11. Margot
11
MARGOT
I t starts with the kind of nausea I can’t explain away with stress or bad coffee. The kind that creeps in early, before Grayson’s even awake, sharp and quiet and disorienting. At first, I think it’s just exhaustion, days of stolen sleep, too much trail mix, too many thoughts I haven’t sorted out. But when it happens again the next morning, and then again the morning after that, something inside me shifts.
I don’t panic. Not immediately. Instead, I run silent calculations in my head, schedules, timelines, probabilities. Like if I crunch the numbers hard enough, the answer will change. It doesn’t.
I slip out of bed before sunrise, careful not to wake him. His hand twitches where it rests across my side, like he’s reaching for me even in sleep. I stare at it for a moment, then gently pull away. The nearest pharmacy is twenty minutes away, and I drive there like I’m chasing down a ghost. No makeup. Hoodie pulled low. I don’t want to be recognized. I don’t want to be seen. I buy one test. Then two. Just in case.
Back at the cabin, I lock myself in the bathroom and wait. The minutes crawl. My heart drums louder than the clock ticking above the mirror. I try to steady my breathing, but I already know. I knew the moment I stepped through the aisle of pregnancy tests with shaking fingers. Two lines. Clear. Undeniable. Pregnant.
I sit on the edge of the tub, knees drawn to my chest, the plastic test clenched in my palm like it might suddenly offer a different result. For a few minutes, I feel everything. Then nothing. Then everything again. A dozen thoughts crash in at once, our company, the sabotage, the press, the accidental marriage, the vows we don’t remember, the future we haven’t planned.
And Grayson. God, Grayson. The man who holds my hand like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Who makes me tea when I forget to eat. Who kisses me like he remembers things I haven’t told him yet.
I think of the way he looked at me last night when I told him I’d imagined our wedding. He didn’t laugh. He didn’t run. But this? A baby? This is something else entirely. I hide the tests in the bottom drawer of the vanity. Beneath the extra towels. Behind the travel-sized shampoo bottles. Somewhere I won’t have to look. Then I splash water on my face, inhale slowly, and step out into the kitchen like nothing’s changed.
Grayson’s already up, fiddling with the coffee machine. He looks over his shoulder and grins. "Sleep okay?"
I nod, too quickly. "Yeah. Fine."
He eyes me more closely now, brow lifting. "You’re dressed. Did you go out?"
My heart stutters. I glance down at my jeans, the hoodie zipped halfway up. “Just needed some air,” I say with a shrug, moving to the cabinet like I’m searching for a mug. “Couldn’t sleep.”
He doesn’t press, but I can feel his gaze linger a second longer than usual. Not suspicious, not yet. Just curious. I keep my back to him, focusing on the chipped ceramic in my hands like it might anchor me.
“Next time, wake me,” he says lightly. “I’ll come with.”
I manage a laugh that sounds almost real. "You snore when you're cold. I was doing you a favor."
He chuckles and turns back to the coffee, letting it drop. But I don’t, because the lie is already planted, and now I have to remember it. Carry it. Build the rest of my morning around it, and hope to God I can keep it from unraveling.
Grayson moves around the kitchen with surprising focus, barefoot and half-awake, sleeves pushed up as he slices strawberries and cracks eggs into the pan with a concentration usually reserved for quarterly board meetings. I hover near the counter for a moment, pretending to read something on my phone, watching him from the corner of my eye.
He hums a low, off-key tune under his breath, something vaguely familiar and probably meant to soothe me, though I’m not sure he’s even aware he’s doing it. The smell of butter and toast fills the small space, warm and thick, and it churns in my stomach like a warning. He plates the food carefully, arranging the strawberries like he's plating at a five-star brunch instead of in a drafty cabin with one wobbly table and mismatched mugs. Then he turns, proud, and sets the plate down in front of me like he’s presenting an offering.
“Look at that,” he says proudly, sliding into the chair across from me. “I made a breakfast that doesn’t require a fire extinguisher.”
“Color me impressed,” I murmur, picking up a fork. But the second the smell hits me, eggs, butter, strawberries too sweet, I feel the nausea rise again, hot and insistent.
I push the toast to one side, then pretend to check my phone as I nudge the plate farther away.
Grayson narrows his eyes, setting his mug down as he studies me more carefully. “You okay?” he asks, voice low but threaded with concern.
“Yeah,” I answer too quickly, the word falling out like a reflex rather than a truth. “Just… not that hungry.”
His gaze flicks to the plate I’ve barely touched. “You love strawberries.”
I glance at the fruit like it’s a stranger. “I guess I’m just off today.” I force a casual shrug, reaching for my phone like it might shield me from his attention. “Probably too much screen time yesterday. Messed with my sleep.”
He doesn’t say anything right away. Just watches me in that quiet way he has when he’s not sure what he’s seeing. Then he nods, slowly, deliberately, like he’s filing the moment away for future reference.
I stab a piece of toast with my fork and move it around the plate, pretending I might eat it. But I don’t. I can’t. The nausea is still there, coiled low and hot and unavoidable. The lie stretches a little further, gaining shape and texture, weaving itself into the fabric of the morning. It sits between us like a silent presence, unspoken but felt. And still, I smile. I summon a version of myself who’s fine, who’s tired but functional, who isn’t holding onto the kind of secret that could rewrite everything. Still, I pretend. And maybe that’s the most terrifying part of all, that somehow, even as my world tilts beneath me, I can still wear this mask so well.
Still pretend. Still keep this one thing, this massive, heart-pounding, life-altering thing, to myself. For now. Because telling him now, while we’re still tangled in algorithms and sabotage and legal chaos, feels impossible. It’s not that I don’t trust him. I do. More than anyone. But the thought of seeing that flicker of uncertainty in his eyes, even for a second, terrifies me. I need to hold onto the version of us that’s still intact, still steady, still learning how to breathe again after the storm.
The truth is, I don’t even know how I feel yet. It’s not that I’m unhappy. I’m just... overwhelmed. I didn’t plan for this, didn’t expect it, didn’t see it coming. And yet, beneath the panic, beneath the uncertainty and the ache of everything unraveling around us, there’s a tiny flicker of something else. Hope.
A quiet, trembling kind of awe. The idea that something new, something impossibly small and full of potential, is already growing inside me. I don’t know if I’m ready for it. I don’t know what this will mean for me, for us, for the future we’ve barely had time to imagine. But I do know I care. Fiercely. Already. I tell myself I’ll tell him later. When I have a plan. When I’ve wrapped my head around it. When the nausea fades and the timing doesn’t feel like a bomb waiting to detonate.
Maybe in a few days. Maybe after we’ve had one quiet evening that doesn’t involve crisis management or surprise wedding revelations. Maybe when I can look him in the eye and not feel like I’m handing him an entirely new future without warning. But not today. Today, I need the lie. I need the quiet, and I need just a little more time.