Epilogue
. . .
One year later
The pregnancy test trembles in my hand, two pink lines as clear as day.
One year with Roman, and now this. My heart races as I hear his heavy footsteps approaching our bedroom—his bedroom, technically, though I haven't slept anywhere else since the night he claimed me.
I've practiced this moment a dozen times in my head, but now that it's here, my throat feels tight, strangled by a mix of excitement and fear.
Not fear of him—never him—but of how completely this will bind me to a man who already considers me eternally his.
I slip the test into my pocket just as the bedroom door swings open. Roman fills the doorway, his powerful frame blocking the light from the hallway. His sharp gray eyes find me immediately, as if some internal radar always points him directly to where I am.
"Delilah." My name on his lips still sends shivers down my spine, even after a year of hearing it whispered, groaned, and commanded. "You're pale."
That's Roman—nothing escapes his notice.
Not the slightest change in my expression, my body, my breathing.
It makes hiding anything from him nearly impossible, which is partly why I've waited three days to tell him about the baby.
Three days of secret smiles and private joy, something that belonged just to me before it became ours—before it became primarily his, as everything in my life seems to.
"I need to tell you something." My voice shakes slightly, and it draws him closer like a predator sensing vulnerability.
He crosses the room in four long strides, his movements fluid and controlled—always controlled. When his hands settle on my waist, they're gentle but firm, anchoring me to the spot.
"Tell me." Not a question. Never a question with Roman.
I take a deep breath, fish the pregnancy test from my pocket, and hold it up between us. "We're having a baby."
For a moment, Roman goes completely still.
The constant calculating look in his eyes freezes, and for the first time since I've known him, he appears genuinely shocked.
His fingers dig slightly into my waist, then relax, then tighten again, as if he's physically processing the information through his grip on my body.
"A baby," he repeats, his voice lower than I've ever heard it. "My baby. Inside you."
I nod, uncertain whether his intensity signals pleasure or something else. "Are you...happy?"
The question seems to snap him out of his trance.
His eyes refocus, and suddenly I'm weightless, lifted clean off the floor as Roman sweeps me into his arms. The pregnancy test falls forgotten to the carpet as he spins me in a circle, his face transformed by a smile so bright and unfamiliar that it makes him look years younger.
"Happy?" He laughs, actually laughs, the sound rusty as if it's been locked away for decades. "Delilah, you've never asked a more absurd question."
He carries me to the bed—carries me, not letting my feet touch the ground even for the few steps across the room—and lays me down with a gentleness that contradicts his strength. Then he's hovering over me, his hands framing my face.
"You've given me everything." His thumb traces my lower lip. "When I found you, I thought possessing you would be enough. Then I thought loving you would be enough. But this..." His hand drifts down to rest on my still-flat stomach. "This is beyond anything I could have demanded from the universe."
The reverence in his touch brings tears to my eyes. "So you're happy."
"I'm..." He seems to search for a word, his businessman's precision failing him. "I'm destroyed. Remade. You've taken the man I was and burned him to ash."
With anyone else, such words might sound alarming. But I understand the language of Roman Wolfe now. His love has always been expressed through possession and control, through the dismantling of boundaries between us. For him to admit that I've changed him is the highest form of devotion he knows.
I reach up to touch his face, and he turns to press a kiss into my palm. "I've noticed changes in you," I whisper.
"You've barely begun to see them," he promises, and there's something in his tone that sends a delicious shiver through me.
The next morning, I discover exactly what he means. Roman has always been protective—possessive to a degree that would send most relationship counselors into conniptions—but the news of my pregnancy has transformed his usual controlling tendencies into something almost religious in its fervor.
I swing my legs out of bed, intending to head to the bathroom, only to find myself suddenly airborne.
"What are you doing?" I gasp as Roman lifts me effortlessly into his arms.
"Carrying you," he says simply, as if this is the most natural thing in the world.
"Roman, I can walk ten feet to the bathroom."
His expression doesn't change. "You're carrying my child. You won't walk anywhere you don't absolutely have to."
"That's ridiculous," I protest, even as a warm flutter of pleasure moves through me at his intensity. "Pregnant women walk all the time. It's healthy."
"Other women, perhaps." His arms tighten around me. "Not you. Not my wife. Not the mother of my child."
It should feel suffocating. It should set off alarm bells. Instead, I find myself melting against his chest, my resistance fading under the onslaught of his complete devotion. This is Roman's love—absolute, unyielding, and entirely consuming.
The pattern continues throughout the day.
I'm not allowed to retrieve my own water—he's there before my thirst even registers.
When I reach for a book on a high shelf in his library, his body is suddenly behind mine, his much longer arm easily grabbing what I need while his other hand settles protectively over my stomach.
"I'm only a few weeks along," I remind him as he insists on carrying me down the stairs for lunch. "The baby is the size of a poppy seed."
"My poppy seed," he corrects, his lips brushing my forehead. "In my woman. Both equally precious and irreplaceable."
By evening, I'm equal parts amused and overwhelmed by his attention. When I emerge from the shower, I find that he's laid out my clothes—the softest items I own, nothing with restrictive waistbands. The sight makes me laugh.
"Are you going to dress me too?" I tease.
The look he gives me is utterly serious. "If necessary."
"Roman." I wrap my arms around his waist, resting my cheek against his chest. "You can't treat me like I'm made of glass for the next eight months."
His heartbeat is steady under my ear. "I can. I will."
"You'll drive yourself crazy. You'll drive me crazy."
His hand slides into my damp hair, cradling my head. "There are worse fates than being cared for too well, Delilah."
I look up at him, at the iron determination in his eyes, and realize this is a battle I won't win.
More importantly, it's one I'm not sure I want to win.
Because beneath the exasperation, I'm discovering something unexpected—I like this.
I like being the center of his universe, the precious vessel carrying the next generation of his legacy.
"Fine," I concede. "But you have to let me walk sometimes. For my sanity."
"When I'm not there to carry you," he agrees, which isn't really an agreement at all.
That night, his obsession manifests in new ways.
When he carries me to bed—of course he does—his touch is different.
Always before, sex between us has been a claiming, an assertion of his dominance and my surrender.
Tonight, as he lays me against the sheets, there's a reverence in his movements that takes my breath away.
"My beautiful wife," he murmurs, his fingers tracing patterns on my skin as if mapping territories he already knows by heart. "My perfect, fertile wife."
The words shouldn't affect me the way they do, sending heat rushing between my thighs. Roman notices—Roman always notices—and his smile turns knowing.
"You like that," he observes, fingers drifting lower, finding the evidence of my arousal. "You like knowing you're carrying my child."
"Yes," I admit, because lying to Roman is pointless. He reads my body better than I do.
His touch is gentler than usual as he prepares me, as if I've suddenly become fragile in his eyes. When he finally pushes inside me, the familiar stretch and fullness is accompanied by an unfamiliar restraint in his movements.
"You won't break me," I whisper, rolling my hips to take him deeper.
His jaw tightens, the battle between desire and control visible in the tension of his shoulders. "I won't risk hurting either of you."
"You won't." I pull him closer, wrap my legs around his waist. "Please, Roman. I need you."
Something in my plea reaches him. With a groan, he begins to move, still carefully but with more purpose.
His eyes never leave mine, watching for any sign of discomfort.
It's strange being the focus of such concentrated attention, having every reaction noted and responded to.
He's always been an attentive lover, but this is different—this is worship.
"I never thought I could have this," he confesses, words punched out between thrusts. "You. A family. My child growing inside you."
The raw honesty in his voice pushes me closer to the edge. Roman rarely reveals vulnerability, and each glimpse is precious.
"You've made me happier than I thought possible," he continues, his rhythm faltering as his own release approaches. "Given me more than I deserve."
"Roman," I gasp, teetering on the brink.
"Come for me," he commands, and even in this new, tender mode, he expects obedience. "Come around me while you're full of my child."
The words trigger my release, pleasure washing through me in waves that leave me trembling in his arms. Roman follows moments later, his body tensing above mine as he empties himself with a groan that sounds like surrender.
Afterward, he gathers me against him, his hand resting possessively over my stomach.
"You've changed everything," he murmurs into my hair.
I trace patterns on his chest, feeling the steady thud of his heart. "For the better?"
"Beyond better." His arms tighten around me. "You've given meaning to a life I built only to prove I could. Purpose beyond acquisition and control."
"You still seem pretty focused on control," I tease gently.
He doesn't deny it. "That won't change. If anything, it will intensify."
"I've noticed."
"But now it has purpose." His hand slides down my body, and I feel him hardening against my thigh again. "Now it's not just about possessing you, but protecting what we've created together."
Before I can respond, he's rolling me onto my back again, his recovered erection pressing insistently against me.
"Again?" I laugh, though my body is already responding to his.
"Always," he promises, sliding inside me with a groan of satisfaction. "It's a good thing you're already pregnant."
"Why's that?" I gasp as he begins to move.
His eyes lock with mine, possessive and tender all at once. "Because if you weren't, I'd be getting you pregnant right now." He punctuates the statement with a deep thrust that makes me cry out. "Filling you with my seed until there was no chance you could escape being the mother of my children."
The words should shock me, but instead they send a fresh wave of desire through my body. This is Roman—raw, possessive, and unapologetic in his need to claim me in every possible way.
"I'm yours," I whisper, the only truth that matters between us. "I've always been yours."
His smile is fierce as he moves within me. "And now you always will be."
As he takes me toward another shattering climax, I realize the truth in his words.
The child growing inside me has bound us together in ways that even Roman, with all his contracts and control, couldn't have engineered.
What began as his obsession has transformed into something mutual and inescapable.
And as his body covers mine, protective and possessive, I find I don't want to escape. This is where I belong—claimed, cherished, and forever his.