She stopped.
"That vase," I said, eyes still on the road, "I was already thinking about getting rid of it before you broke it. Couldn't find the right reason. So thanks for solving that problem for me."
The car got quiet for a moment.
Then she said, "The way you protected me back there...it was kind of intense."
"You don't like intense?"
"I do," she said, and something shifted in her voice—something I wasn't going to analyze too carefully. "I like it a lot."
I glanced at her in my peripheral. She'd turned to face the window, but I saw the curve of her mouth.
"Next time something like that happens," I said, "don't just standthere and take it. Push back. Or walk away."
"I did push back," she said. "I said I'd pay for it."
"That's not pushing back. That's giving up. This isn't some shitty Brooklyn apartment," I said, harsher than I meant to. "This is the Visconti manor. Nobody's going to have sympathy for you because you're weak. The opposite. The weaker you are, the more they'll step on your neck. You get that?"
She stared at me like she was seeing me for the first time.
Damn it.
What was I telling her this for? She was a tool. A tool for making a kid. If people pushed her around, that wasn't my problem.
Except—
Except seeing her standing there like that, head down, biting her lip, trying so hard to keep it together—I couldn't fucking help myself.
"So what should I say?" she asked suddenly, her voice small, testing.
"Don't say anything," I said, irritable in a way I didn't expect. "You got a problem like that, you come to me, and I handle it. You don't need to—" I stopped, realizing I was saying too much. "Just don't let people walk all over you. It makes me look bad."
I threw that last part in.
She didn't answer, but her mouth curved up a little more.
I didn't know what she was thinking, and I decided not to wonder about it.
The private hospital VIP suite was spacious, luxurious—deep wood paneling, medical equipment hidden behind custom cabinetry. The exam bed was velvet-padded, warm light spilling from a standing lamp. Could've been a five-star hotel suite instead of a sterile medical space.
Dr. Green was in her fifties, gold-rimmed glasses, professional and gentle. I'd brought her in special—thirty years obstetrics, the best in the field.
"Lie down, Mrs. Visconti," she said, gesturing to the bed.
Mrs. Visconti.
The name sounded strange. Every time I heard it, I'd blank for a second before it registered—she was talking about Olivia.
My wife.
In the legal sense.
Olivia lay back and lifted her shirt. Her belly was visibly round now, pale skin with faint stretch marks. When she saw them, she instinctively tried to pull her shirt down, but Dr. Green was already applying the gel.
"Cold," the doctor said, picking up the probe. "Bear with me."
Olivia sucked in a breath. I saw her fingers curl into the bed sheet.
