Page 15 of Nine Months to Bear

“You want a child?” I grab the contract, my resolve hardening with each syllable. “Try Tinder. But if you think I’ll sell my soul for your checkbook…” I rip the contract in half. The sound is supremely satisfying in the quiet room. “Think again, Safonov.”

Shadows gather in the hollows of his cheekbones. “You’re making a mistake.” He rises, looming over me, close enough that I can see the individual bands of color in his heterochromatic eye. “I’m offering you everything you need. You need me, Dr. Aster. I don’t need you.”

“No.” I stand my ground, even as my knees threaten to buckle. “You’re offering to own me. My clinic helps women take control of their fertility. Their choices. Their futures. I won’t compromise that. Not even for you.”

Something flickers in his eyes—respect? Frustration? But his voice stays glacial. “Then I suggest you start looking for new office space. Commercial rent in Boston is brutal this time of year.”

I shouldn’t feel betrayed. I’m no worse off than I was thirty minutes ago. He is exactly what I knew he was—exactly like all those other people at the gala.

“Goodbye, Mr. Safonov.” I turn, proud that my voice doesn’t shake. “Thank you for the shooting lesson. Next time someone tries to strong-arm me, I’ll know exactly where to aim.”

I don’t run. I don’t look back, either, but as much as I’d like to pretend otherwise, I can’t help but acknowledge the weight of his stare and the way my hands still tingle where he touched them.

It’s not until I’m in my car that I let myself tremble. The memory of his warmth bleeds into the chill of his threats. I grip the steering wheel until my knuckles whiten, trying to forget how right it had felt, being in his arms.

For one dangerous moment, I’d wanted to lean back, turn my head, and find out if his mouth would be as gentle as it looked or as cruel as I’d heard it can be.

I start the engine. Time to go back to reality. I’ve got a struggling clinic and endless paperwork and patients who need me to be strong.

I need to forget Stefan Safonov.

But as I drive away from his house, I can still smell gunpowder on my clothes. I can feel the phantom press of his palm against my stomach. Hear his voice, rough with approval.

Good. You’re a natural.

Some lessons, it seems, are harder to unlearn than others.

And some men—the most dangerous kind—make you wish, just for a moment, that you were the type of woman who could say yes to the devil.

8

OLIVIA

My office feels smaller today. I could almost swear the walls are closing in on me with each breath.

When I close my eyes, a different scene swims to life behind my eyelids. My white plaster office is gone; in its place is a long alleyway of cement. I can hear the bang of bullets leaving the chamber, feel his firm hands guiding mine on the gun, his chest pressed against my back, the heat of him seeping through my clothes.

You want a child? Try Tinder. But if you think I’ll sell my soul for your checkbook…

Those were my exact words to him. I delivered them with God-sent righteousness burning through my veins, chin lifted, shoulders squared. For one glorious moment, I felt powerful.

Then his eyes turned to ice.

“You need me, Dr. Aster. I don’t need you.”

And he was fucking right.

That’s what infuriates me. Not just his arrogance or his obscene proposal, but that for one shameful second, I considered it.

I stare at the white orchids in my window—the ones I arranged so carefully only this morning, before everything went to hell. Their petals curl inward like they’re pouting, as if even the plants know better than to bloom for me today.

What kind of doctor am I, that I’d even contemplate selling a woman’s body to save my practice? My mother would be appalled. Not at the ethical breach—God knows she wouldn’t give a damn about that. She’d be enraged at my failure to close the deal.

Failing because of your morals is still failing, Olivia.

“Earth to Dr. A.” Camille throws a stress ball shaped like a uterus at my head. My office manager-slash-head nurse-slash-occasional-life-coach looks like a 1950s pinup girl went to business school, with her victory rolls and sharp pencil skirts. Right now, her winged eyeliner is narrowed in concern. “You’ve been staring at those flowers for twenty minutes. Either they insulted your mother or something happened at that meeting. And, no offense to your mom, but you wouldn’t be that upset if someone insulted her.”

I catch the flying uterus mid-air and squeeze it until the fallopian tubes bulge. “Nothing happened.”