Chapter 23
VALENTINA
Iwake up slowly. Sebastian’s arm is wrapped around my waist and it makes me feel anchored. For a few seconds, I just lie there in his bed, staring at the pale morning light slipping through the curtains, waiting for my body to start panicking. It never does.
For months after Adrian, I could barely sleep in my own bed without checking the locks twice. Sleeping beside anyone else would’ve been unthinkable. Waking up with an arm around me would’ve sent me straight for the door, probably with one shoe on and no bra.
Instead, I’m still here. That feels important.
Sebastian shifts behind me, his fingers flexing against my stomach before he fully wakes. I look down at his hand and try not to think too much about how natural it feels there.
“You’re awake,” he says, his voice rough with sleep.
“Unfortunately.”
His mouth brushes my shoulder. “Did you not sleep well?”
“I’m pregnant and hiding from my deranged ex. I haven’t slept well in months.”
“That’s fair.”
I turn carefully until I’m on my back. He props himself up on one elbow and looks down at me, hair messy, face still half asleep. It’s irritating how attractive he is before he’s even showered. I’ve spent years perfecting my morning routine, and he wakes up looking like a print model.
“You okay?” he asks.
I know what he’s asking. He wants to know if I regret last night. If I woke up scared. If the trying we agreed to after dinner survived until morning. I take a second because I don’t want to lie to him, but I also don’t want to hand him more than I can actually give.
“I think I’m okay,” I tell him honestly. It’s the best I can offer.
His expression barely changes, but I can tell he accepts it. “I can work with that.”
“That’s very generous of you,” I tease.
“I’m known for my generosity,” he shoots back.
I glance around his ridiculous bedroom. Dark furniture, huge bed, view of the hills.
“Clearly. This house screams humble public servant.”
His mouth curves slightly. “I noticed your house wasn’t exactly a hovel.”
He leans down and kisses me before I have a chance to argue.
I brace for the panic the second his mouth touches mine, but it doesn’t come.
Mostly, I’m annoyed by how good he is at this.
It seems unfair that a man can be this rich, this handsome, and this good at kissing.
When he pulls back, I glare at him on principle.
“What?” he asks.
“Nothing. I’m processing an injustice.”
He looks amused.
“I should’ve told you this from the start, baby. I always get the last word.”
“We’ll see about that,” I say, slipping out of bed and bolting for the bathroom before he can respond.
I’d love to say that morning heals everything in me.
It would be so convenient to just decide I can be normal in a relationship and have it be so.
Unfortunately, I still have bad dreams. I still flinch if someone knocks too hard.
I still hate the gate even though I’m relieved every time it closes behind Sebastian’s car.
Still, I start to settle in. A few dresses end up in his closet.
My laptop migrates to the library. My favorite moisturizer takes up residence on his bathroom counter, which feels more intimate than sex in some way.
The guest room technically remains mine, but I stop sleeping in it after the dinner party.
Neither of us says anything about that.
Sebastian learns that I’m mean before coffee and even worse when the morning sickness hits hard. I learn that he takes most of his calls standing near windows, like sitting down during business might weaken his authority.
He also remembers every random complaint I make, which is a terrible habit in a man I’m trying not to like too much. One morning, I mention that the ginger tea helps my nausea but tastes like boiled potpourri. By the next day, there are four different kinds in the pantry.
“This is excessive,” I tell him, standing in his kitchen in leggings and one of his shirts.
“You didn’t like the tea. I tend to listen when you complain.”
“I complain recreationally. You don’t have to run out and fix it.”
“But you’re so much easier to handle when you’re happy.”
“You’re going to bankrupt yourself on nausea tea.”
He gives me a look that says it would take a hell of a lot more than tea to bankrupt him.
“Fine,” I say. “You’re going to mildly inconvenience one of your assistants.”
“That’ll be my burden to bear.”
The strange part is how little he asks for in return. Adrian’s kindness always came with a ledger. Flowers meant forgiveness owed. Dinner meant sex owed. Protection meant obedience owed. With Sebastian, the debt never arrives. He does things just because he wants to.
It makes me suspicious for a while. Then it just makes me uncomfortable.
Then, somewhere in the middle of the second week, I catch myself smiling at a plate of toast because he cut it into triangles after I mentioned once that rectangles felt like too much when I was nauseated. That’s when I know I’m in trouble.
Work helps, mostly because doing nothing would make me intolerable.
I’m not exactly a ball of sunshine even on my best days.
My official leave of absence turns into a remote-work arrangement where everyone pretends I’m resting and I pretend I’m not answering emails from one of Sebastian’s leather chairs.
Tessa and Lila handle in-person walkthroughs.
I join by video with my camera angled carefully so clients don’t get a tour of the mansion behind me.
Veronica sends catering updates with voice memos so dramatic I have to start saving them for Gia.
One bride cries because I won’t personally attend her engagement brunch, which would be flattering if she weren’t thirty-five and marrying her third hedge-fund manager.
I can still plan from my confinement. I can call florists and approve floor plans. I can tell a vendor that ivory and eggshell are not interchangeable, and I can do it from Sebastian’s insanely beautiful library. I don’t have to sacrifice pieces of myself to make this arrangement work.
Sebastian is wildly supportive of my work, which shouldn’t surprise me. Our relationship basically started over a conference table. But now I’m starting to notice that he gets turned on watching me work. Did he always do that?
One afternoon, I have to wave him away.
“I can’t have you lurking behind my laptop like a horny teenager while I’m discussing centerpiece heights.”
“But it’s so fucking sexy,” he whispers, bending down to my ear.
I can’t stop the blush that spreads across my face. I end up rescheduling my meeting because he’s not the only one who can’t control himself.
Two days later, he has a second desk moved into the library because he says the light is better in there. A lie. His office is basically made of windows. I let it happen anyway because I like having him nearby.
We build a routine without talking about it.
Breakfast together when my morning sickness allows.
Work in separate corners of the same room.
Lunch together, usually dinner too, unless he has a meeting.
Sometimes we end up in bed. Sometimes I fall asleep against him on the sofa and he carries me upstairs like I weigh nothing.
Nico comes by a little too often for my taste, which I’m happy to tell him.
“I’m checking on my pregnant sister,” he says one afternoon, opening Sebastian’s fridge like he pays the mortgage here.
“You’re eating Sebastian’s expensive cheese.”
Sebastian walks in behind him. “That cheese is imported.”
Nico takes a bite. “And it won’t go to waste.”
He seems happy for us, even though he’d rather chew glass than say it directly. I know because he stops glaring at Sebastian every time we stand too close. He also stops making comments about boundaries.
Mostly, he watches us with that worried older-brother look he’s had since our parents died, except now there’s something softer under it. One night, while Sebastian is on a call and Nico is helping me clean up takeout containers, he nudges my shoulder with his.
“You seem better.”
I glance toward the hall, where Sebastian’s voice is low and irritated over something involving a contractor downtown. “I feel better.”
“With him?”
I stack empty containers because eye contact feels like a trap. “I think so.”
Nico nods like the answer bothers him and relieves him at the same time. “Good.”
Matteo is another constant presence in the mansion.
He appears and disappears at odd hours, always with some dry comment and usually with a folder or phone call that makes Sebastian’s jaw tighten.
I know they’re hunting Adrian. I know there are things they’re not saying in front of me.
I should probably hate that, but the truth is, I don’t want every detail.
I want Adrian gone. I don’t need the logistics of how they make that happen rattling around my head at three in the morning.
Matteo seems to understand that better than anyone. He never says Adrian’s name unless he has to. He brings me cannoli from a bakery downtown after I mention missing New York pastries, and when I call him nice, he looks genuinely offended.
“You take that back!” he screeches, pressing his hand against his chest.
“I call it like I see it.” I shrug.
“There’s something very twisted in you if you believe that.”
I can’t help but laugh. He probably isn’t wrong.
A few more weeks pass, and my body starts changing enough that I can’t ignore it. My dresses fit differently. My stomach has a small curve that can’t be blamed on a big pasta lunch.
I catch myself standing in front of Sebastian’s bathroom mirror with one hand over it, staring like I have X-ray vision.
I try to picture its face, or how I’ll decorate the nursery.
In these imaginings, the nursery is at the mansion and I live here full-time.
Sebastian wakes up in the middle of the night to help with feedings because he wants me to get some rest. Those thoughts stop me short every time, but once I start picturing it, I can’t stop.
Sebastian finds me in the bathroom one night, staring at my reflection in one of his shirts, hand on my stomach.
He stops in the doorway. “You okay?”
“I’m starting to look pregnant.”
“You look beautiful,” he says.
I roll my eyes, but I’m smiling when I turn back to the mirror. He comes up behind me and rests his hands lightly on my hips, careful enough that I know he’s giving me room to pull away if I want to. I don’t. I lean back against him and watch our reflections.
It’s a strange picture. Me barefoot in his bathroom, pregnant and still a little scared. Him behind me, dangerous and steady and too handsome for anyone’s good. Neither of us looks like we belong in a normal domestic fantasy.
I want a partner. That’s the part I keep coming back to when I’m brave enough to think about the baby longer than ten seconds at a time. I don’t want to do this alone if I don’t have to. And lately, when I picture someone beside me, it’s Sebastian.
That’s dangerous enough, but what’s worse is that I don’t just picture him as the father of my child.
I picture him as my partner. When I’m not carefully guarding my thoughts, I imagine walking down a long aisle with him waiting at the end.
These are my deepest, darkest secrets. I don’t even tell Gia.
I can’t admit that I’m falling for him. The second I do, it’ll all come apart. So I guard that feeling as fiercely as I can and pray he never finds out.