Page 56 of Nine Months to Love

“What’s the real reason you became a fertility doctor?”

There are two ways to go here. I could give him the polished answer I give at fundraisers—about helping families and the miracle of life in all its messy, glorious beauty. But that’s not what he’s asking for.

He wants to know the real thing. The one that sets my skin on fire, that’s there when I wake up and when I go to sleep. He wants to know what’s pushed me, what’s preserved me. He wants toknow.Not the pretty version—the authentic one.

“I wanted to create something perfect,” I whisper. “Something I could control from start to finish. My whole life, I watched my mother save lives in the operating room, and I wanted that power. But I also wanted... I wanted to give people the families I never really had. I wanted to know that I was bringing someone into the world who was chosen from the start.”

A sudden puff of breeze snuffs out a candle at my elbow. As the thin trickle of smoke floats up between us, Stefan watches me.

He doesn’t move or say anything, just watches. The ocean laps at the boat, and Stefan watches.

I hold my breath, feeling painfully exposed, and Stefan watches.

I’ve never said that out loud before. Never admitted that my entire career is built on the foundation of my own childhood damage. Every embryo I’ve helped create, every family I’ve helped build, is me trying to retroactively fix what was broken inmy own origin story. Like reshaping the future can reshape the past.

Finally, he shifts, and the terrible silence comes to an end. “Truth or dare?” he whispers.

“Truth.”

“Do you regret meeting me?”

“Sometimes,” I admit. I hold his gaze. “Other times, I think meeting you was inevitable. Like the universe was just waiting for the right moment to fuck up my life.”

He laughs. “Are you afraid of me?”

“Yes. But not for the reasons you think.” I take a breath. “My turn. Truth or dare?”

“Truth.”

Here goes nothing.“How did you kill your mother and uncle?”

The air between us goes electric. Stefan’s jaw tightens, and I’m sure he’s going to refuse to answer. Then he speaks, his voice flat and cold.

He twists the stem of his champagne glass between his roughened fingertips for a long while, watching the liquid slosh from side to side. Then he picks it up, tilts to his lips, and swallows all of it. When he sets it down, he stares into the remaining flickering candle as he starts to speak. “After my father’s funeral, I hunted them down. They thought I’d forgotten or forgiven. But I’d done neither. I did it all myself—tracked their footsteps, triangulated their location. Idiots that they were, they didn’t even go far. I found them in the woods, in a forest cabin they once used for their clandestine getaways while mymother was still married to my father. I waited until they were both inside, then I locked the doors from the outside and lit it on fire.”

My stomach turns. “Stefan?—”

“You asked. I answered. My turn again.” His eyes are ice. “Truth or dare?”

I’ve used up my truths. “Dare.”

A slow, treacherous smile spreads across his face. “Kiss me.”

“That’s not?—”

“It’s my dare. You agreed to the rules.”

My legs move before my brain catches up, carrying me around the table on unsteady feet. The fake champagne bubbles in my veins, or maybe it’s just fear making me dizzy, but either way, I’m unsteady in my heels, floating more than walking.

Stefan’s eyes track my every step, that mismatched gaze burning through me.

I bend forward, my hair falling loose from its pins, and brush my mouth against his—barely a whisper of contact before I pull back.

“That’s not a kiss,” he says against my mouth. “That’s a cop-out.”

“You didn’t specify?—”

His hand comes up to cup the back of my neck, and he pulls me into his lap. This kiss is nothing like the first one. This is heat and hunger and months of tension finally breaking.