Page 160 of Nine Months to Bear

I close my eyes. I can’t look at him when I say this. If I see any sign of his face changing when he realizes what a fool I’ve been, I’ll never have the courage to finish the thought.

“I’m thinking that I’ve fallen for you,” I rasp. “I’m thinking that somewhere between that first night at the gala and right now, I went from hating you, to needing you, to wanting things I have no right to want.”

“What things?”

“Stefan, please?—”

“What things, Olivia?”

His voice is rough and his face is drawn. He looks desperate, almost. Like he needs to hear this as much as I need to say it.

So I tell him. I tell him everything.

“I want to wake up next to you every morning, not just because of some contract or safety concern, but because that’s where I belong. I want to fight with you about stupid things like whose turn it is to change diapers or wash the dirty dishes. I want to watch you teach our kid how to play chess. I want Sunday dinners with your grandmother and late nights in your office and early mornings where you make me coffee exactly how I like it even though you pretend not to pay attention to things like that.”

I’m crying now, can’t help it, hormones and exhaustion and fear all mixing together into this awful, wonderful confession.

“I want to be more than just the woman carrying your baby. I want to be more than a business arrangement or a convenient solution to your legacy problem. I want…”

I open my eyes. He’s staring at me like I’ve just pulled his heart out of his chest and laid it on the table between us.

“I wantmore,” I say, and those three little words contain everything I’ve never dared to ask for before, not from anybody. “I want you. I want all of you. And I want it to be real.”

59

OLIVIA

I want to crawl under the table and die. Or maybe just rewind the last sixty seconds and duct-tape my mouth shut before I can vomit all my feelings onto Stefan’s expensive dining room table.

“I’m sorry,” I blurt out. “That was… God, just forget I said anything. Pregnancy hormones, you know? They make you say crazy?—”

“Okay.”

I blink. “What?”

“Okay.” He’s still holding my face, thumbs wiping away tears I didn’t realize were still falling. “Let’s do it.”

“Do… what?”

“This. Us. Whatever you want to call it.”

I pull back, searching his face for the punchline. “You’re mocking me.”

“I’m not.”

“You are. You have to be. Because Stefan Safonov doesn’t do relationships. You told me that yourself. Multiple times. You don’t believe in love or monogamy or any of that shit.”

He nods. “I didn’t.”

“And now, suddenly you do?”

“No.” He shifts closer, knees bracketing mine. “But I believe in you.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.”

“Nothing about this makes sense, Olivia.” His hands drop from my face to my shoulders, then down my arms until he’s holding both my hands. “You think I planned this? You think I wanted to feel like this?”

“Like what?”