“And nobody knows?”
“Raymond. My personal physician. My dad and brother. Now you.”
She absorbed that. Then, “Why does it have to be a secret?”
I could have lied. Could have deflected. Could have shut her down with the kind of cold precision that made grown men apologize for breathing too loud in my presence.
Instead, I told her the truth.
“Because men in my position can’t afford to look weak,” I said. “My reputation is built on being untouchable. Invincible. A man who can’t produce an heir is a man with a weakness.And weakness gets exploited. People I’ve kept in line for years would see an opening. Rivals would press harder. Allies would reconsider their loyalty. In my world, perception is power. And this—” I gestured vaguely between us. “This makes me vulnerable.”
“So, you’re trusting me with something that could destroy you,” she said quietly.
“Yes.”
She held my gaze. “That’s a lot of trust to put in a stranger.”
“It is.”
“What happens if I miscarry?” she asked. “Do I still get paid, or does the contract?—”
“You get paid anyway,” I said, cutting her off. “The contract protects you. If you miscarry, if there are complications, if anything goes wrong medically—you’re covered. Financially, legally, medically. You walk away whole, no matter what happens.”
“Even if it’s my fault?”
“There’s no fault in biology,” I said. “If your body can’t carry the pregnancy, that’s not failure. That’s just reality. And I’m not in the business of punishing people for things outside their control.”
She studied me for a long moment.
Then, she asked the question that cracked me wide open.
“Do you want a child or just an heir?”
I went completely still.
The question hit something deep—something I’d buried under years of control and carefully constructed walls. I could feel it shifting in my chest, a tectonic plate moving beneath the surface, threatening to split everything open.
Most people asked about money. About logistics. About medical procedures and legal protections and what happened if things went wrong.
Nobody asked aboutwant.
Nobody asked what I was really searching for.
I leaned forward slowly, closing the distance between us until I could see the gold flecks in her brown eyes, until I could count the individual lashes framing them, until the rest of the room disappeared, and it was just her and me, and this moment that felt like standing on the edge of something I couldn’t come back from.
“Both,” I said, my voice rough. “I want both. I want a child I can hold, who carries my blood, who I can teach and protect and love. And I need an heir—someone to carry the Landry name forward, to inherit what I’ve built, to make sure everything I’ve fought for doesn’t die with me. But more than that….” I paused, searching for words I’d never said out loud. “I need somebody brave enough to know the difference. Brave enough to understand that this isn’t just about biology or money or contracts. Brave enough to look at who I am—what I am—and not flinch.”
The air between us was electric.
Charged with something that had nothing to do with the contract and everything to do with recognition—two people who understood survival, who knew what it meant to be stripped bare and still keep standing, who recognized in each other something real in a world built on lies.
Truth didn’t look away.
Didn’t break.
She held my gaze with a steadiness that made my world tilt.
“Then I’m your girl,” she said quietly.
