Chapter 3
HANNAH
Islide my phone across the table to Delilah.
“What?” Delilah asks and picks up the phone to look at the screen.
Her mouth drops open when she sees the picture of the pregnancy test I took this morning.
Pregnant.
I'm pregnant.
The words keep bouncing around my skull, refusing to stick.
This isn't possible. This doesn't happen to women like me.
Except apparently it does, because here I am, sitting in my favorite coffee shop on a Tuesday afternoon, staring at proof that my one night of letting go has completely derailed my life.
A month. It's been a little over one month since I woke up alone in that penthouse suite. I've spent every day since trying to convince myself it was just a hookup. Great sex with a mysterious stranger who knew how to make me forget my own name. No big deal. Happens all the time.
I looked up that word he called me. And with the help of Google translate, I now knew he called me bunny in Russian.
And dammit, I liked it.
I take a sip of my mint tea, hoping it will settle my stomach, but everything tastes wrong lately. Even coffee, my lifeblood, makes me nauseous. I should have known something was off when I started reaching for herbal tea instead of my usual double espresso.
The real Kevin had texted me a week after our supposed date, full of apologies about a family emergency that kept him from the bar.
By then, I'd already figured out that my mystery man wasn't Kevin the accountant.
The expensive suit, the penthouse, the way he carried himself like he owned everything he touched—none of that screamed CPA.
I was pissed that he tricked me.
Not really pissed because I knew damn well he wasn’t Kevin before I ever went to that stupid penthouse.
“What am I looking at?” Delilah asks.
She knows, but she needs to hear it.
And I need to say it.
"I'm pregnant," I blurt out.
The words hang in the air between us. Delilah blinks, her perfectly glossed lips forming a small 'o' of surprise.
"Oh my God." She sits back in her chair. "You're serious."
"Two pink lines don't lie."
Delilah stares at me. "But—how? When? Who?" She pauses, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Was it Kevin the accountant?"
"No. Yes." I laugh, but there's no humor in it. "Kevin the accountant is a fraud."
"The mystery man from the bar? The one who vanished like a ghost?"
"The very one."
"Hannah." She reaches across the table and grabs my hands. "Okay. Okay, this is—we can handle this. Who is he? Where does he live? What's his number?"
The questions I've been asking myself for weeks tumble out of her mouth. Each one feels like a knife twist. It’s a little blow to my ego to know the guy vanished and never made an attempt to talk to me.
What I thought was an amazing night, clearly meant nothing to him.
"I don't know," I say quietly. "I don't know anything about him. His name, his job, where he lives—nothing. I've looked everywhere, Delilah. Dating apps, social media, professional networks. It's like he doesn't exist."
"Everyone exists online," she says. "You just haven't looked in the right places yet. What about the hotel? They have to have records—"
"I tried that. They said the room was paid for in cash, no name on file." I felt like an idiot asking, but desperation makes you do stupid things. "He's a ghost."
Delilah sits back, processing. I watch her face cycle through emotions—shock, anger, determination.
"What a dick," she says finally. "Who does that?”
"Apparently, the father of my child."
The words feel foreign in my mouth. Father of my child. I'm going to have a child. With a man I don't know, whose real name I never learned, who left me alone in a hotel room like I was nothing more than a paid service.
"Okay," Delilah says, straightening her shoulders. "Okay, we're going to figure this out. What do you want to do?"
The question I've been avoiding. What do I want to do?
"I don't know," I admit.
I place a hand over my still-flat stomach. "I keep thinking about that night. How he looked at me, how he touched me. I thought there was a real connection. And then he just left. I felt so stupid for thinking it meant something."
"Hey. You're not stupid. He's the one who's stupid for walking away from you."
I will forever appreciate her for being my best friend. I know I can be a pain in the ass and a little neurotic.
"What if I keep it?"
Delilah's face softens. "Then you'll be the best single mom in Chicago. And I'll be the best honorary aunt. You won't be doing this alone."
"You'd do that?"
"Hannah, I'd do anything for you. You know that. But are you sure? This is a big decision."
"I know." I touch my stomach again, imagining what might be growing there. A tiny person with storm-blue eyes and jet-black hair. "I'm not sure about anything right now.”
"We'll figure out the rest as we go. That's what best friends are for, right?"
I manage a real smile for the first time in weeks. "Right."
"Besides," she adds, grinning, "I've always wanted to spoil someone else's kid rotten and then send them home to you when they're all sugared up and cranky."
Despite everything, I laugh. "You're terrible."
"I'm realistic. Now come on, let's get out of here. All this emotional revelation is making me crave retail therapy, and you need maternity clothes."
"I'm like barely pregnant, Delilah. I don't need maternity clothes yet."
"It's never too early to plan ahead," she says, standing and tossing her purse over her shoulder. "Plus, I want to buy tiny shoes. Do you know how adorable tiny shoes are?"
I'm shaking my head at her enthusiasm when we step out of the coffee shop and into the afternoon sunshine. The city bustles around us, people hurrying past with their own urgent business. For a moment, I feel almost normal again. Like maybe I can handle this. Like maybe everything will be—
"Red."
The voice stops me cold. Low, accented, unmistakable. The voice that whispered my name in the dark, that called me zaika in moments of passion.
I freeze on the sidewalk, my hand automatically going to Delilah's arm. There, standing outside the cigar shop next door, is the man who's been haunting my dreams for a month.
He looks exactly the same. Black hair perfectly styled, sharp features that belong in a Renaissance painting. He’s wearing another expensive suit. And those eyes—God, those blue eyes that see straight through me.
He's not alone. There are several men around him. One I instantly clock as security.
The man travels with security.
It feels like another clue about my baby daddy.
"What's wrong?" Delilah asks, following my stare. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
"I have," I whisper.
"Hannah?" Her voice sharpens. "Who is that?"
I should walk away. Should grab Delilah and head in the opposite direction. I should pretend I never saw him and go on with my life.
Instead, I find myself walking toward him.
"Hannah, you're freaking me out. Who is that guy?"
“Him,” I say through clenched teeth.
His security guy is slightly in front of him, like I’m a threat.
Maybe I am. I do want to kick his ass. My face has always been very expressive.
I catch the guard looking me up and down in a way that makes my skin crawl.
“Dante, we need to go.” A stocky, middle-aged guy mutters, barely sparing me a glance.
"Dante," I repeat, tasting the name. It fits him somehow—dark and dangerous and classical. "So that's your real name."
He shrugs.
"I like redheads," the guard says. “Feisty. Wild. What do you say, sweetheart? Want to have some real fun with a real man?"
The words hit me like a slap. I'm about to tell him exactly where he can shove his offer when Dante moves.
It happens so fast I barely register it. One second the guard is leering at me, the next he's on the ground, blood streaming from his nose, Dante standing over him with violence radiating from every line of his body.
"Touch her, look at her, breathe in her direction again, and I'll kill you," Dante says, his voice deadly calm.
"Holy shit," Delilah gasps, grabbing my arm. "Hannah, we need to go. Right now."
She's right. Whatever this is, whoever Dante really is, I don't want any part of it. The man on the ground is groaning, trying to sit up, and people are starting to stare.
"You're right," I say, backing away from Dante even as every instinct I have screams at me to get closer. "We're leaving."
"Red—" he starts, but I'm already turning away.
"Don't," I snap over my shoulder. "Don't call me that. Don't follow me. Just—stay away from me."
Delilah and I hurry down the street.
"Hannah," she pants, "what the hell just happened back there?"
"I have no idea," I say, not slowing down. "But I don't want to find out."
"Start talking. Who is that man, and why did he just break someone's nose for hitting on you?"
"I don't know," I say honestly. "He never told me his real name was Dante. And the way he just—the violence—"
"That was not normal," Delilah agrees. "Normal guys don't punch people for making crude comments. They might tell them to back off, but they don't go straight to assault."
I think about the scars I traced on his body that night. The way he carried himself like he was used to danger. The expensive suit, the penthouse, the way hotel staff treated him like royalty.
"I don't think he's a normal guy," I admit.
"Well, normal or not, he's the father of your baby," Delilah points out. "You can't exactly avoid him forever."
I place a hand over my stomach, thinking about the tiny life growing there. A life that's half mine and half his—half mystery and half violence and completely my responsibility now.
"Watch me," I say.