Chapter 25 Amelia
For one impossible second after I say it, Logan does not move.
Not a breath.
Not a blink.
Not a single billionaire command, legal strategy, protective demand, or carefully measured response.
Just silence.
Sunrise spills through the penthouse glass behind him, turning the edges of his dark hair gold, making the city look softer than it has any right to look after the night we’ve had. His shirt is rumpled. His jaw is shadowed. His eyes are locked on me like I have just handed him something too fragile for hands like his.
I am pregnant.
The words are still in the room.
They feel enormous now that they’re outside my body.
Too big for the glass walls.
Too big for the contract.
Too big for the war Grant started, the boardroom Logan is fighting, the hospital that suspended me, the leaked records, the flash drive, the reporters outside my apartment, the carefully constructed lie that this marriage is only paper.
My hand moves to my stomach.
This time, I don’t stop it.
Logan sees.
Something breaks across his face.
Not fear.
That is what wrecks me.
I expected fear. Panic. Calculation. The sharp narrowing of his eyes as he starts measuring dates, legal exposure, public risk, paternity implications, Grant’s leverage, board consequences. I expected Logan Kingsley to turn my pregnancy into a crisis map because that is what men like him do with terror.
But he doesn’t.
He looks at my hand.
Then at my face.
And for the first time since I ran into his trauma bay, Logan looks truly unafraid of love.
“Oh,” he says.
One word.
Rough.
Almost reverent.
My throat closes.
“That’s all you’re going to say?”
His mouth opens, then closes. His eyes shine in a way I have seen only once before—when he told me about the recording, when he came home carrying proof instead of vengeance.
“I’m trying not to say the wrong thing.”
A laugh bursts out of me.
It sounds half hysterical.
“That has never stopped you before.”
His mouth almost curves.
Almost.
Then his gaze drops again to my stomach, and the almost-smile vanishes beneath something so tender I have to look away.
Because I cannot afford tenderness right now.
If I let tenderness in first, fear will follow it through the same door.
And there is so much fear.
Grant’s voice coils in my head.
You’re already pregnant, Amelia.
You just don’t know it yet.
He knew.
Or guessed.
Or had access to something.
Or wanted me to believe he did.
I don’t know which option scares me more.
“I took the test alone,” I say.
Logan’s eyes lift.
“I know.”
My chin comes up. “Don’t say it like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you understand and it’s fine.”
His expression shifts carefully. “It is fine.”
“No.” My voice cracks. “It’s not. I didn’t tell you. I went into a staff bathroom with a pharmacy test because I needed one choice Grant didn’t taint and one choice you didn’t help me make.”
He absorbs that without flinching.
Which somehow makes the tears burn hotter.
“I’m glad you had that,” he says.
I stare at him.
“You’re glad?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not angry?”
“No.”
“You’re not offended that I didn’t include you?”
His jaw flexes once.
There.
Not anger.
Pain.
But he doesn’t make it mine to carry.
“I would have liked to be with you,” he says. “But wanting that doesn’t mean I was entitled to it.”
The tears spill before I can stop them.
Damn him.
Damn him for learning exactly how to break me open by not taking.
I wipe my face angrily. “This is not going to be used.”
His expression hardens immediately, but not at me.
“No.”
“I mean it, Logan.” I step forward because panic needs motion and the city is too high and the room is too quiet. “Not by Grant. Not by Daniel. Not by the board. Not by your PR team. Not by hospital administration. Not by your lawyers unless I approve it. This baby is not evidence. This baby is not a headline. This baby is not a shield for your company or a weapon against Grant or a reason for anyone to decide what happens to me next.”
Logan’s eyes stay on mine.
Steady.
Serious.
“Yes.”
“Don’t just agree because I’m upset.”
“I’m agreeing because you’re right.”
That almost knocks the breath out of me.
I stop pacing.
Across the room, Logan remains where he is, hands loose at his sides, as if he knows even one wrong movement could make me feel crowded.
The restraint is visible.
So is the wanting.
Not sexual.
Not right now.
Something deeper.
He wants to cross the room. I can feel it. He wants to touch me, hold me, put his palm over mine, maybe drop to his knees, maybe do something dramatic and devastating and terribly Logan.
But he waits.
He waits for me.
Hope presses against my ribs, dangerous and bright.
I do not know what to do with it.
“I’m scared,” I whisper.
His face changes.
“I know.”
“And happy.”
His breath catches.
The admission startles both of us.
I laugh once, wet and shaky. “That part is inconvenient.”
“Very.”
“I don’t know how to feel both.”
“I think you’re allowed.”
“I’m allowed?” I raise an eyebrow, but my voice trembles. “Very generous.”
He exhales something that might be a laugh if either of us had the nerve to fully touch joy.
“I mean,” he says carefully, “I think both can be true.”
I press both hands over my stomach now.
Small.
Impossible.
Mine.
Maybe his.
Maybe not.
The thought cuts through the tenderness.
Logan sees it hit.
Of course he does.
“The paternity question,” I say.
His eyes go dark, but he stays quiet.
“Grant is going to use it.”
“Yes.”
“The board will use it if they find out.”
“Possibly.”
“Reporters will treat it like a game.”
His jaw tightens. “Not if I can help it.”
“Logan.”
“I said if I can help it. Not I’ll control it.”
I stare at him for a second.
Then nod once.
A point for growth.
A small one.
He steps toward the sofa and gestures to it. “Will you sit?”
I narrow my eyes. “Is that a command?”
“It is a request from a man who watched you almost faint in a staff bathroom parking lot yesterday.”
“I did not almost faint.”
“You leaned against a vending machine and told it to mind its business.”
“It was staring.”
His mouth finally curves.
Just barely.
The sight hits me hard enough that I sit.
Not because he asked.
Because my knees suddenly agree with him.
Logan sits across from me on the coffee table, not beside me. Close enough to talk. Far enough to breathe.
His hands rest on his knees.
Big hands. Careful hands. Hands that caught me at a construction site, touched me in the dark, handed me keys instead of locking doors.
He looks at me like I am the only room he knows how to stand in.
“Tell me what you want,” he says.
My laugh is small. “That is a terrifyingly open-ended question.”
“Start with the next ten minutes.”
That helps.
Of course it helps.
Annoying man.
“I want no one else to know yet.”
“Yes.”
“Except maybe Tessa. Later. Because if I don’t tell her and she finds out from someone else, she’ll commit crimes.”
“Agreed.”
“And my doctor. My choice of doctor.”
“Yes.”
“Not some private specialist you summon from a mountain.”
His brows lift. “A mountain?”
“You know what I mean. Rich people have specialists in places.”
“We do have places.”
“Logan.”
“Your choice of doctor,” he says. “No mountain.”
I almost smile.
Almost.
“I want legal protections,” I continue. “Not for the baby as a boardroom issue. For privacy. Medical privacy. Paternity privacy. My right to make decisions without Grant or anyone else filing things on my behalf.”
“Done.”
I point at him.
His mouth closes.
Then he corrects, “I’ll have options drafted for you to review.”
“Better.”
“Your attorney reviews first.”
“Good.”
“No filings without your approval.”
“Excellent.”
“And paternity testing only if and when you choose.”
My throat tightens.
I look down at my hands.
There it is.
The thing neither of us can avoid.
“When,” I say quietly.
Logan goes still.
I lift my gaze. “I want certainty.”
His expression softens and breaks my heart a little.
“Amelia—”
“Not because of you.” The words rush out. “Not because I think you’ll leave if it’s not yours. I don’t know what I think. I don’t know anything right now. But Grant put this question in my life before I even knew there was a baby, and I need to take it back. I need facts before he turns uncertainty into another cage.”
Logan’s eyes shine.
He nods once.
“Then we get facts.”
“When I’m ready.”
“When you’re ready.”
“And until then?”
His voice is rough. “Until then, nothing changes.”
I look at him.
Everything has already changed.
We both know it.
He corrects himself before I can speak.
“No,” he says softly. “That’s not true. Everything changes. But not the choice.”
My breath catches.
“The choice?”
He leans forward slightly, then stops, as if even emotion must ask permission to cross the space.
“I choose you,” he says. “That doesn’t depend on a test.”
Something inside me folds.
Not breaks.
Folds toward him.
Like a body tired of bracing.
“You don’t have to say that.”
“Yes,” he says. “I do.”
“No, Logan. You really don’t. This is complicated and terrifying and there are lawyers and headlines and—”
“I choose you,” he says again, quieter this time. “Not because it’s simple. Because it’s true.”
The tears come again.
I am very tired of crying in rooms with excellent views.
I cover my face.
“Stop being perfect right now.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re being very inconveniently good.”
“I’m trying.”
“That’s the problem.”
His laugh is rough and low, barely there.
Then silence settles.
For once, it does not feel empty.
It feels like both of us sitting in the middle of something new and fragile, afraid to breathe too hard around it.
After a while, I lower my hands.
Logan is still watching me.
Not my stomach.
Me.
That matters more than I want it to.
“I don’t know what happens next,” I say.
“Then we don’t decide everything today.”
“That doesn’t sound like you.”
“It feels unnatural.”
“Are you in pain?”
“Frequently.”
I huff out a laugh.
He smiles faintly.
Then his gaze drops—not to my stomach, but to my hand, where my fingers have started trembling again.
“May I?”
One question.
Two words.
My heart trips.
I nod.
Logan moves slowly from the coffee table to sit beside me on the sofa, leaving enough room that I can shift away. I don’t.
He takes my hand like it is something sacred.
No pressure.
No claim.
Just warmth.
His thumb brushes over my knuckles once.
I inhale shakily.
“You’re really not afraid?” I ask.
He looks down at our joined hands.
“I’m terrified.”
A laugh slips out. “That’s not the answer I expected.”
“I’m terrified of the world touching this. Of Grant touching it. Of getting it wrong with you. Of turning love into another place you have to escape.”
My throat tightens.
“But the baby?” I whisper.
His eyes lift to mine.
“I’m not afraid to love the baby.”
Oh.
Oh, that hurts.
In the best, worst way.
I press my lips together, but it doesn’t stop the sound that escapes me.
Logan’s face tightens. “Did I say the wrong thing?”
“No.” I shake my head, crying again because pregnancy hormones may not even be fully operational yet, but apparently my regular emotions are already doing demolition work. “No, you said the exact right thing, and I hate it.”
He leans in, just a fraction. “May I hold you?”
The question wrecks me more than if he had simply reached.
I nod.
This time, I go to him first.
I lean into his chest, and his arms close around me carefully. Like I am not fragile but the moment is. His hand comes to rest lightly over my back, and his cheek touches my hair.
No cage.
No locked door.
No performance.
Just Logan holding me while panic and hope collide inside my body, neither one winning, both of them alive.
For a long time, we sit like that.
Then my phone vibrates on the coffee table.
The sound cuts through me.
I stiffen.
Logan’s arms loosen immediately.
I reach for it before he can.
Unknown number.
My stomach drops.
“No,” I whisper.
The phone vibrates again.
A text appears.
Image attachment.
My hand goes cold.
Logan sees my face. “Amelia.”
I tap the message with shaking fingers.
A photo opens.
Black and white.
Grainy.
Medical.
An ultrasound image.
For a second, my brain refuses to make sense of it.
Then I see the date printed at the top.
Weeks earlier.
Before the wedding.
Before I ran.
Before Logan.
Before I even knew to wonder.
My stomach turns over.
Below the image, a message appears.
I told you.
Another bubble follows.
I’ve been planning longer than you think.
The phone slips from my hand onto the sofa.
Logan picks it up.
His face goes lethal.
And for the first time since I saw those two pink lines, hope loses its footing beneath the fear.