Nine Months to Bear By Nicole Fox - 57
57 Her text hasn’t changed since it arrived. That hasn’t stopped me from staring at it endlessly. I know I have no right to ask, but come home tonight, Stefan. Please. Home . She called my house home . “You gonna keep eye-fucking that phone or actually pay attention for once in your life?” Taras wag...
57
Her text hasn’t changed since it arrived. That hasn’t stopped me from staring at it endlessly.
I know I have no right to ask, but come home tonight, Stefan. Please.
Home . She called my house home .
“You gonna keep eye-fucking that phone or actually pay attention for once in your life?” Taras waggles a hand in front of my face.
“I’m listening.”
“Bullshit. You’ve been somewhere else all day.” He leans back in his chair. “Let me guess: The hot doctor sent you a love note?”
I pocket the phone. “We done here, or do I need to hit you in the face?”
He sighs. “Yeah, we’re done. Go home to your woman.”
“She’s not my—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever helps you sleep at night, brother.”
The drive home takes forever. Traffic crawls through downtown while my mind runs scenarios.
Maybe she wants to thank me for the article. Maybe she wants to talk about us, whatever the fuck us means now. Or maybe—and this thought makes my jaw clench—maybe she’s done. Madison’s investment means she doesn’t need me anymore. Doesn’t need my money, my protection, my anything.
The contract says she carries my child, then walks away. Clean. Simple.
Except nothing about Olivia has ever been clean or simple.
I pull into my driveway at eight-thirty. Late. Later than I intended, but Iakov’s people hit another warehouse and I couldn’t just—
“Took you long enough.”
Babushka stands in my foyer, arms crossed, wearing her good apron.
“I had business—”
“You always have business. The girl cooked for you.”
“Olivia cooked?”
“Stroganoff. From scratch.” She shakes her head. “Poor thing was so nervous, she kept dropping things. Then she got sick and went upstairs.”
“Sick?”
“Probably nerves. Or maybe the smell of raw meat. She went very pale when I was cutting the beef.”
Something cold slides down my spine. “Where is she now?”
“Guest room, I think. Told me to serve dinner without her.” Babushka studies my face. “You should go check on her.”
I start toward the stairs, but her hand catches my arm.
“Stefan.”
“What?”
“I like her.”
That stops me cold. Babushka doesn’t like people. She tolerates them. Endures them. Occasionally, she doesn’t actively wish them harm.
But liking? That’s reserved for approximately three people on the planet, and two of them are dead.
“You barely know her.”
“I know enough.” She pats my cheek. “She’s good for you. Don’t fuck it up.”
“I don’t—”
“You do. You always do when things get real.” She can’t hear for shit anymore, but her eyes see as much as they always have. Too much, in my opinion. “This one’s different, Stefushka. This one matters.”
I want to argue. The right thing to do would be to tell her she’s wrong, that Olivia means nothing and she shouldn’t get attached because soon, Olivia will be gone.
But the words won’t come.
Because Babushka’s right. She usually is.
Olivia matters.
I leave my grandmother behind and run. I take the stairs two at a time.
The guest room door is cracked open. I push through without knocking. “Olivia?”
The bathroom light spills into the bedroom. She’s in there, bent over the sink, gripping the marble edge so hard her knuckles are white.
“Hey.” I move toward her. “You okay?”
She straightens too fast, spinning to face me. Her face is blotchy. Eyes red. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“I just… The meat smell, you know? It made me nauseous.”
I step closer—and that’s when I see it. Right there on the counter between our sinks.
White plastic stick. Two pink lines.
“So it’s real. You’re pregnant,” I whisper. “You’re actually pregnant.”
She nods once, barely visible.
Everything inside me explodes. Pure, unfiltered joy crashes through my chest like a fucking tsunami. I’m grinning. Can’t stop grinning. My face might actually crack from how hard I’m smiling.
“Holy shit.” I grab her shoulders. “Holy shit , Olivia. We did it. We actually—” My voice booms off the bathroom walls. “I’m gonna be a father!”
She flinches. Whether at my volume, at my hands on her, or the prospect of what’s happening, I’m not sure.
“Yeah.” Her voice is tiny. “You are.”
“This is… Fuck, this is incredible. This is everything. The timing’s perfect. We can—”
“I need to sit down.”
She pulls away from me and wobbles into the bedroom on unsteady legs. I follow, still buzzing with adrenaline.
“We should celebrate. Champagne. Well, not for you, obviously, but—”
“Stefan, stop.”
But I can’t stop. “Babushka’s gonna lose her mind. She’s been wanting great-grandkids for years. And the nursery—we’ll need to figure out which room—”
“Stop!” Louder this time.
She’s at the dresser now, pulling out clothes. Folding them. Refolding them. Her hands shake with each precise crease.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Organizing.”
“Your clothes are already organized.”
“They’re not right.” She unfolds a shirt, starts over. “Nothing’s right.”
I move behind her and try to still her frantic hands. “Olivia… talk to me.”
“About what?” She laughs, but it’s all wrong. Sharp and brittle and on the verge of collapse. “About how I agreed to grow your baby and hand it over like I’m Amazon fucking Prime? About how I signed a contract to give away my own child?”
“ Our child,” I correct.
“No.” She turns to face me, tears streaming now. “According to our agreement, it’s your child. I’m just the incubator, remember? The glorified oven. The—” She stops and spins away again. “God, I actually thought I could do this. I thought I could be so fucking calm about it. Detached. But now, it’s real and I can’t… I can’t breathe when I think about handing over my baby and walking away.”
She’s still facing away from me, shoulders shaking. I watch her fold that same shirt for the third time.
“Olivia.”
“Don’t.” She drops the shirt. “Just… don’t say whatever you’re about to say.”
“You don’t know what I’m about to say.”
“Sure I do. You’re going to remind me about the contract. This is exactly what we planned and I have no right to get upset, no right whatsoever.”
I move closer. Not touching, just proximity. “That’s not what I was going to say.”
“Then what?”
The words sit in my throat. Heavy, dangerous. The old me would swallow them down, retreat behind lawyers and legal clauses and cold, merciless logic. The old me would remind her that she signed her name, took my money, made a deal.
But the old me is dead.
“This baby is as much yours as it is mine.”
She goes completely still. Even her breathing stops. “What?”
“You heard me.”
She turns slowly. Her eyes are red and puffy, mascara tracking down her cheeks. She looks wrecked. Beautiful. “The contract says—”
“Fuck the contract.”
Her mouth falls open. “You can’t just… You wrote that contract. Every word of it was designed to—”
“I know what I wrote.” I step closer. She doesn’t back away. “I wrote it before .”
“Before what?”
“Before you.” My hand moves without permission, brushing a tear from her cheek.
“Stefan—”
“ Our child, Olivia. Not mine. Ours.”
Fresh tears spill over. “You don’t mean that.”
“When have I ever said anything I don’t mean?”
She laughs, watery and broken. “Never. You’re pathologically honest. It’s a little scary.”
“So believe me now.”
“I can’t.” She wraps her arms around herself. “If I believe you and you change your mind—”
“I won’t.”
“You don’t know that! Once the baby’s here, once you have the heir you always wanted, you might—”
“Stop.” I cup her face in both hands, force her to look at me. “I’m not going anywhere. Neither are you.”
“That’s not what we agreed to.”
“Then we’ll agree to something else.”
Her eyes search mine. Looking for the catch, the trap, the fine print. “Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“Why?”
Good fucking question. Why? I spent months planning all of this. I built the whole thing to keep feelings out of it. To maintain control.
And here I am now, pouring gasoline all over it and lighting the match. Not because it serves me, but because…
“When I saw those two lines just now, all I could think about was you. Not the baby, not my legacy, not the fucking Bratva. You . How you looked when you found out. If you were scared. If you were alone.”
“I was terrified,” she whispers.
“I know.”
“I still am.”
“I know that, too.”
She leans into my palm. Just a little. Just enough. “What are we doing, Stefan?”
“I don’t know.” It’s maybe the most honest thing I’ve ever said. “But we’re doing it together.”
“Together,” she repeats, like she’s testing the word.
“The baby. The clinic. All of it.” I drop my forehead to hers. “Together. I’m as scared as you are, but—”
Her laugh cuts me off. “You? Scared?”
I can only laugh right back, delirious and vulnerable. “Of course I’m scared, lisichka. I’m fucking petrified.”
“Of what?”
“Of screwing this up. Of becoming my father. Of losing—” I stop.
“Of losing what?”
You. The word screams in my head. Of losing you.
But that’s too much. Too close to something I’m not ready to name.
“Of losing this,” I say instead, gesturing between us. “Whatever this is.”
She looks at me for a long moment. Then she takes my hand and places it on her stomach. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“We’ll figure it out.” Her hand covers mine. “Together, like you said.”
Something loosens in my chest. Something that’s been wound tight since the day my father died.
“Yeah,” I agree. “Together.”