Chapter Forty-Three
Ilona
By eleven-thirty, I’ve given up on shopping entirely.
My hands won’t stop shaking, and every stranger on the street feels like a potential threat. The boutique bags sit in my car— evidence of a normal afternoon that turned into something from a nightmare.
But I still have thirty minutes before my appointment with Dr. Varga, and the thought of sitting in the car, watching shadows and jumping at every sound, feels unbearable.
There’s a café across from his clinic— one of those sleek, expensive places with tall windows and baristas who treat coffee like an art form.
Zsolnay Café. The kind of place where Budapest’s elite come to see and be seen. And it seems like a highly unlikely place for anyone planning an assassination.
I order a cappuccino and find a table near the back, positioning myself so I can see both the entrance and the street beyond. The coffee is perfect— rich and smooth with that bitter edge that makes everything else seem more manageable.
For a few minutes, I almost feel normal.
The café buzzes with quiet conversation in Hungarian and a smattering of German, punctuated by the gentle hiss of the espresso machine.
A businessman reads his paper over a cup of coffee.
Two women laugh over shared pastries, their designer handbags positioned in just the right place to be seen.
This is what money buys— the illusion of safety, of normalcy, of belonging somewhere beautiful.
Then I see him.
A man at the counter, waiting for an order. Dark blond hair, broad shoulders, the kind of athletic build that comes from expensive gym memberships and personal trainers. He’s facing away from me, but something about the way he holds himself, the particular set of his shoulders…
My blood turns to ice.
Stanley?
The coffee cup freezes halfway to my lips. It can’t be him. It’s impossible. I’m in Budapest, thousands of miles from Boston, living a life he knows nothing about. Why would Stanley Morrison be in a café across from my doctor’s office?
The man turns slightly, and I catch a glimpse of his profile. The sharp jawline, the perfect symmetry of features that used to make my heart race and later made my skin crawl.
It is him.
Or is it?
My mind feels foggy, unreliable. Maybe the stress and paranoia are making me see threats that don’t exist. Maybe every blond man with a gym body looks like my ex-boyfriend when I’m this terrified.
The man collects his coffee and heads toward the exit without turning fully around. I strain to see his face clearly, but he’s moving too quickly, and the early afternoon light streaming through the windows creates shadows that obscure his features.
By the time I think to follow him, he’s gone.
I sit there staring at the empty doorway, my cappuccino growing cold in front of me. Stanley Morrison. The man who controlled almost every aspect of my life for eighteen months. Who cheated on me, then somehow made it my fault. Who made me doubt myself whenever I asked for empathy.
But that’s impossible. Stanley is part of my past— a toxic chapter I closed when I got out of Boston. He has no reason to be in Budapest, no way of knowing where I am or what I’m doing.
Unless…
What if the car sabotage wasn’t random? What if it wasn’t connected to Osip’s world or my father’s investigation? What if Stanley found me, followed me across an ocean, and decided that if he couldn’t have me, no one could?
But how? How would he even know where to look?
And why would he go to such lengths?
You’re just nuts, Ilona!
There’s no way my narcissistic ex-boyfriend would travel all this way just to get back at me.
I force myself to finish the coffee, my hands trembling around the delicate porcelain cup. It wasn’t him. It couldn’t have been. I’m letting paranoia put crazy thoughts in my head, that’s all.
Besides, I have bigger things to worry about. Like whatever Dr. Varga is going to tell me about the nausea that’s been plaguing me for three days straight. I empty my cup, get the check and head across the road to the medical suites.
Dr. Varga’s office is everything a private medical practice should be— pristine white walls, expensive equipment that gleams under soft lighting, the kind of furniture that whispers discretion and competence.
He greets me with his usual warm professionalism, though I catch him studying my face with concern.
“You look tired, Ilona. Are you sleeping well?”
“Not particularly.” I settle into the examination chair, trying to push thoughts of Stanley and sabotaged cars to the back of my mind. “I’ve been having some… stomach issues. Nausea, mostly. Three mornings in a row now.”
His expression shifts subtly— not concern, exactly, but heightened attention. “I see. And when was your last menstrual period?”
The question catches me off guard. I have to think, counting back through weeks that feel like months. Between the contract signing, the constant physical encounters with Osip, and the stress of my new life, my body’s rhythms have become background noise.
“About… five weeks ago? Maybe six?” The realization hits me as I say it. “But that’s not unusual for me. The endometriosis makes everything irregular.”
Dr. Varga nods, making notes in his tablet. “Of course. But given the circumstances of your… arrangement… I think we should run a few tests. Just to be thorough.”
The blood draw is routine, professional.
Dr. Varga chatters pleasantly about the weather, about Budapest’s beautiful autumn, about anything except what we’re both thinking.
I stare at the ceiling and try not to wonder if the man in the café was really Stanley or just a stranger who happened to share his particular brand of arrogant confidence.
“I’ll have results in just a few minutes,” Dr. Varga says, pressing a cotton ball to the needle site. “Modern technology is quite remarkable.”
Those few minutes stretch like hours. I sit in the examination room, listening to the muffled sounds of the clinic beyond the door, trying to prepare myself for whatever news is coming.
More medication for my endometriosis. A different approach to managing the nausea.
Maybe a recommendation for stress management, given everything that’s happened today.
When Dr. Varga returns, his expression is carefully neutral— the practiced face of someone who’s delivered shocking news before.
“Well, Ilona,” he says, settling into his chair with deliberate calm. “I have your results.”
Something in his tone makes my heart skip. “And?”
“You’re pregnant. Almost four weeks along.”
The world stops.
Actually stops, like someone hit a cosmic pause button and everything— my heartbeat, my breathing, the distant hum of traffic outside— freezes in place.
“Pregnant?” The word feels foreign in my mouth, impossible. “Are you sure?”
“Quite sure. Your hormone levels are consistent with early pregnancy, and given the timing…” He smiles, the professional mask slipping to reveal genuine warmth. “Congratulations. Everything looks perfectly healthy.”
Pregnant.
I’m pregnant.
The words echo in my head, bouncing around like pinballs, refusing to settle into anything resembling coherent thought. This is what we wanted— what the contract was for, what all the planning and medical examinations and careful timing was meant to achieve.
But somehow, I never really believed it would happen. Not to me. Not to someone whose body has spent years fighting against conception, whose health issues have made pregnancy feel like a distant impossibility.
“Ilona? Are you alright?”
Dr. Varga’s voice sounds like it’s coming from underwater. I realize I’m crying— silent tears streaming down my cheeks without any conscious decision to cry.
“I’m…” I wipe my face with trembling hands. “I’m fine. Just… overwhelmed.”
“That’s perfectly normal. This is life-changing news.”
Life-changing.
He has no idea.
I stumble through the rest of the consultation on autopilot.
Dr. Varga prescribes prenatal vitamins, schedules follow-up appointments, gives me pamphlets about early pregnancy care that I clutch tightly.
He talks about nutrition and exercise and avoiding alcohol, his voice a steady anchor in the storm of my thoughts.
“The nausea should improve in a few weeks,” he says as I prepare to leave. “Morning sickness is quite common, especially in the first trimester. It’s actually a good sign— indicates healthy hormone levels.”
Morning sickness. The phrase takes on new meaning now. Not a symptom of stress or endometriosis or guilt, but evidence of the tiny life growing inside me.
A baby.
My baby.
I make it to the parking garage before the full weight of it hits me. I sink into the driver’s seat of the Jaguar— the car that someone tried to turn into my coffin just hours ago— and let the reality wash over me.
I’m pregnant.
After convincing myself it might never happen, after all the medications and treatments and desperate hope, it’s happened. And if I’m already nearly four weeks along, that must mean I conceived practically the first time we… did it.
There’s a flutter of pure joy in my chest, bright and fierce and unexpected. A tiny cluster of cells that’s somehow already the most important thing in my world. I press my hand to my still-flat stomach and feel something shift inside me— not physically, but emotionally. Protectively.
This baby is mine. Whatever the contract says, whatever arrangements have been made, this life growing inside me belongs to me.
And then reality hits.
Surrogate mother.
That’s what I am. That’s what I signed up for.
This baby— my baby— isn’t really mine at all.
He or she belongs to Osip Sidorov, to fulfill some need I don’t fully understand, part of a business arrangement I entered into out of desperation.
This isn’t some great love affair. We are not going to be a family.
Forget about romance, Ilona.
It’s just business.
But the flutter in my chest says otherwise. The way my hand instinctively curves protectively over my stomach says otherwise. The sudden, fierce need to keep this baby safe says otherwise, too.
I sit in the parking garage, surrounded by concrete and the echoes of car engines, and try to figure out how to reconcile the contract I signed with the love that’s already blooming inside me.
How do you give away a piece of your soul? How do you carry a life for nine months and then hand it over like a business transaction?
And what happens if you realize you can’t?