29. Elena
Elena
“You said Liam is in Dublin,” I murmur, voice tight, catching on a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. My pulse accelerates despite my attempt to stay calm, and a flicker of panic pulses through me. “How… how close is he?”
Cormac’s gaze sharpens, slicing through me. I can feel it pressing against the thin veil of control I’ve been clinging to. “Close enough that any exposure is immediate. You do not go out alone. You do not answer unknown numbers. You stay where I can verify your safety.”
The words land like stones in my chest. My stomach twists with a premonition I can’t ignore.
Images flash unbidden: Liam walking down the street, in a café, catching sight of me before I can react.
A stranger mentioning my name. A casual encounter unraveling everything.
Three months until the baby’s birth. Weeks of careful management, reduced to seconds by chance or misstep.
I blink rapidly, trying to reset my thoughts. My pulse hammers painfully in my ears.
“Stay… close. To what?” I whisper, voice trembling in a way I can’t fully suppress.
His eyes lock on mine, unwavering. The certainty in them is inescapable.
“To me,” he says.
Two words. No room for negotiation. No ambiguity. No softening.
My chest tightens. I want to argue. I want to protest, to remind both of us that this is professional, that I am his participant, that boundaries exist for reasons we’ve both agreed on. That I am not supposed to be claimed like this. That nothing about this should feel personal.
I don’t. Because I know, before I even give it thought, that arguing is futile.
His certainty fills the apartment so completely, there is no room for resistance.
The air presses against my lungs in a way that tells me this is already decided.
My fear gnaws at me, the rational part of me screaming that this is reckless, manipulative, dangerous.
But the rest of me is already responding to him.
He steps closer, his hand brushing the swell of my belly, deliberately light, inarguably intentional. A feather-light touch that feels like gravity, drawing me forward, anchoring me. My stomach tightens instantly at the contact, at the immensity of what he is saying without words.
“You’re mine,” he murmurs, voice low, almost intimate, but each syllable lands with the weight of iron. “Have been since you signed. You know it.”
I inhale sharply, and I feel a wave of vertigo I can’t fight. I should resist. I should argue. I should pull back, insist on my autonomy, remind myself that boundaries exist, that the program exists, that the law exists. But all resistance falters at the certainty radiating from him.
My hands lift automatically, resting against his chest, pressing into something real, tangible, familiar. My body responds before my mind can catch up.
“This… this is insane,” I whisper, breath tight and trembling. “You’re Liam’s father.”
His expression doesn’t falter. His gaze doesn’t soften. His hand presses more firmly into my belly, grounding me, claiming me.
“Liam left you. I didn’t. I’ve taken care of you. Kept you safe. This baby. You. Mine.”
I close my eyes, pressing my hands over his own on my stomach, feeling the tiny stir of the baby beneath his hand. The kick makes me catch my breath. My body stiffens, pulse hammering, heart lurching. Panic and want twist together in a coil I can’t unwind.
“You can’t just claim me,” I whisper, disbelief threading through my voice.
The words feel fragile, inadequate, utterly insufficient against the force of him.
He tilts his head slightly, gaze unwavering, unflinching. “I already have. The structure did it weeks ago. I’m just saying it now.”
The rational part of me screams, sharp and urgent: this is reckless.
Manipulative. Dangerous. Boundaries dissolved.
Ethics bent. And yet, even as my mind shouts, my body continues betraying me.
Desire pools beneath the panic, raw and immediate.
My need for him, for the certainty he embodies, eclipses everything else.
I feel it in my fingers, now gripping lightly at his chest. In the tense press of my thighs, in the catch of my breath. Every rational protest collapses beneath his presence, beneath the iron certainty of his claim.
He leans closer, forehead pressing to mine. “Do you understand what I mean?”
“Yes,” I whisper, barely audible.
He kisses me. Gentle at first, testing, then claiming without hesitation.
I respond instinctively. My hands rise, resting against his chest, tethering myself to him as if I could hold on to something solid in the midst of all this chaos.
Relief washes over me in waves, and fear begins to fade, eclipsed by surrender.
“Okay,” I breathe, almost inaudibly.
One word of surrender. I accept this, I accept the inevitability of it. I choose him.
The apartment contracts around us, the space between walls shrinking, leaving only us. The life we created stirs beneath our joined hands. I feel the pulse, the continuity, the reality of what he has claimed, what I cannot and will not resist.
I press my forehead against his, inhaling the scent of him. “Okay,” I whisper again.
His hand strokes my belly again. “Good. Because this is the only way forward. The only way to keep you safe. The only way to keep this child safe. The only way for us.”
I close my eyes, letting the truth settle in, terrifying and comforting all at once.
The trap is real, and I’ve been caught. But in the inevitability, in the certainty, I feel safety.
Not sterile, clinical safety. Not the hollow kind of protection the program provides.
Real safety: claimed, anchored, understood, chosen, protected.
He leans down, brushing a kiss to my temple. I press into him, letting myself feel the pull toward him in every touch. I am his. I choose this.
When he pulls back slightly, the tension between us softens into quiet assurance. He doesn’t need to speak. His touch speaks louder than words ever could.
“I understand,” I murmur.
“Good,” he says, voice low, almost wolfish. “Because this is not negotiable. Not anymore. I do not intend for it to be.”
I look up at him, half-lidded eyes, pulse still stuttering, mind finally quieting into awareness. He leans down, lips brushing mine again. I do not resist. I do not step back. I let the warmth, the certainty, the inevitability fill me, flood me, claim me entirely.
“Good,” he murmurs, pressing his hand to my side. “We proceed from here. No deviation. The terms hold. You stay close. I stay present when necessary. Risk mitigated.”
I nod against him, breath catching. I want to tell him I understand. That I know. That I am here. But words aren’t necessary. Surrender is in the way my body presses against him, in the way I lean into him, in the way I let myself be held, anchored, claimed.
I am his.
I choose him.