Page 53 of Baby for My Ex's Brother

I’m on the chapter about first trimester nutrition when Darya opens the door without knocking.

She looks at the book. I look at her. There is a pause of approximately three seconds in which I consider, and discard, several things I could say.

She crosses to my desk, refills my coffee from the carafe she brought without my asking, and leaves without saying a word. The door clicks shut behind her.

I look at it for a moment. In eleven years, Darya has found me in this office doing things that would end careers and end lives, and she’s never once altered her expression. She alters it now, just before the door closes. I catch the edge of it. Something that on another face I might call tenderness.

I look back at the book and find my place.

Nikolai—my doctor, the one I trust with the things that cannot go to a hospital—owes me several favors. He is thorough and discreet and has been managing the health of my organization for fourteen years without a single leak. I explain the situation with enough detail that he understands the stakes without my having to say them plainly.

“Prenatal care,” he double-checks.

“Full. Everything she needs, whenever she needs it.”

“And she knows about this arrangement?”

“She will.”

Nikolai gives me a number. I send it to Luna that evening with a short text.You have a prenatal appointment available when you’re ready. Text this number to schedule.

I think about this message for longer than I spend on most decisions that have actual consequences, and decide it’s clear, useful, and she will appreciate having the resource.

She appears at my apartment the following afternoon, and I know before she says anything from the way she’s holding her bag—close to her body, jaw set—that I’ve made some kind of error I have not yet identified.

“The doctor,” she says.

“He’s good. The best I have access to?—”

“I’m sure he is.”

Why is she perturbed? “He’s completely discreet. No records go anywhere without?—”

“Ivan.” She sets her bag down on the entry table. “Did you ask me?”

I open my mouth. Then close it.

She presses again. “Did you ask me if I wanted you to arrange my prenatal care?”

The answer isno. The answer is self-evidently no, and I’m aware of this, and I’m also aware that what I’m about to say next is not going to improve the situation. But I say it anyway because it’s true. “I was trying to get you the best resource available.”

She looks at me with an expression that removes several layers of finish from the wall behind me. “I know that. I’m not stupid.”

“Then—”

“Then ask.” Her voice doesn’t rise. That’s the thing about Luna—she doesn’t need volume. Her tone is enough to whittle me downto size. “If we’re doing this together, I’m the one carrying this baby. My body. My decisions about my body. You don’t arrange things that have to do with my body without asking me first.”

I look at her. She looks at me. The entry hall is very quiet.

“You can choose someone else.” The least I can do when I’m wrong is to admit it without arguing.

Something in her face shifts. Not softness, exactly. More like the recalibration of a woman deciding what to do with a man who has just managed to surprise her. “I’ll keep the doctor. He sounds good.”

“He’s the best.”

“But you ask first. From now on. You ask.”

“Understood.”