Chapter 31 Sara
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Sara
Turns out, Nick’s penthouse is not designed for pregnant women, emotionally unstable tea drinkers, or French bulldogs with zero spatial awareness.
I might as well be living inside a tech billionaire’s Pinterest board.
Everything is cold, sleek, and somehow always whispering “you don’t belong here.” I’m padding around in leggings that gave up at breakfast and Nick’s white Oxford shirt, because it’s comfortable, trying to find a kettle in a kitchen so futuristic I’m scared it might yell at me.
Meatball is having the time of his life, chewing on everything in sight.
“Meatball, no!” I hiss, my heart racing as I imagine the cost of that rug.
If I’m being honest, it’s a little bit of an overreaction, but I’m on edge. The last thing I want is to ruin anything in Nick’s perfectly curated fortress of wealth. I don’t even know the proper way to apologize for this kind of thing.
“Stop it!”
I am on a mission. I just want tea. Just one soothing cup of peppermint tea because my body is being used as a deluxe Airbnb for three tiny, high-maintenance roommates.
“Meatball, c’mon,” I mutter, as I scoop him up.
But instead of tea, I get disaster.
It starts when I reach for what I think is a canister of loose leaf tea, except Nick has stored it in something that could belong in a NASA lab. And in the process of pulling it out, I accidentally elbow a weird metal… thing.
I say “thing” because I’m not sure what it’s supposed to be. A sculpture? A coat rack? A violent metaphor?
Whatever it was, it’s now in pieces on the floor.
“Oh no. No no no, Meatball, don’t lick that…”
Too late. He’s already investigating the wreckage, a slobbery crime scene analyst.
I stare at the glittering pile of sculpture shards, wondering if I can glue it back together with eyelash glue and tears.
“Oh no!”
I gently place Meatball down on the floor and try to gather the sculpture shards into the towel.
“I should not be left unsupervised!”
I manage to scoop up the last few pieces of the wreckage. My fingers tremble, partly from the stress, partly because my pregnancy hormones are now in full force, making everything feel like the end of the world.
I look at the broken sculpture in my hands, contemplating my next move.
“I’m going to have to glue it back together with something, aren’t I?” I say aloud to Meatball, who’s sniffing the floor like he’s looking for hidden treasure. “Oh God, I’ll ask Nick.”
I really do need tea. Tea will fix this.
Spoiler: tea does not fix this.
Because while I’m hunting for the kettle, I somehow manage to bump into the espresso machine. And by bump, I mean knock it sideways as if I’m a hormonal Godzilla.
It makes a very bad sound.
I freeze.
Coffee pods go skittering across the marble like sad little hockey pucks, and water is pooling on the counter as if I’m trying to flood the kitchen out of spite.
I just stand there, wide eyed, clutching a teabag, thinking: This is my life. A woman who kills coffee machines and Danish art before noon.
Art that probably cost more than my student loan.
I lock Meatball in the room with his bed while I clean up the mess because I can only deal with one issue at a time.
I’m really starting to need a break…
In my defense, all I wanted was smooth legs.
It seemed like a good idea at the time. A little self-care after the morning I’ve had.
A hot shower. Maybe I’d even exfoliate, pretend I was the kind of woman with a five-step skincare routine instead of one who eats crackers over the sink and uses Nick’s body wash that smells of pine and masculine secrets.
But Nick’s shower? Oh no. Nick’s shower is not a shower. It’s a statement.
It’s one of those glass-enclosed, minimalist spa torture boxes with ten confusing chrome knobs, a rain head the size of a manhole cover, and an LED touchscreen that probably links to NORAD on the wall outside.
Everything is matte black, sexy, and completely unintuitive. Something Batman might use to rinse off crime.
It takes me ten whole minutes just to get the water to a temperature that doesn’t feel as hot as Satan’s back sweat. And once I’m finally in, legs propped awkwardly on a built-in shelf that’s definitely not meant for shaving, things are going okay.
Until I reach for my towel, hanging on the wall.
My elbow hits a panel.
A button beeps. Then another.
And then… chaos.
A siren starts wailing from somewhere in the walls, followed by a robotic female voice calmly announcing: “Security breach detected. Penthouse lockdown initiated.”
“What?!” I scream.
The shower shuts off. The lights flicker red. Something clicks loudly, and I swear I hear a panel sliding shut in the hallway.
Meatball starts barking so loudly, my anxiety spikes.
Panicking, I leap out of the shower, dripping wet, and wrap myself in the world’s tiniest towel, because of course Nick only stocks hotel-chic linens the size of napkins for small dogs or European models.
I run into the hallway, slipping slightly, just in time to see armed security burst through the private elevator door as if they’re raiding a mob hideout.
“Stay where you are!” one of them yells.
I freeze, a deer in headlights and body wash. “I’m sorry, I just… I don’t know what I did, I…”
The guy blinks.
Then Meatball escapes his room and launches.
And by launches, I mean he hurls his twenty-seven-pound body at the nearest boot. There’s snarling. There’s growling.
There’s a very large man trying to shake off a very determined bulldog while shouting, “Sir, there’s something on me!”
Then, of course, Nick walks in.
Hair mussed. Tie askew. Eyes scanning the room, possibly wondering who to fire.
He takes in the red flashing lights. The security guy doing the hokey pokey with Meatball on his foot. Me, dripping and humiliated, clutching my towel like a contestant on Survivor: Bathtub Island.
Nick exhales through his nose, slow and controlled.
“For the love of god,” he mutters, “did you hit all the buttons?”
“I was trying to shower and I just… I don’t know…!”
He rubs a hand over his face, clearly questioning every life decision that led him to this moment. “The emergency panel is meant for security overrides. Not… exfoliation-related emergencies.”
“I leaned, Nick! I didn’t even press anything hard! It beeped at me and then the apartment tried to lock me in!”
Meatball finally lets go of the guy’s boot and trots back to me, smug and slightly foamy.
One of the security guys clears his throat, not quite making eye contact. “Uh, Mr. Ashford? Should we… stand down?”
Nick nods, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Yes. And call off the lockdown protocol. It’s not a threat. It’s just my… Sara.”
The way he says it, my Sara, shouldn’t make my chest go all warm and fluttery given the circumstances. But it does.
“Also,” he adds dryly, looking pointedly at the disaster zone, “call maintenance. And maybe someone who’s good with espresso machines.”
I shoot him a glare. “Don’t judge me. You built a house that’s literally a Bond villain lair.”
He arches an eyebrow. “And yet you triggered a full-blown panic alarm by accident.”
“I was multitasking!”
Nick looks at me, dripping wet and barefoot, towel barely hanging on, bulldog at my feet, and he does the one thing I absolutely don’t expect.
He laughs.
A real one. Low. Warm. Head tilted back slightly.
“You’re never going to survive here, are you?”
“I’m trying,” I mutter.
“Let me make you dinner. Make it up to you.”
Honestly, it sounds suspiciously like a bribe, but I’m too emotionally fried and physically damp to argue. So I nod and go put on real clothes before I flash another security team.
By the time I return, wearing clean leggings and one of Nick’s hoodies that swallows me whole in the best way, the penthouse has mostly returned to normal. The lights are no longer screaming DEFCON 1, and Meatball is curled on the couch, acting all innocent.
Nick is in the kitchen, sleeves rolled up, tie discarded, sautéing something in a pan with the easy competence of a man who either actually cooks or just had Gordon Ramsay personally train him as a hobby.
It smells of garlic and lemon and olive oil, and I suddenly remember that I haven’t eaten anything today besides prenatal vitamins and half a banana I found in my purse.
“You’re an enigma,” I mutter, leaning against the counter. “Who panic-proofs their own home and also makes a perfect sear on salmon?”
He shrugs nonchalantly. “I like order. And dinner.”
I snort. “Weird flex, but okay.”
While he plates things with surgical precision (there’s garnish involved), I wander a little. Not snooping. Just… observing with mild curiosity and a keen sense of spatial confusion.
There’s almost nothing personal in the penthouse.
No clutter. No fridge magnets. No junk drawer full of expired coupons and half-dead batteries.
It’s all sharp edges and expensive lighting and that unsettling feeling you get inside a high-end art gallery where everything is beautiful and off-limits.
But then, tucked on a minimalist shelf behind a pane of glass, I see it.
A photo.
Real, not digital. Framed in brushed silver. And totally out of place.
It’s Nick.
Younger, maybe ten years? He’s standing on a sun-drenched patio, laughing happily, in jeans and a T-shirt. His arm is around a woman.
She’s beautiful.
Tall, elegant, with dark curly hair and that kind of effortless, glowy confidence that makes my bones feel… shaped wrong.
They look… close.
Too close.
I stare at it for a second longer than I should.
“Who’s this?” I ask as casually as I can manage as he sets two plates down.
Nick looks over his shoulder. His expression shutters instantly.
And I mean shutters. As if someone pulled the blinds on his whole face.
“Just… someone I knew a long time ago.”
Just someone?
Cool. Vague. Normal.
Totally not the answer that sends a twinge of unease down my spine.
“Oh.” I keep my tone light. “Like an ex? A friend? A second cousin with oddly intimate posing habits?”
He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t even really look at me.
“She was important,” he says finally, picking up a fork. “But that part of my life is over.”
That part of my life.
I stare at him, fork frozen halfway to my mouth.
Okay, cool. Vague and ominous. Double whammy.
“Do you, um… still talk to her?”
Nick’s jaw tics. He stabs a green bean with unnecessary force. “No.”
And that’s it. That’s the full sentence.
No explanation. No details. No… anything.
The silence stretches. It’s thick and awkward, and now the garlic salmon smells of tension.
I force a bite down and try not to spiral, but my brain is already there, pulling out the red string and conspiracy board.
I mean, it’s not as if I expected full transparency after our first actual day of cohabiting post pregnancy chaos… but I didn’t expect the cold wall of mystery man deflection either.
And the way he looked in that photo?
Happy. Uncomplicated. Someone I don’t even know.
I glance back at the frame. Back at him.
He won’t meet my eyes.
And just like that, my stomach twists. Not from pregnancy, but from the nagging feeling that maybe I’ve walked into something I don’t fully understand.
And Nick?
He’s not giving me much reason to believe I ever will.