Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Stefano
For a moment, I do not understand the words.
Positive.
The word hangs between us in the low light of Maya’s bedroom, too small for the damage it does. Or the miracle. I do not know which one it is yet.
Maya watches my face as if she expects the answer to decide something for her.
Fear is written all through her now. Not the sharp kind she carries into dangerous rooms. This is quieter. Deeper. The kind that comes from being handed a future before you have had time to decide whether you deserve one.
“A test,” she says again, because I have not spoken. “I took a test.”
I look toward the bathroom.
The drawer is open by an inch.
Then I look back at her.
She is wrapped in the sheet, hair tangled around her shoulders, cheeks flushed from my mouth and my hands and the things we almost managed to forget for a few minutes. Her eyes are bright, but she is not crying. Not yet.
“Say something,” she says.
I sit at the edge of the bed.
My chest feels strange. Tight. Too full. I have been shot before. Stabbed. Broken bones reset without anesthesia because the alternative involved a hospital and questions I could not afford to answer. None of it felt like this.
“Maya.”
Her face changes. “That is not something.”
“I know.”
“Stefano.”
I stand and cross to the bathroom before she can read too much from me. The test sits inside the drawer beneath a folded towel, small and white and absurdly ordinary. I pick it up.
Two lines.
There is no misreading them.
My child.
The thought does not arrive gently.
It takes hold of me by the throat.
I stand there with the test in my hand and see, without wanting to, every version of my father that I have spent most of my life trying to bury. His hands. His voice. The way he looked at me when I was young enough to still believe he might one day be pleased with me.
A son was an heir.
An heir was a weapon.
A child was never simply a child.
My fingers close around the plastic.
No.
Not this.
Not mine.
When I return to the bedroom, Maya has drawn her knees against her chest beneath the sheet. She is trying to look angry, but her eyes give her away. She is waiting for rejection. For control. For some version of me to turn this into another decision made over her head.
I sit next to her.
She flinches when I reach for her hand.
Only slightly.
Enough.
I stop.
“Maya,” I say again. I look at the test in my palm, then at her. “This is good.”
She blinks.
“What?”
“Good.”
Her look goes completely blank.
I have seen Maya furious. I have seen her terrified, bleeding, grieving, defiant. I have never seen her look so utterly unprepared for an answer.
“That is all you have to say?”
“It is the first thing I have to say.”
“Good?”
“Yes.”
She lets out a sharp breath that might be a laugh if it were not so close to panic. “You cannot just say good.”
“I just did.”
“That is not reassuring.”
I put the test on the nightstand and turn fully toward her.
“I am trying to tell you that I am not afraid of this. In fact, I’m happy.”
The room goes quiet.
Maya looks down at her hands.
“I am,” she says. “Afraid, that is.”
The honesty in it nearly undoes me.
“Of what?”
She laughs once, quietly. “Everything.”
I wait.
She does not want to speak at first. I can see it in the way her shoulders pull inward, in the way she keeps worrying the edge of the sheet between her fingers.
Then she says, “I am afraid of becoming Alice.”
The name settles between us.
“I know that is not fair,” she continues quickly.
“I know I am not her. I know you aren’t Leon.
I know all the things people say when they want fear to sound irrational.
” Her voice shakes. “But she loved him. She was carrying his child. She thought she could make it work. I do not know how to separate that from this.”
I reach for her slowly.
This time, she lets me take her hand.
“You do not have to separate it tonight,” I say.
Her eyes lift to mine.
“You do not have to be calm. You do not have to decide what kind of mother you will be before morning. You do not have to forgive me for Boston because there are two lines on a piece of plastic.” My thumb moves over her knuckles. “But you will not become Alice because I will not become Leon.”
Maya’s mouth trembles.
“You cannot promise that.”
“I can promise what I will do.”
“Which is?”
“I will never decide your life for you again.”
The words cost something.
Good.
They should.
“I will not disappear without telling you why. I will not use fear as a substitute for protection. I will not make you smaller so I can feel bigger.” I hold her gaze. “And when I fail at something, because I will, you will tell me. You will make me answer for it.”
Her breath catches.
“That is a lot to promise.”
“I have made more dangerous promises.”
“This one is not dangerous?”
I look down at our joined hands.
“It is the most dangerous one I have ever made.”
For the first time since I walked into the room, Maya’s face softens.
Not forgiveness.
Not yet.
But something opens.
“What do we do?” she asks.
The question is quiet.
It is not only about the baby.
It is about us.
I know that.
“We start with a doctor,” I say. “One you choose.”
Her brows pull together. “I choose?”
“Yes.”
“And where I live?”
“You choose.”
“Who knows?”
“You choose.”
She studies me like she is waiting for the trap.
There is none.
Not this time.
“I do not know if I want to live in Miami,” she says.
“Then we do not live in Miami.”
“You say that as if you can simply move.”
“I can.”
Her eyes narrow again, but there is less fear in them now. “You have businesses there.”
“I have businesses everywhere.”
“Stefano.”
“Maya.”
She exhales through her nose. “You are impossible.”
“Yes.”
“Controlling.”
“I am trying not to be.”
“That sounds exhausting for you.”
“It is.”
Her laugh breaks through then. Small. Wet. Real.
I would burn every city I own to hear it again.
The thought arrives too easily.
I do not say it.
Instead, I lift her hand and touch my mouth to her fingers.
“There is one more thing,” I say.
Her eyes sharpen. “That sentence has never ended well.”
“It will.”
“That is not comforting either.”
I stand and cross to the chair where my coat lies folded. Inside the inner pocket is a little velvet box I have carried for weeks without admitting why.
I bring it back to the bed.
Maya goes very still.
“Stefano.”
“I bought this before Boston.”
Her gaze drops to the box.
“I didn't know whether I would use it. I thought perhaps I would wait until I had earned the right to ask.” I open it.
The ring catches the low light.
Not excessive. Not delicate. A dark stone set in platinum, surrounded by small diamonds that flash like teeth.
Maya stares at it.
“You were going to propose before you killed Leon?”
“I was going to propose before I went to Boston.”
“That is not better.”
“No,” I say. “It is honest.”
Her mouth opens, then closes again.
I kneel beside the bed.
This is not something I have ever done for anyone.
The position does not feel humiliating.
It feels correct.
“Maya Reeves,” I say, “I do not know how to offer you a perfect life. I do not know how to become harmless, and I will not insult you by pretending I can.” Her eyes fill with unshed tears while I continue.
“But I know I want every version of my future that has you in it. I want to wake up beside you. I want to argue with you in the kitchen. I want to raise this child with you and learn how to be a father without becoming the man who raised me.”
Her hand covers her mouth.
“I want you to choose me with your eyes open,” I say. “Not because I bought you. Not because I protected you. Not because you are afraid to leave.”
“Because I love you. Because you are the only thing I have ever wanted badly enough to change for.”
I hold out the ring.
“Marry me.”
For several seconds, she says nothing.
I let her have the silence.
Then she wipes at her face with the heel of her hand and gives a weak, disbelieving laugh.
“You are absolutely insane.”
“Yes.”
“You are proposing after I told you I am pregnant.”
“Yes.”
“You have terrible timing.”
“I have been told.”
Her eyes meet mine.
“But you do not disappear again,” she says.
“I will not.”
“You do not make choices for me because you think you know better.”
“I will not.”
“You do not turn this baby into something you own.”
The words strike hard.
I nod once. “Never.”
Maya studies me for one more breath.
Then she holds out her hand.
“Yes,” she whispers.
The word does not sound real. I slide the band onto her finger. Maya looks down at it, then at me.
“You had my ring size?”
“I pay attention.”
“That is creepy.”
“It is useful.”
She laughs through the tears again, and this time I smile.
Then I stand, pull her gently against me, and hold her until the trembling leaves her body.
For the first time in my life, I do not feel the need to own the future. I hold her a little closer and let the silence do what words cannot. It is enough to know she is here, and that she is still looking at me as if I might be worth choosing.