Page 205 of Marrying the Savage

Our baby.

I press my palm a little harder over my stomach, then stop because that feels ridiculous too. What am I trying to do? Hold it in place? Apologize to it? Promise it something when I have no idea what my own life looks like tomorrow?

The doctor says it’s early. Very early. She wants blood work. She wants to repeat tests. She wants me to eat better, sleep, avoid stress, and call her if I have pain or bleeding.

Avoid stress. I almost laugh when she says that.

Instead, I nod like a reasonable woman.

Mikhail comes in after she leaves and tells me Damir had to go because something urgent came up. He says it carefully, with that grave second-in-command face that makes every sentence sound like it has been approved for public release.

“He asked me to stay,” Mikhail says.

“That was kind of him.”

His eyes move over my face. He hears the bite in my voice. “He would not have left unless it mattered.”

I nod. I even believe him. That doesn’t make it feel better.

“Do you want anything?” he asks.

A different life almost comes out of my mouth.

“No,” I say instead. “I’m fine.”

Mikhail clearly doesn’t believe me, but he’s smart enough not to argue with a woman who has just been examined, lied to by her own body, and abandoned by the man who promised he was not abandoning her.

He gives me his phone when I ask to call Anya.

I don’t call. I stare at the screen until it goes dark, then give it back.

By the time I leave the clinic, my legs feel steady, which is unfair because the rest of me does not. Mikhail walks beside me without crowding me. He doesn’t ask what the doctor said. I don’t offer.

The whispers I heard before come back to haunt me.

She was gone for three days.

What was she doing there?

Damir is not thinking clearly.

Maybe he wants to save her because he could not save Elena.

I keep walking. My hand goes to my stomach before I can stop it.

If they knew, what would they say then? That I trapped him? That this is one more complication in a house already full of them?

The thought turns my stomach.

Mikhail notices the movement. “Are you dizzy?”

“No.”

“Sofia.”

“I said no.”

He stops pushing at once.