Page 148 of Nine Months to Bear

“No. According to her, I’ve won because I’ve ‘landed’ Stefan. The clinic doesn’t matter. My work doesn’t matter. I’m just another woman who traded up by kneeling down.”

“That’s—”

“It’s true. That’s what it is.”

“Don’t you dare let her ruin this for you, Liv.” Camille plucks out another tissue and starts dabbing at my face. “You’re not a gold-digger. You actually give a shit about your work, for one thing. And also, you’re not using him; you’re—” She stops.

“I’m what?” I say, as a knot of tension coils up painfully in my stomach. “I’m what, Camille? Say it. We’ve come this far.”

She winces. “Falling for him.”

I go pale. “I’m not?—”

“Girl, please. I wasn’t gonna go here, but since we’re on the subject… It’s just undeniable at this point, okay? You light up when he walks in a room. You check your phone every five seconds hoping he’s texted.”

“That’s not?—”

“And right now? You’re more upset that your mom reduced your relationship to a transaction than you are about her dismissing your career.” She raises an eyebrow. “That tells me everything.”

My phone vibrates. Camille grabs it before I can. As soon as she reads it, her face falls. “Holy fucking shit.”

“What?”

She turns the screen toward me. “Rebecca Walsh just got destroyed.”

The headline cries out:Fertility Fraud: Inside Rebecca Walsh’s Campaign of Sabotage.

I snatch the phone and read as fast as I can. The article is brutal. Screenshots of emails. Records of bribes. Former employees talking about her deliberately poaching clients.

But what stops my heart is the quote at the end.

FromStefan.

“Dr. Olivia Aster represents everything Dr. Walsh fears—genuine compassion, medical brilliance, and an inability to be bought. While Walsh builds baby factories for profit, Olivia builds families with love. She honors every life she touches. Boston is lucky to have her.”

I read it three times. Four. Five. Each time, the words blur a little more.

Camille reads over my shoulder and whistles when she gets to the kicker. “That’s a hell of an endorsement.”

It’s more than that. It’s everything my mother has never said. Everything I’ve needed to hear. I didn’t know I was desperate for it until it was right there in black and white.

Medical brilliance.

Genuine compassion.

Lucky to have her.

“He didn’t have to say that,” I croak. “The article would have destroyed Walsh without his quote.”

“But he did say it.”

“Yeah.” I trace his name on the screen. “He did.”

The irises mock me from across the room. My mother’s conditional love in botanical form.Congratulations on catching a man. Your actual accomplishments don’t matter.

But Stefan—Stefan who barely talks about feelings, who doesn’t even know how to voice the word “love”—he went on record. Put his name next to mine. Defended not just me but my work. My passion. My dreams.

The thing my own mother won’t do.