Page 32 of Slightly Married (Irresistible #2)

I love you, Michaila. Not because of our arrangement or the child we’ve created, but because of who you are and who I am when I’m with you. You deserve to know the truth of what I feel, even if it changes nothing between us.

I read over the message, feeling strangely exposed. With my thumb hovering over the send button, the small blue arrow pulsed.

I exited the app after several minutes. These weren’t words to be delivered through an email.

At the beginning of the third week, Simone intercepted me before I’d even reached the main entrance of the mansion. She stepped out from behind one of the manicured hedges flanking the cobblestone driveway, the early fall air turning her breath visible in small white puffs.

“This is becoming pathetic,” she said, arms crossed over her camel-colored coat. Her hostility was undisguised.

“Perhaps,” I conceded, “but she’s my reason.”

Her expression softened fractionally, the hard line of her mouth relaxing. “She’s hurt, Konstantin.”

“I know.” I handed her the envelope I’d been carrying. “These are the finalized terms for your appointment as CEO. The board votes tomorrow.”

She accepted it but shook her head. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I won’t be accepting.”

“The position would be yours completely. Operational control—”

“With Matthaios as majority owner,” she cut in. “My boss.” She laughed without humor. “I have no interest in being anywhere near him right now, let alone reporting to him.”

“He wouldn’t interfere,” I insisted, though I understood her hesitation.

“Yes, he would.” She tapped the envelope against her palm. “He hasn’t stopped calling my phone, and I’d rather poke my eyes out than work under the man who used me to hurt my parents. Thank you for trying, but no.”

The days passed with similar futility. I was powerless for the second time in my lifetime. The first had been watching Theo bleed to death; this felt remarkably similar—the same helplessness and inability to change reality.

Twenty-seven days after arriving in New York, my phone lit up with a calendar invitation from Andreas as my somber family gathered for our final New York dinner.

Angela had just accepted an Alford plea—five years in prison and ten years’ probation for my uncle’s murder. But amid this news, four words captured my complete attention: “10-week ultrasound. Sunshine Health Clinic, 2pm.”

My optimism was dampened, however, when Andreas followed up his revelation with a contract Kayla had sent to accompany the invitation to attend the ultrasound.

The document outlined the terms of conduct she expected of me during the scan: no conversation, no touching, nothing that might even suggest intimacy, for this and all further medical appointments.

If I breached them in any way, she would no longer invite me to doctor’s visits.

My heart sank, but only briefly. Kayla was letting me be a part of our baby’s progress, and it was enough for now. I signed the document without hesitation.

On the morning of the ultrasound, I walked into the room to find Kayla already there and being prepared for the scan. She was lying on the bed with a paper sheet over her hips and her eyes fixed on the ceiling.

On the small table beside her bed, I placed a gold-wrapped box of Greek sesame seed candies dripping with honey, but she ignored it.

The technician spoke softly, keeping her attention fully on the procedure as if she sensed the tension in the room.

The gel made a squelching sound as it was applied to the ultrasound wand.

But when I spotted our baby on the screen for the first time, with its tiny heart flashing like a fairy light, everything else ceased to matter.

That was my child waiting for the day, months from now, when he or she would finally enter the world and become the center of mine. Through the speaker, we could hear the rapid flutter of their strong heartbeat.

A heavy weight settled within me at what I was seeing and hearing, causing pressure to build behind my eyes. I heard a soft sniffle from Kayla. She was clenching her jaw, but the tears were welling up, anyway.

I reached for a tissue from the box on the counter and handed it to her. She took it without acknowledgment, her fingers brushing against mine for the briefest moment.

As the technician removed the vaginal ultrasound, I stood to leave.

“I’m leaving for Greece tomorrow,” I informed her, even though her attention remained on the frozen image on the screen. “But I will fly to the States to attend every medical appointment.”

And I kept my word. For the next three months, I became intimately familiar with the transatlantic flight path. Every month I boarded my jet in Athens and landed in New York twelve hours later.

Each appointment followed the same script. I arrived precisely ten minutes early to find Kayla already seated in the waiting room, scrolling through her phone. She’d acknowledge me with the barest nod before returning to her phone.

As her body changed, I tallied every detail. The small curve of her belly at sixteen weeks. The fullness of her face at twenty.

When the technician asked if we wanted to know the sex, Kayla finally met my eyes. I nodded, she nodded, and moments later we learned we were having a girl. There was a broad smile on Kayla’s lips before she masked it.

“A daughter,” I said softly.

The technician continued pointing out her tiny fingers, the curve of her spine, the chambers of her heart, but my mind had already traveled elsewhere.

I thought of my mother and Irida, of their strength and resilience. Of Kayla’s fierce independence and compassion. The women in my family had always possessed a formidable spirit, and now I would be raising one of my own.

As the appointment concluded and Kayla gathered her things, I found myself mentally reorganizing priorities, making space for this new reality.

A daughter would need different guidance than I had received from my father.

She would need to be taught strength without hardness, ambition without ruthlessness.

How would I handle her first heartbreak? Her academic struggles? The inevitable moments when she would test boundaries and challenge my authority? These questions surfaced in rapid succession as I followed Kayla out of the examination room.

What kind of father would I be? Not like my own—loving but distant, present but often preoccupied. I wanted to be engaged in every aspect of my daughter’s life, to earn her trust through consistency.

But most of all, I wanted my daughter to grow up with two parents. I wanted her childhood unmarked by the wedge standing between her parents.

I watched Kayla press the elevator button while staring at her phone screen. Whatever happened between us, I would be present, supportive, and openly loving in a way that didn’t come naturally to me.

“I booked the next appointment for December tenth,” Kayla said, breaking our usual silence with her first voluntary words in months.

“I’ll be there.”

It wasn’t much, but it felt like everything. Regardless of our broken relationship, we would both be there for our daughter. Always.