A heartbeat
Dante
Wald is out of the game now.
His assets have been frozen, and the charges against him keep piling up: industrial espionage, fraud, money laundering, attempted murder.
The Wald empire has collapsed, and with it, the suffocating threat that had been hanging over our heads.
Now that we’re safe, we can focus on what truly matters.
Today is the first-trimester ultrasound.
I thought I was prepared for this moment.
I was wrong.
The second we step into the office, something inside me tightens. Maybe because after everything we’ve been through, part of me still expects someone to rip this happiness away the moment I start believing in it.
Valeria settles onto the examination table while I sit beside her. My hand finds hers almost immediately.
Instinctively.
As if I need to feel that she’s really here, real and alive.
The doctor spreads cold gel over her still barely rounded stomach before gliding the probe across it.
The screen lights up. A blurry image appears. Then the sound comes.
A heartbeat, fast and steady.
Our baby’s heartbeat.
The sound hits me like a physical blow.
Beside me, Valeria’s fingers tighten around mine. She slowly turns her head toward me, her eyes already shining.
And suddenly, everything we survived crashes back into me all at once.
Her disappearance. The emptiness. The grief. The constant fear of losing her again ever since she came back.
And yet despite all of that…
This heart is beating.
Our baby exists.
I lift her hand to my lips because I’m incapable of speaking without risking completely falling apart.
Then we turn back toward the screen.
Our child appears in profile. Tiny, fragile and perfect.
A violent emotion closes around my throat. For a few seconds, I can think of nothing except this impossible certainty:
We’re going to be parents.
The doctor prints the ultrasound pictures, and we take them with almost absurd care, as though they were made of glass.
This happiness still feels too fragile to be real.
We leave the office wrapped in a strange silence, unable to fully come back down to earth.
Eventually, Valeria laughs softly inside the elevator—a laugh still trembling with emotion—and I think that’s the exact moment I realize this is real.
We spend the rest of the day suspended in a strange kind of happiness.
Like we’re finally learning how to live again.
The next morning, I watch her get dressed from our bed.
Winter light slides across her skin as she pulls on one of my shirts before disappearing into the dressing room.
A faint smile has lingered on her lips since the moment she woke up.
She seems lighter today. As if something inside her has finally eased.
She’s beautiful like this. Not just beautiful. Alive.
Our loved ones still don’t know about the baby. We’re going to tell them at the housewarming party for our new home.
For a long time, I never believed I could have something like this one day.
A house filled with light.
Valeria in my kitchen.
Our child on the way.
A life I thought I’d lost.
And yet, here it is.
Mom and Dad arrive first carrying several plants for Valeria, knowing how much she loves them. Bernadette and Arnaud Perez bring colorful cushions for the living room. Hugo shows up with chocolates from La Mère de Famille. Such a kiss-ass.
Andrea, on the other hand, arrives with several ridiculously expensive bottles of champagne.
Very quickly, the house fills with voices, laughter, and that particular warmth that only exists in places where people truly feel at home.
I uncork a bottle and fill the glasses. Valeria takes one too, with no intention of drinking it.
Gradually, silence settles around us.
I feel her fingers discreetly searching for mine.
They’re cold.
Nervous.
I squeeze them gently.
After everything she’s endured, announcing this pregnancy should be simple.
But nothing is simple when you’ve spent so long believing you’d never deserve this kind of happiness.
At last, I raise my glass.
“We have something to tell you.”
Every gaze turns toward us.
Valeria looks at me.
I give her a small nod.
I’m here.
Always.
Her smile trembles slightly as she speaks.
“We’re having a baby.”
For one second, nobody moves.
Then everything explodes.
Joyful exclamations echo through the house.
My mother presses a hand over her mouth before bursting into tears.
Hugo lets out a stunned “holy shit,” which sends everyone into laughter.
Andrea nearly crushes my shoulder in a brutal hug while Bernadette pulls Valeria tightly against her, overcome with emotion.
And in the middle of all that warm chaos, I watch Valeria laugh.
Really laugh, without fear and without tension in her eyes. As though, for the first time in years, she’s allowing herself to be happy.
“You’re going to be wonderful parents,” my mother whispers while pulling us both into her arms.
I feel her swallow hard against my shoulder.
Dinner lasts for hours.
Conversations overlap from one end of the table to the other. Bottles empty without anyone noticing. Hugo provokes Andrea every ten minutes. Arnaud debates politics with my father while Bernadette is already showing Valeria absurd nursery decoration ideas.
And I watch all of it with a strange feeling in my chest. A part of me still expects someone to wake me up.
Valeria laughs at something Hugo just said and absently places a hand over her stomach.
The gesture is tiny, but it wrecks me.
I look at her, surrounded by our families, bathed in light and noise, and one truth becomes impossible to ignore.
I want this life, with her. Always.
I lean close enough that no one else can hear us.
“We’re really going to have to turn them into respectable grandparents.”
She turns toward me, one corner of her mouth lifting.
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t understand.”
I place my hand over hers on the table—my left hand, where my wedding ring has quietly returned weeks ago, without ceremony, without discussion.
Simply there, like it always belonged.
Her gaze drops to my hand, then rises back to me.
“Valeria. My wife… will you marry me again?”
She opens her mouth, then closes it again.
“Here?” she asks. “Like this? Between the main course and dessert, in front of everyone?”
“Yes.”
“No ring. No prepared speech. You’re not even on one knee.”
“Yes.”
Something flickers across her face, that expression she gets whenever she doesn’t want to show how deeply she’s affected.
“For me,” I say softly, “you never stopped being my wife.”
I take a slow breath.
“But if you don’t want to marry me again, I’ll stay anyway.”
Her eyes widen slightly.
“Because loving you was never conditional on getting what I wanted.”
I swallow.
“So yes, I want to be your husband again. More than anything.”
My voice roughens.
“But if your answer is no, then it’s no.”
I rest my forehead against hers.
“And I’ll still be here tomorrow.”
A pause.
“And the day after that.”
Another.
“Because whatever happens, you're still the woman I love.”
Her gaze locks onto mine, that gaze that has always had the power to silence me.
“Yes. I’d love to marry you again. And make your life difficult until the end of our days.”
To my right, Andrea—who hasn’t missed a single second of this—pushes his chair back and loudly announces:
“She said yes!”
The room erupts.
Applause. Cheers. Raised glasses. My mother covers her mouth again. My father and Hugo’s father burst out laughing.
Valeria hides her face against my shoulder, half embarrassed, half delighted.
I kiss her forehead.
I have never been this happy in my life.