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It doesn’t concern me—not until Pace suddenly grips my chin, wrenching my gaze to his. “The fuck is this?” he asks, eyes narrowed in on the lump.

I try futilely to squirm away. “What?”

“This weird bump.” Scowling, he reaches out to poke the edge of my eyebrow, earning a pained hiss.

I swat his hand away, snapping. “What, you’re cataloging my fun new hormonal zits now? Do you want to see the blemish on my back, too?”

He blinks twice. “Yes.”

“Ugh,” I grunt, shoving myself against the door to put some space between us.

The car pulls into the circular drive, and since I’m gazing out the window, pondering impossible things, I see Lex waiting on the front step doing much of the same. His hands are stuffed into his pockets, eyes trained somewhere in the distance. At some point, his expression became locked into a brood and never recovered.

He looks tired as he approaches the car, tugging open my door. “You have an exam,” he says, flicking his eyes to Pace beside me. “Father is… out.”

Not understanding the emphasis but also somehow certain it’s not meant for me, I accept Lex’s hand and allow him to steady me as I climb from the vehicle.

I don’t need to look at Wicker to know he’s sweating. Lex has every part of my body documented, and Pace has every inch of my room recorded. That much is guaranteed. This means Wicker has to have erased the evidence. It means he’s keeping a secret from his brothers. It means that for once—no matter how minor a thing—I’m not playing against a team.

My match against Wicker is personal now.Fist to fist. Skin to skin. Bloody and fierce.

And if you go down in the ring, you’re finished.

* * *

“Here,”I say, holding out the cup of still-warm urine. “I hope it’s enough. I peed before I left the arena.”

“It’ll do,” Lex says, taking the cup and placing it in the refrigerator. He changed into his lab coat and set up the exam room while I was in the bathroom. “Undress.” The command is firm but glib, his amber eyes fixed on the task of washing his hands.

It’s all routine by now, the act of shucking off my clothes to the sound of running water. Lex’s back shifts as he scrubs, and I unhook my bra, slide out of my panties, and remove my pearl earrings.

I’m used to the cold.

Before turning to me, he reaches over to rip a strand of paper towels from the dispenser. This part is always methodical. He never sets eyes on me until I’m naked and his hands are clean. Somehow I know this is a line—a boundary—not unlike the one the Princes and Dukes use to ferry me from East to West and back again.

The moment that wad of paper towels falls into the bin, we change into different people.

The scientist and his subject.

“First,” he says, finally facing me, “we’ll take your measurements and weight.”

Ignoring the gooseflesh springing up my arms, I step onto the large scale, keeping my eyes trained on the wall. I feel his presence behind me like an ember, the heat of his body radiating just enough to lick at me, but never enough to warm.

His arm appears in my periphery as his fingers slide the metal weight, pause, then give it a couple of precise taps to the left.

The edge of his lab coat brushes my bare backside.

In a soft, deep voice, he notes, “Two pounds.”

Sliding my eyes in his direction, I wonder, “Is that… normal?”

Lex is quick to temper in the exam room. He doesn’t like apprehension or stubbornness. The one thing I’ve found he’s entirely comfortable entertaining are questions made in the pursuit of knowledge.

He hates to accommodate me, but he likes teaching.

It makes him feel superior.

“Yes,” he answers alongside the sound of a pen against a clipboard, “many women don’t gain weight at all during the first trimester, especially with the nausea you’ve been experiencing. Arms up.”