Elena
The contract says nothing about Dominic carrying my nephew around on his shoulders.
Considering the attorneys found room for travel authorization, preschool tuition, and what happens if one of us wants to move more than fifty miles away, it’s a significant oversight.
Two weeks after Dominic and I signed eleven pages agreeing to have a child together, I stand in my parents’ backyard watching Theo hold fistfuls of Dominic’s hair and demand that he go faster.
“I’m walking,” Dominic tells him.
“Walk fast.”
“Your father gave me strict instructions regarding the safe transportation of his children.”
Cliff looks up from his place beside the grill. “I told you not to let him steer.”
“I’m steering,” Theo announces.
“That’s the problem.”
Dominic catches Theo’s leg when he leans too far to the side. He doesn’t flinch or ask my brother to take his four-year-old back. He keeps one hand secure around Theo’s calf and carries him across the yard as if having a small, loud person attached to his head is a normal part of his afternoon.
Maybe it is. Cliff and Dominic have been friends since they were college roommates, and Dominic has been part of our family gatherings for years. He sends Sophie and Theo birthday gifts, remembers what they’re interested in, lets them climb him whenever they visit from New York.
I’ve always seen it. But now, with our clinic appointment looming, every easy, familiar gesture feels charged with a different kind of promise.
“Uncle Dominic.” Sophie hurries across the grass with several sheets of paper pressed to her chest. “I need you.”
Theo tightens his grip. “I need him.”
“You’re using him wrong.”
“I’m riding.”
“That’s what I mean.”
Dominic crouches and lifts Theo from his shoulders. “I’m confident we can resolve this without litigation.”
“You say that now,” I mutter.
He looks across the patio at me. His eyes move over the pale blue dress I chose this morning, then return to my face.
The look lasts a second, long enough to strip away the contract and the clinic and my brother’s best friend. It leaves me warmer than the sun does.
Sophie takes Dominic’s hand and pulls him toward the patio table. “I made plans for your backyard.”
“I didn’t realize it needed plans.”
“It does.”
“Then I’m glad you caught it in time.”
She spreads the drawings in front of him. Dominic sits, and Theo scrambles into the chair beside his sister. Sophie’s design appears to include a castle, three dogs, and a purple structure with wings. Dominic gives it the same focus he brings to an acquisition proposal.
“This part is the tower,” Sophie explains.
“What happens in the tower?”
“That’s where I do experiments.”
“What kind?”
“I haven’t decided.”
“Should I be concerned?”
“Yes.”
His mouth twitches. “Thank you for the warning.”
Theo slaps his hand on the page. “I get a dragon.”
“You can’t put your dragon there,” Sophie says. “That’s the nursery.”
Dominic looks up at me.
One day there could be an actual nursery.
A child with Dominic’s dark hair and my eyes could sit beside him, explaining something with the absolute confidence of a person who knows he’ll listen.
He’d ask questions. He’d remember every detail.
If our child climbed onto a chair or leaned too far, his hand would already be there.
I can picture it so clearly I forget to breathe for a moment—not from fear of what could go wrong, but from wanting it.
I filled a binder with facts I could evaluate—medical history, stability, intelligence—believing that if I could name every risk, I could contain the outcome.
Watching him with Sophie and Theo makes me want the man I picked, not just the terms we agreed to.
“Hey.”
Rachel steps beside me with an empty platter tucked against her hip. She follows my line of sight to the table, where Dominic stops Theo from drawing on Sophie’s plans without missing a beat of her explanation.
When Rachel looks back at me, I take a long drink of iced tea.
She knows something. My sister-in-law has spent too many years married to a Vale to be fooled by my carefully arranged composure.
“You okay?” she asks.
“Fine.”
“Sure you are.”
She could press. Instead, she touches my arm and carries the platter into the house. She noticed, and I know she’ll remember it.
I retreat to the drink table.
My parents host this barbecue whenever Cliff and Rachel bring the kids to Chicago for their spring visit. Family friends come and go all afternoon, along with enough people from Cliff’s and my college circles that no one remembers who was originally invited by whom.
Marcus materialized an hour ago and immediately found the beer.
He’s another one of Cliff’s college friends, which means our social circles have overlapped for years. I know him well enough to brace myself for the casual flirtation that’s coming next.
He joins me now and lifts the lid of the cooler. “Your father hid the good beer again.”
“He calls it strategic storage.”
“He watched me take one earlier.”
“That’s why he moved it.”
Marcus glances beneath the table. “I respect the challenge.”
“You’re thirty-seven.”
“And thriving.”
“You’re crawling under a folding table at my parents’ house.”
He emerges with a beer in his hand. “I contain multitudes.”
I laugh despite myself.
He offers me the bottle, and I lift my iced tea.
“Still no fun?” he asks.
“I’m having plenty.”
“Standing alone and organizing the drink station?”
“I moved one stack of cups.”
“By size.”
“They were a mess.”
Marcus smiles and leans a shoulder against the table. He has broad shoulders, brown hair, and enough confidence to flirt without needing me to reward him for it.
“You look good, Elena.”
“Thank you.”
“I was hoping for something warmer.”
“You look adequately dressed for the weather.”
“There she is.”
His grin makes me laugh again.
I glance toward Dominic.
He’s standing with Cliff near the grill, tumbler in hand, listening to my father explain why meat thermometers have destroyed men’s natural instincts. He’s had a few drinks, but his posture is as steady as ever. He accepted the first without hesitation—he already had a car arranged for the night.
He glances at Marcus, then at me. His face gives away nothing, but the easy warmth he had a moment ago is gone. He says something to Cliff and starts across the patio with a purpose that has nothing to do with getting a drink.
Marcus follows my attention. “Does Rowe ever stop looking like he’s about to negotiate the purchase of the property he’s standing on?”
“No.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It’s just how he is.”
Dominic stops to answer a question from my mother before continuing toward us. He moves toward the table with his usual control, but the professional distance he carries at work is gone. His tie is off, sleeves rolled to his forearms, and the look he gives me is warmer than it was when he arrived.
“Marcus.” He reaches into the cooler for a bottle of water. “How’s the new firm?”
The question sounds casual. I know Dominic well enough to recognize the maneuver.
Marcus starts telling him about an expansion, and Dominic remembers enough about the company to ask two specific follow-ups. Within a minute, he has drawn Marcus into a conversation that requires his full attention. He also steps between us while doing it.
I almost admire the execution.
Marcus eventually checks his phone. “I should find Maya before she actually leaves me here.”
“She will,” I confirm.
“She said she wouldn’t.”
“You’ve known her for fifteen years. You should understand when she’s lying.”
He smiles at me. “Good seeing you, Elena.”
“You too.”
Marcus heads toward the house.
I reach for a clean cup. “That was subtle.”
Dominic twists the cap off his water. “What was?”
“Your sudden concern for Marcus’s professional development.”
“I’ve always been interested in his career.”
“You’ve mentioned him exactly once in four years.”
“He’s been busy.”
“So have you.”
He takes a drink, watching me over the bottle. “Did you want him to stay?”
The direct question erases whatever answer I was about to give. “You knew he wasn’t bothering me.”
“Yes.”
“Then you weren’t rescuing me.”
“I didn’t think you needed help.”
“Why did you interrupt?”
A woman carrying a wide tray comes through the narrow space behind us. Dominic puts his hand against my back and guides me closer to the table.
His palm settles low, a firm, possessive weight that defies every clause in our eleven-page agreement. It stays there after the woman moves on.
I can feel the exact, deliberate placement of his fingers through my dress.
“Dominic.”
“Yes?”
“You can move your hand.”
“I can.”
He’s warmer and more openly amused than usual, but his speech is clear and his balance is perfect. The drinks may have loosened his restraint. They don’t explain why he wanted his hand on me.
I glance across the yard. Cliff is arguing with my dad over the grill, and Rachel is helping Sophie tape two drawings together. No one is watching us.
“Did you come over because you wanted Marcus gone?” I ask.
“I wanted to talk to you.”
“You could’ve joined us without running him off.”
“I could have.”
I wait for the denial. It doesn’t come.
His thumb moves once against the base of my spine. The simple, possessive gesture feels more binding than the contract in my filing cabinet. Heat drops through my stomach.
“You’re possessive for someone who negotiated an agreement that specifically denies either of us control over the other’s romantic life.”
“Marcus asking you to have a drink doesn’t qualify as a romantic life.”
“He complimented my dress.”
“I heard him.”
“And?”
Dominic looks at me fully. “He was right.”
My face warms. He has praised my work, my judgment, and the quarterly report I rebuilt from scratch the night before a board presentation. He has never looked at me in the middle of my parents’ backyard and said anything that sounds this personal.
“You’ve had a few drinks,” I say.
“I’m aware.”
“Maybe drink the water.”
“I am drinking the water.”
His hand remains on me.
I lower my voice. “My brother is twenty feet away.”
“I’m aware of that too.”
“You don’t seem concerned.”