Page 22 of Nine Months to Bear

Stefan doesn’t even flinch. “Yes, you will.”

“You don’t know me.”

“But I know desperation.” His gaze flicks to my trembling hands. “Yours, specifically.”

He steps closer. I back up until my spine hits the wall. Warm citrus wraps around me as he braces a hand beside my head, his thumb brushing a strand of hair from my cheek. The contact sparks, crackles, sends electricity crackling down my neck, across my collarbone, lower, lower.

“My offer stands,” he murmurs. “I’ll fund your clinic and clear your debts, every last one of them. All I ask in return…”

“—is for me to play madam to your bastard, right?” The crude words are a shield, but they don’t land as I intended. His pupils dilate like he finds the whole thing highly amusing.

“I prefer the term ‘legacy planning.’ But call it how you see it.”

I should knee him. If not that, then scream and run for the hills.

Instead, I look around and see all the reasons why I can’t do those things.

The walls of my carefully constructed ethical framework are crumbling. Each brick—autonomy, informed consent, patient care above profit—feels suddenly abstract in the face of imminent collapse.

The literal walls are about to give way, too. I’m running out of time and choices alike.

Like any good predator, Stefan sees the crack in my armor. His voice drops into a low, hypnotic register. “Imagine walking into that partnership meeting with Mass Gen. Your name on the door. Walsh licking your stilettos.”

The fantasy unfurls, sweet and lethal. My clinic, not just surviving but thriving. State-of-the-art equipment. A team of specialists. Waitlists of patients begging for my expertise. Walsh, green with envy, forced to acknowledge me as her superior.

I grip his wrist, feel his pulse thrum against my thumb.

“Why me?” I whisper, hating how breathless I sound.

His free hand skims my waist. It burns through thin silk. “Because you’re the first person in a decade who has resisted. The first person to tell me no. It was…” His lips graze my ear. “Electrifying.”

I shouldn’t care, butthisis electrifying. I have a dozen reasons why I should shove him away and lock the door behind him. But my life is falling apart around me, and suddenly, I’m transfixed by the possibilities he’s painting in the air between us.

A devil offering not just salvation, but glory.Revenge.

Proud as I may be, even I can’t deny how good it would feel.

His fingers slide higher, tracing the underside of my ribs. It’s not quite inappropriate, but the promise of more is downright filthy. My breath catches and stutters.

“I could give you everything,” he murmurs. “Don’t you want that? Wouldn’t it be nice to haveeverything?”

His eyes hold mine, impossibly blue and bottomless. I’m drowning in them, in the future he’s dangling.

“All you have to do,” he whispers, lips a breath away from mine, “is say yes.”

The clinic phone rings. We jerk apart.

I check the caller ID and heave a sigh of gratitude. I’ve never been more relieved to answer a call from my mother.

I start to lunge for the phone, but Stefan is in the way. His body is a warm, solid wall between me and escape.

For a second, I think he won’t move. I think he’ll keep me pressed here, and I’m not sure I mind.

Instead, he straightens my crooked nameplate—Dr. Olivia Aster, Medical Director—and strides toward the exit.

“The latte’s a cinnamon blend,” he says over his shoulder.

“I hate cinnamon,” I lie, because admitting he knows my preference feels like conceding too much.