21. Rowan
ROWAN
Four days after I almost tell Erik I'm pregnant, Serena gives me the sealed lab envelope.
The lab called this morning, and I spent most of the drive to her office reminding myself that four days isn't long enough for my life to change again.
Serena checked all three babies before she brought me into her office, measuring each one and letting me hear three good heartbeats.
Now the ultrasound printout is tucked into my bag beside my chair, while the envelope rests between my fingers.
"If we open this today, the report gives us one answer about fetal sex." I turn it over without breaking the seal. "Whether Y-chromosome material was detected."
Serena puts my chart into the holder beside the door. "Yes. If there's no Y, all three are female. If there is, at least one is male."
"It still can't tell us which baby." I run my thumb along the sealed edge.
"Correct. We won't know how many boys or which baby until imaging." Serena comes back to the desk but doesn't sit. "You don't have to open it here."
I look at my name and the lab number printed across the front.
The measurements and heartbeats were easy to accept because Serena showed them to me one baby at a time.
This envelope contains something Erik should learn with me, even if it can't give us the full answer yet. "I don't want to open it without him."
"Then don't." Serena reaches for her coat, accepting the decision without trying to turn it into a conversation.
I slide the envelope into the interior pocket of my bag beside the ultrasound printout. Erik should be with me when I open it.
He should know there are three babies first.
Harper is waiting at the penthouse when I get back.
She sits at the kitchen island with her laptop open, one of Erik's legal pads beneath her elbow, and two more pushed toward the empty stool as if she has claimed a temporary office.
My casebook is where I left it this morning, the coffee Erik abandoned before work is still in the pot, and the apartment smells faintly of whatever he cooked last night.
I drop my bag onto the empty stool and start taking off my coat. Harper looks at the bag first. "How was the appointment?"
"Good. Everybody is measuring where they should, and all three heartbeats are strong." I drape my coat over the stool and sit across from her.
Harper closes her laptop. "Are you telling him tonight?"
"I'm planning to." I reach for the water bottle I left beside my casebook, and her expression tells me exactly what she thinks of that answer.
"You've been planning to since you found out."
"I've also been busy uncovering a criminal conspiracy." I unscrew the cap and take a drink.
Harper pushes the laptop aside. "You found time to color-code Callie's practice calendar."
"That took ten minutes." I lower the bottle and stare at her. "Did you come here to criticize my stationery choices?"
"No." She pulls the legal pad closer but leaves it closed. "I came here to ask whether Erik intends to leave that life or build better walls around it."
The question irritates me because I've already asked it myself. "He's changed what I've actually asked him to change."
Harper listens without interrupting until I stop. "That tells me he loves you. It doesn't tell me whether he plans to stop running the Bratva."
The word looks wrong in this kitchen. My books occupy two shelves Erik never used. My tea is in his cabinet beside coffee I don't drink, and vegetables are packed into the refrigerator because cooking twice has apparently convinced him he should own produce.
I open my bag and take out the sealed envelope. "Three babies don't need better guards. They need a father who isn't running a criminal organization."
Harper looks at the envelope before raising her attention to me. "Have you asked him?"
"No." I trace the edge of the paper with one finger.
"Why?"
Orell, Dad's folder, and the university leak are all convenient answers. None is the real one. "Because I'm afraid he'll tell me he can't."
Harper leans back instead of rushing to reassure me. Every night since I almost told Erik, I've found a reason tomorrow would be better.
Harper's expression brightens with mischief. "He also threw away Tyler's flowers."
I glare at her. "That remains under separate review."
"I wanted to make sure we were discussing the same man." She reaches for her charger, and I laugh despite myself.
I return the envelope to my bag while Harper starts packing. "You're enjoying this."
"A little." She tucks the charger into the case. "You already know whether you want the babies, and you know whether you love him. Tell him, then ask the question you actually need answered."
I straighten the legal pads she displaced. "You make that sound irritatingly simple."
"That's why you have me." Harper slings the laptop bag over her shoulder and follows me toward the elevator.
"I thought I had you for free legal advice."
Her smile widens when the doors open. "My rates just went up."
Erik comes home at six carrying his coat over one arm and three folders he leaves on the entry table. I'm at the island with my casebook open beside me and enough takeout spread across the counter to feed us twice.
He stops after two steps and looks at the containers. "What did you do?"
I swivel toward him. "Why are you assuming I did something?"
"There's food on the counter, and none of it appears burned." Erik crosses the room and inspects the cartons without opening one.
I laugh. "I ordered it."
"That explains the competence." He hangs his coat over a chair, then removes his watch and leaves it beside my casebook instead of disappearing into the office.
I scowl at him. "You've become insufferable since learning to use a frying pan."
Erik smiles while loosening one cuff. "How was your day?"
"Fine." The answer comes too quickly, and he studies me long enough that I know he caught it.
"You've been giving me that answer all week." He reaches for one of the cartons.
My bag sits three feet away with the ultrasound pictures and envelope inside. I could end four days of avoidance with one sentence, yet I close my casebook instead and slide another container toward him. "I bought dinner."
"I noticed." Erik opens the nearest carton and examines the contents. "You objected to the last takeout."
"I observed that it was soggy." I move my books farther from the food while he gives me a look. "That isn't the same thing."
"You looked at it with contempt."
"That still doesn't mean I object to the entire concept of takeout." I open another carton, mostly because I've already committed to defending it.
Erik checks that one too. "This is also going to be soggy."
"Then cook." I gesture toward the refrigerator and start closing the containers again.
He opens the refrigerator without giving me the offended reaction I expected. I watch him pull out chicken, then reach past him for the produce bag. "You were supposed to be insulted."
"I'm adapting." Erik sets the chicken on the counter.
"To criticism?" I take two peppers from the bag.
He glances over his shoulder at me. "To you."
The answer warms my face before I can stop it. Erik washes his hands and gets a cutting board while I rinse the peppers, and soon we're working beside each other with the takeout abandoned at the far end of the island.
"You need help," I tell him when he reaches for a knife.
"I survived last time." Erik takes one from the block.
"You nearly destroyed a sauce because you were interrogating me." I reach for the cutting board at the same time he does, then take the knife from him when he tries to claim both.
Erik looks at me. "I asked three questions."
"You made them sound prosecutorial." I put the first pepper on the board. "You also hold this wrong."
"No, I don't." He takes another knife and gets a second board.
"You do if you like your fingers."
"I've used knives before."
"That sentence is doing a lot of work." I cut the pepper in half while Erik unwraps the chicken.
For a minute, the kitchen settles into the ordinary sounds of knives against boards, water in the sink, and packaging being folded toward the trash. Erik works at my left while I trim the pepper, and the ease of it makes Harper's question harder to ignore.
"You're surrendering surprisingly well," I tell him.
"I'm delegating."
I glance toward his board. "That sounds like what you told Peter."
His knife stops.
I keep working because looking directly at him makes the next question harder. "Do you regret it?"
"No." Erik resumes cutting, though more slowly.
"The foundation?" I put the pepper core into the discard bowl.
"No."
I reach for the second pepper. "The security companies?"
Erik puts his knife down and turns toward me. "What are you actually asking?"
My stomach knots. I need to know whether the changes stop at legitimate companies or continue until our children can grow up without knowing which windows are safest. I set my knife beside his. "What about the rest?"
His phone rings before he can answer.
Erik glances at the screen. Makari. He wipes his fingers on a towel and answers while already moving toward the office. "What happened?"
I follow as far as the doorway while he wakes the large screen and opens the foundation ledger. Makari talks long enough for Erik to scroll through several accounts before he stops on one.
"Which credential?" He opens another file, listens, then looks toward me with a brief gesture that reads more like apology than command. "Freeze the receiving account. Leave the originating one alone until Liya checks it."
He calls her as soon as Makari disconnects. A dormant contractor credential was used to access an old foundation account, but no money moved. Whoever logged in tested the credential twice and backed out.
Someone is checking whether an old route still works.
I return to the kitchen while Erik stays in the office.
The chicken is still on the board, so I wrap it and put it away before enough time passes to create a second problem.
I finish cutting the peppers, clean both work surfaces, and close the takeout containers while his voice carries from the next room.
Almost forty minutes pass before he returns. Erik stops beside the island and looks at the cleared boards. "I ruined dinner again."
"You didn't ruin it. I saved you from food poisoning." I close the refrigerator after putting away the peppers.
"That distinction seems important." Erik reaches beneath the sink for the cleaning spray.
It still pulled him away from dinner.
"Erik."
He puts the bottle down and faces me. "What?"
The ultrasound pictures are inside my bag, but I don't need them. I only need four words. I cross the kitchen before I can change my mind. "I need to tell you something."
His fatigue disappears beneath immediate concern, and he gives me his full attention. "Okay."
I reach for him and hold on. For one second, I almost guide him toward my stomach. "When you talked about planning farther ahead the other night, did you mean it?"
"Yes." Erik closes his fingers around mine. "I meant it."
"I know." My throat starts to close anyway. "There's something you don't know."
He waits instead of trying to pull the answer from me. Forty minutes ago, another piece of his old life pulled him away from dinner.
"Rowan?"
I force myself to look at him. "I need to ask you something first."
Erik watches me for a moment, then nods. "Ask me."
I can't. If I ask whether he'll leave the Bratva, I have to explain why I need the answer now, and there's only one honest explanation.
I let go of him. "Not tonight."
His concern deepens. "You just said you needed to tell me something."
"I do." I step closer again instead of retreating across the kitchen. "I will. I need a little more time."
A few weeks ago, Erik would have pushed until I gave him something. Tonight he waits, then opens his arms and lets me decide whether to close the distance.
I do.
"Come upstairs," I tell him against his shoulder.
The bedroom is dark except for the lamps beside the bed. I kiss Erik before he can return to the conversation downstairs, and he catches me at the waist without pulling me closer until I move first.
"Rowan?"
"I'm fine." I slide my arms around his shoulders.
"That wasn't what I was going to ask."
"I know." I kiss him again, and this time he follows me toward the bed.
There's no anger driving us tonight. I want him because I love him, and that certainty changes the way I notice everything.
The patience when he lifts my sweatshirt.
The grin when I accuse him of thinking too much.
The laugh I get when I tell him law school has made the definition of evidence flexible.
He takes his time with me, and I do the same with him. I pull his shirt away, kiss the skin I uncover, and draw him closer when tenderness threatens to turn me emotional again. Erik notices, of course, but he doesn't demand an explanation after I've already failed to give him one downstairs.
Later, we lie beneath the blanket while traffic moves far below the windows.
His hair is disordered, and there's a red mark near his shoulder that I put there.
He looks nothing like the dean whose signature can shut down part of a university or the man whose phone can mobilize armed security across the state.
He looks like the man who argued with me about a cutting board, and I love him enough that keeping the truth from him is getting harder by the hour.
Erik falls asleep with one arm around me, but I stay awake until the envelope downstairs becomes impossible to ignore. I slip out of bed, pull on his shirt, and return to the kitchen, where my bag still sits on the stool beside the abandoned takeout.
The envelope is exactly where I left it.
When I carry it upstairs, Erik is awake again and sitting higher against the pillows. His attention drops to the paper before returning to me. "What do you have?"
I sit beside him with the envelope in my lap. "Something I thought I was ready to open."
He doesn't reach for it. "Are you?"
One tear along the seal would answer the question Serena explained this morning. One sentence would tell Erik the truth I've spent four days avoiding, and I almost manage it for the second time tonight.
"No." I lower the envelope.
Concern replaces the last of the sleepiness in his face. "Is it urgent?"
"No. Nothing is wrong." I make myself meet his eyes so he hears that part clearly.
He watches while I open the nightstand drawer and put the envelope inside. "You're not opening it?"
"Not tonight." I close the drawer and settle beside him.
Erik gives me another chance to explain, then turns off the lamp when I don't. I lie against him in the dark with three babies growing inside me and the question Harper forced me to face still unanswered.
I know I want Erik in our future. I need to know whether the Bratva has to come with him.