Nine Months to Bear By Nicole Fox - 10

10

My head jerks up.

Stefan leans against the doorframe, holding a cardboard drink carrier with two coffees in one hand. The light from my lamp is glinting off his Rolex, as if I needed the reminder that we exist in two extremely different financial realities.

He’s swapped his usual bespoke suit for black jeans and a merino sweater that hugs his shoulders. The casual look is somehow more dangerous—a wolf in literal sheep’s clothing.

Very, very expensive sheep’s clothing.

I fight the urge to wipe away the mascara I’m sure is dripping down my cheeks. There may have been tears on and off for the last two hours; I’ll neither confirm nor deny. Instead, I stare at Stefan, trying to decide if he’s real or if I’ve conjured him from my darkest thoughts.

“I brought coffee,” he says unnecessarily, lifting the tray in my direction. “Though judging by your face, perhaps vodka would be more appropriate.”

“How did you get in here?”

He nods toward the flickering camera above the door. “If you’re asking how I got past your top-notch security, the dial-up webcam taped to a mop handle didn’t put up much of a fight.”

What I meant was, Why are you here? How did you know where to find me? Why do you even know who I am?

I stand too fast, my chair screeching against the linoleum. “What do you want?”

It’s the fourth question on my running list, but it sums up the others well enough.

Stefan sets a latte on my desk. The smell of cinnamon and espresso wafts up, making my stomach growl. I haven’t eaten since last night.

“To congratulate you,” he says.

I slide my stack of papers into a neat pile, trying to hide the negative balance at the bottom of every column. He can’t be serious.

“For what?”

“For creativity.” He prowls around the room, trailing fingers over the fertility diagrams on the walls. His touch is almost sensual, as if he’s caressing the peeling laminate. “Suggesting a client pawn her daughter to pay for the sibling? Bold. Innovative. Highly unethical, of course, but, well…”

My breath hitches in dumbfounded shock. “You— How— I mean…”

“I do my research very thoroughly, Dr. Aster.” He picks up the uterus stress ball from my desk, turning it over in his large hands with disturbing familiarity.

My face burns. I want to hurl the latte at his smug jaw. Instead, I take a scalding sip. Warmth and spice explode on my tongue. It’s delicious, which only makes me hate him more.

“Get out. I’m really not in the mood.”

Stefan ignores me and reaches for Ms. Chopard’s abandoned file. “You’re on the right track, lisichka . Don’t give up now. You’ll find me a surrogate.”

“I won’t do a damn thing for you.” I hurl the words at him, hoping they’ll stick. Hoping they’ll become true.

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, but this is 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 have everything? ”

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.

His smirk is a promise of pleasures I’ve never allowed myself to imagine. “No, Dr. Aster, you don’t.”

The bell jingles as he leaves.

I stare at the cup in my hand as, through the thin walls, I hear his black Maybach purr to life.

I watch its shadow glide past the window. With it go both my last hope and my final excuse.

My hand hovers over the trash can. I should throw the latte away. I should take the call from my mother and accept the inevitable lecture about fiscal responsibility and career planning.

Instead, I take another sip. The cinnamon burns my tongue.

God, it tastes so good.