Page 127 of Nine Months to Bear

STEFAN

Devon’s in the basement now. Breathing. Talking. Spilling names and dates while Mikayla extracts every useful detail from his traitorous mouth.

I should be down there with her—probably extracting a few teeth to go along with those “useful details.”

But I’m not.

I’m standing in my own driveway, watching Taras’s taillights disappear into the night.

“She’s making you soft, bro.”

With a sigh, I turn and go inside. The front door feels heavier than usual. Or maybe that’s just the weight of what I didn’t do tonight. What Icouldn’tdo.

Haley Manizer’s face keeps floating behind my eyelids. The automatic reach for her husband’s hand.

Olivia reaching for me on the yacht.

I need a drink. Several drinks, probably. Enough to drown out this growing feeling that something fundamental has shifted.

The house is too quiet. Mikayla’s still in the basement. The security team patrols the grounds in their usual patterns. Everything exactly as it should be…

… except for the light bleeding from under my bedroom door.

I pause in the hallway. Olivia is supposed to be asleep. It’s past midnight.

But when I open the door, she’s there, awake. Curled in the center of my bed, medical journals spread around her. She’s wearing one of my shirts—the linen one she stole from the boat—and her hair falls in waves across the pillow.

She looks up when I enter. “You’re late.”

“Business.”

“The kind that leaves blood on your cuffs?”

I glance down. A spray of Devon’s blood decorates my sleeve from when Taras punched him.Sloppy. I’m getting sloppy.

“It’s handled.”

She unfolds from the bed and sits upright. The shirt barely covers her thighs.

“Stefan… What happened?”

“Nothing that concerns you.”

“Everything about you concerns me now.” When I step closer to unclasp my watch and set it on the bedside table, I catchher scent—vanilla and those fucking orchids. “That’s what this arrangement means.”

“This arrangement means you carry my child,” I fire back automatically. “Nothing more.”

She flinches. Barely visible, but I catch it.

“Right. Of course.” She stands up and reaches for my jacket anyway. “At least let me?—”

“Don’t.”

My hand catches her wrist. Too hard. She’ll have marks tomorrow.

“Stefan, you’re hurt?—”

“I’m fine.”