Elena
By the third trip to my condo in two weeks, even I have to admit I’m moving.
Maybe not officially. There has been no lease discussion, no joint inventory, and no spreadsheet comparing commute times and closet space.
The only thing with my name on it is the relationship disclosure Dominic and I submitted to Rowe Holdings’ designated board representative and employment counsel four days after we returned from Colorado.
His recusal from decisions involving my employment remains in place. I keep my title, my authority, and my independent reporting protections. We document every safeguard because loving the CEO does not mean I stop caring about my career or how our relationship looks to the people who work for us.
Dominic stands in the doorway of my office holding an empty canvas bag while I gather three notebooks from the shelf above my desk.
“Define a few,” he says, his voice dry with an amusement he isn’t trying to hide.
“These. The pregnancy books in my bedroom. Some clothes.”
“How many clothes?”
“Enough for the week.”
His gaze travels to the two empty suitcases beside my desk. “That must be one hell of a week.”
“I like options.”
“You packed twelve dresses for Colorado.”
“And I might have needed every one of them.”
“You wore three sweaters and the same pair of leggings.”
I point a notebook at him. “Are you helping or auditing?”
“Helping.” His mouth curves, and the expression sends a corresponding warmth through my chest. “I’ve learned better than to audit you.”
I move into Dominic’s apartment through accumulation, not a formal conversation or scheduled meeting about square footage and commute times.
I spend the first night after Colorado there because neither of us wants to be alone.
Then I stay the second night because my prenatal vitamins are already beside his coffee machine.
After that, things begin to migrate.
My tea claims a shelf in his kitchen. A charger materializes beside the couch, then another on his nightstand.
My coat hangs beside his in the entryway.
Dominic clears one side of his study for my dual monitors, although he measures the desk twice and spends an hour adjusting their height before he will let me use them.
There is a key to his apartment on my ring now.
He gave it to me while I was brushing my teeth, setting it beside the sink as if granting access to his home while I stood there in his T-shirt was a minor logistical correction.
“For convenience,” he said.
“Of course.”
His reflection met mine in the mirror. “And because I want you here.”
I put the key on my ring.
Now Dominic carries both suitcases from my condo into his apartment and stops outside the bedroom.
“Where do you want these?”
The question catches in my throat. He has cleared half his closet. There are empty drawers in the dresser and new hangers waiting beside his suits, but he still asks.
His patience used to give me room to hide. Now he uses it to give me a choice.
“Your bedroom.”
“Our bedroom?” he asks quietly.
I look at the man who flew across the country after withdrawing from a deal worth hundreds of millions. The man who stayed in Colorado after I gave him every truth I had spent months choking down. The man who asks before moving my suitcase ten feet.
“Our bedroom.” The word settles between us, solid and real, anchoring me to this new, shared space.
Satisfaction warms the sharp lines of his face. “That’s what I thought.”
A genuine curiosity cuts through the warmth settling in my chest. “Then why did you ask?”
“Because thinking I know what you want isn’t the same as hearing you tell me.”
He carries the suitcases inside, and I follow with the last thing I brought from my condo.
The original binder lands on the desk with a heavy thud.
Dominic glances at it. He knows what it is. The anonymous-donor profiles are still tucked behind the tab marked OPTIONS, followed by clinic research, projected costs, and the timeline I once believed could protect me from needing anyone.
“Do you want me to get rid of that?” he asks.
I rest my palm on the cover. For months, this binder was proof that I could build a future alone. Then it became evidence of the one variable my plan never accounted for: him.
“No.”
His eyes lift to mine.
“I don’t need it anymore. I’m also not ashamed of the woman who made it.” My fingers trace the edge. “She was scared. She was trying to give herself something she wanted.”
Dominic comes closer without touching the binder. He doesn’t offer to burn it or tell me to let it go; he gives me agency, even over this. “Where do you want it?”
I open the bottom drawer of the desk and place it inside.
The plan belongs to the woman I was. I keep it because she got me here, even if she never could have imagined this.
Then I close the drawer and go help Dominic make room for me.
Four weeks after Colorado, Dominic gets us to my first prenatal appointment twenty-three minutes early with a black leather notebook tucked beneath his arm.
He sits beneath a framed photograph of a newborn’s feet and reads the packet from the receptionist as if it contains undisclosed financial liabilities.
“You know they’re going to make us wait,” I say.
He glances at his watch. “We have an appointment.”
“That’s adorable.”
His eyes move over my face and down my body before returning to mine. He does that constantly now, checking me as though I might develop a new symptom while he looks away. The attention leaves warmth behind.
“How are you feeling?”
“You asked me that before we left.”
“That was thirty-seven minutes ago.”
“I remain pregnant.”
His mouth twitches. “Any nausea?”
“No.”
“Cramping?”
“No.”
“Dizziness?”
“Dominic.”
He closes the packet. “I’m gathering information.”
“You’re conducting surveillance.”
“Surveillance would involve less direct questioning.”
The receptionist calls my name before I can answer. Dominic rises immediately, notebook already open.
The nurse takes my weight, checks my blood pressure, and asks the standard questions while Dominic sits beside me with his pen poised. He keeps quiet, though his pen poises over the page more than once, ready to interject.
Once the doctor enters, his restraint lasts almost four minutes.
Then she asks whether we have any questions.
Dominic glances down at the page. “Several.”
“Of course you do,” I murmur.
He begins with prenatal vitamins and folic acid, then works through exercise, travel, sleep, caffeine, genetic screening, and every symptom that should prompt an immediate call. He asks how much stress is considered excessive and whether my work schedule needs to change.
“Her work schedule?” I repeat.
The doctor looks between us. “How many hours are you working?”
“Reasonable hours.”
“Define reasonable,” Dominic says.
“I’m beginning to regret bringing you.”
“You didn’t bring me. I told you I was coming.”
“And then you asked if I wanted you here.”
His attention shifts fully to me, his gaze quiet and unyielding. “You said yes.”
The simple reminder quiets every clever answer trying to leave my mouth.
I did say yes.
I wanted him at this appointment. I wanted his questions, his overprepared notebook, and the way he watches me take my prenatal vitamin every morning as if he needs the daily proof that we are doing this together.
The doctor reaches for his notebook. “May I?”
Dominic hesitates before handing it over.
She studies the page. “You made categories.”
“They’re organized by urgency.”
“Mr. Rowe, pregnancy is not a hostile takeover.”
“No,” he agrees. “Hostile takeovers usually come with better disclosures.”
She laughs. I press my lips together, trying not to encourage him.
“You’re both doing fine,” she assures us. “Some uncertainty is part of the process.”
Dominic’s expression suggests he considers uncertainty a design flaw.
The doctor moves us into the ultrasound room. I lie back while she dims the lights, and Dominic takes the chair beside the table. His notebook remains open on his knee until the monitor flickers to life.
The image is grainy, a confusing field of black and gray that I cannot immediately translate into anything real.
Then the doctor points.
“There’s your baby.”
Everything inside me stops.
I have seen the positive test. I have read the books now stacked beside Dominic’s bed. I wake every morning aware that my body carries a life we made.
This is different.
This is our baby, visible on a screen.
“And there’s the heartbeat,” the doctor says.
A sound like frantic drumming fills the room, fast and steady.
Dominic’s pen stops moving.
I turn toward him. His eyes stay fixed on the monitor, and the pen slides from his fingers onto the open page. His questions disappear. He barely seems to breathe.
“Is that speed normal?” he asks, his voice rough.
“Perfectly normal. That’s exactly what we want to hear.”
His throat works as he swallows. The control he carries so effortlessly holds him upright, but for the first time, I see everything beneath it. Joy. Fear. Wonder so sharp it looks almost painful.
I understand then that Dominic needs me too.
He needs this child. This room. This moment.
He needs to know he is allowed to feel all of it.
So I reach across the space between us and take his hand in front of the doctor.
His fingers close around mine instantly.
Dominic finally looks at me, his eyes bright and unguarded.
“Our baby,” he says.
I tighten my hold on him, repeating the words to make them my own. “Our baby.”
The heartbeat continues around us, and I don’t let go.
That evening, I stand naked in front of the full-length mirror in our bedroom and study a body that still looks mostly like mine.
My breasts are fuller and more sensitive.
My stomach is softer, although the doctor assured me it is far too early for the curve to be anything other than bloating.
There are changes I can feel before I can see them, small shifts taking place beneath skin I have spent thirty years believing I understand.
Dominic appears behind me in the mirror, fresh from the shower with a towel wrapped low around his hips.