Page 18 of Nine Months to Bear

The fact we’re even having this conversation shows how bad things are. This is insane.

“I want us tosurvive, babe.” Camille stands and moves to the window. Outside, Boston traffic crawls past our Aster Fertility Solutions sign. Like the mural in here, the gold lettering is starting to peel. That’s what I get for ordering it from a discount site. “Everything you’ve built here—all the women you help—it dies if we close.”

My mother’s voice echoes in my head:Doctors don’t fail, Olivia. Daughters do.The weight of her legacy, of the expectations I put on myself because of her, of the responsibility of being the only child of a driven, accomplished woman settles on my shoulders like lead.

I was seven when I first truly understood what failure meant to Dr. Margaret Aster. I got an A- in penmanship—just one teensy little minus sign—and she’d woken me up at the crack of dawn on a Saturday, taken me to her home office, and pulled out her own medical school report cards.

I wasn’t surprised by what I saw: straight As, perfect attendance, student council president. The list of accolades never ended.

“Success isn’t an accident, Olivia,”she’d said in a flat, dead-eyed voice.“It’s a choice. One you make every single day.”

That night, she bought me a calligraphy set and worksheets. Every evening for the next year, I practiced my letters for an hour. My mother checked each page before I was allowed to go to bed.

That spring, my hard work paid off. I won the penmanship award at school. Her smile lasted exactly three seconds before it slipped back into her usual mask of indifference and she asked about next semester’s science fair.

Twenty-two years later, I’m still chasing that three-second smile.

Problem is, the choices I’ve made so far have landed us here, on the doorstep of ruin. I’ve tried to do the right thing, to be good. I’ve tried to make everyone proud, to never falter, never fail.

Maybe it’s time to try something else.

Like she can sense my resolve weakening, Camille leans against my shoulder. She gives me a squeeze. “Liv, this thing with Safonov—I’m not saying it’s right. But it is a lifeline. All it would take is this one client. One big payday, and then,boom—we’re back in the game. We’d have the money to help all the women who need us, all the women and families we went into business for in the first place.”

I sigh. “By helping one rich man buy a baby.”

I feel disgusting even saying it.

She shakes her head. “No, by helping one rich man have a family while saving the futures of countless other families in the process. It’s not pretty—maybe we won’t put it on our company Christmas card, you know?—but it is pragmatic.”

I close my eyes, and I’m in that gun range again. Stefan’s hand is on my waist, his other hand curled around my fingers.

It could be yours. I could hand it to you on a silver fucking platter without even blinking. Or it could vanish. Without me, everything you’ve built collapses within six weeks. It’s your choice: financial ruin, or one simple favor.

“I won’t do it without a full psychological eval,” I say abruptly, trying to drown out the rumbling baritone in my head. “Plus independent legal counsel for Lila. And Safonov doesn’t get to interview her like she’s breeding stock. I’ll handle the communication between them myself.”

Camille practically squeals as she jumps up, clapping her hands in delight. “I’ll draft the paperwork!”

“This is wrong,” I breathe. “So goddamn wrong.”

“You know better than anyone that medicine is messy, Liv, as much as we like to pretend otherwise. It’s complicated, and all you can do is help the people you can. At least this mess keeps the lights on. At least it gives you a future where you can do more good.”

She hurries towards the door like she’s going to print everything out before I can change my mind.

Outside the window, thunder growls.Compromise, my mother’s voice sneers,is just failure with a press release. She always had a quote ready to illustrate exactly how wayward and lost I would be without her guidance. I used to wonder if she wrote them herself or if she had a book somewhere with thousands of them locked and loaded.

My hands shake as I open my desk drawer and pull out the business card Stefan pressed into my hand at the gala. It sits in my palm so innocently—but God, the edges are sharp.

I look up at the orchids where they observe silently from the windowsill.

“What?” I protest. “I haven’t done anything yet.”

Their petals are still perfect, still pure. But in the eerie glow of the storm rolling in, they cast shadows like bloodstains across my desk.

9

OLIVIA

The walls are moving again. This time, they’re not just closing in on me—they’re threatening to collapse under the weight of judgment.