Page 150 of The Devil of Downtown

The scent of flowers lingers everywhere. Red roses. White lilies. Cardboard boxes stacked with them, brushes, and lipstick trailing across makeup tables. I hardly register any of it except the fact that I haven’t found her yet.

Then I hear her laugh, floating down the corridor. My stride lengthens without meaning to.

By the time I reach her hallway, the noise thins, anticipation tightening low in my gut. I don’t just want to see her; I need to touch her.

I stop short outside her dressing room.

Her dance partner is hovering, just a little too concerned, a little too earnest. Talking too much.

“I just wanted to check on her,” he says when he sees me. “She was sick earlier. I mean, she crushed it, obviously, but—”

“She gets nervous,” Ivy says from inside, amused. “I’m fine.”

I take in the situation. The dancer’s posture. The tone. The way he’s lingering.

“She’s fine,” I repeat, taking a step forward, crowding him so he takes a step back.

He hesitates. “Right. I just—”

I smile. Not warmly.

“Closing night,” I say. “High emotions. Easy to misread things.”

His jaw hardens. He nods once, mutters something about congratulations, and disappears down the hall.

I close the door and cross the room, backing her gently against the wall, and kiss her. Hard. Claiming. The kind of kiss that saysminewithout apology. She melts into it instantly, hands fisting in my jacket, familiar and certain.

When I pull back, I murmur, “Careful, I’m married.”

She smiles against my mouth. “Yeah,” she says. “Me too.”

Then her expression tightens just slightly, her fingers twisting my shirt button.

“Hey,” she says. “I—there’s something I need to tell you.”

“Okay,” I say carefully.

She studies my face, then exhales. “Don’t freak out.”

That’s never a promising sentence.

“I’m listening, Ivy.”

“I didn’t feel great before the show because—well. Remember our honeymoon? The shellfish incident?”

“How could I forget?”

“Turns out the pill doesn’t work very well when you can’t keep it down.”

I stare at her.

“Ivy?”

She takes my hand, presses it to her stomach, and keeps it there.

“Dane, I’m pregnant.”

The world stops.