsure.
It only takes one gap.
I press my lips together and close my eyes for a second.
This changes everything.
If I tell Cillian now, in the middle of this war, he’ll tighten security around me, limit where I go, who I see. He’ll protect what is his, and I will become part of that perimeter.
