Chapter 4 #3
Luna's lips twitch, a hint of her usual mischief breaking through.
"That's actually perfect for what I have in mind.
" She pulls out her phone and taps out a quick message, her thumbs flying across the screen.
"I know someone who might be able to help.
He's been looking for an executive assistant, someone smart and discreet. "
Her phone pings almost immediately.
"That was fast." She reads the message, her eyebrows lifting slightly, then holds out her phone to me. "He says call him to set up an interview, first thing tomorrow. Save this number, sweetie, and we’ll get this figured out."
Thank all the angels for best friends.
I take my own phone from my clutch and create a new contact, carefully typing in the digits she shows me. The name field stares at me blankly, cursor blinking.
"What's his name?"
"Luca Valentina." Luna says it like it should mean something, but it doesn't. Just another wealthy man in a city full of them. "He's... well, he's connected. Powerful. But he's fair, and he pays well, and if you work for him, your father won't be able to touch you."
I save the contact and set my phone aside. "Thank you, Luna. For everything. I don't know what I would do without you."
She hugs me one more time, fierce and brief, her small frame surprisingly strong.
"Get some sleep. Tomorrow is a new day, and you have an interview to prepare for.
" She points to the dresser across the room.
"There are pajamas in the second drawer and there are clothes in the closet. Some of them are brand new. Jasper likes to keep the safe house loaded as he likes to put it. You’ll find other garments in the top drawers. Help yourself to anything you want."
After she leaves, I release my hair from its clasp.
I strip out of my dress and undergarments.
They suddenly feel like a costume from another life.
The fabric pools at my feet like a bloodstain, and I kick it away with more force than necessary.
I catch my reflection in the full-length mirror and pause.
My stomach is still flat. No visible sign of the life growing inside me.
But I know it's there. I can feel it in some primal, inexplicable way, a presence that has become the center of my entire universe in the span of a few hours.
My hand drifts to rest against my belly, palm flat, fingers spread wide.
I pick up my phone on impulse and open the camera.
The screen shows my naked body, pale and vulnerable in the soft lamplight, the blue tips of my hair brushing against my shoulders.
I snap a few photos, turning this way and that, documenting this moment before everything changes.
Before my body starts to show the evidence of my one night of freedom.
I pull up a photo app and add text to one of the images: 2 months pregnant. Then I scroll through the others, choosing the best angle, wondering if years from now I'll show these to my child and tell them the story of how they came to be.
I pick the photo that feels truest, the one where my palm covers the place where my baby grows, and tap the share icon.
Messages opens first, the share sheet laying out a tidy row of recent contacts above the keyboard.
I want to send it to myself as a digital diary entry, locked away in my own thread, waiting for the day I'm ready to look back at this version of me.
My thumb finds the first contact in the row, the one closest to my hand. The little circle beside the name holds nothing but a default gray icon, no photo attached, and my eyes are too heavy to track the letters. The blue arrow glows under my fingertip. I tap it before exhaustion drags me under.
I think of Dante. Of his hands on my skin, warm and reverent. Of the way he whispered my name like a prayer when he finally pushed inside me. Of his scent, sandalwood and smoke, and the taste of him on my tongue. I wonder what he would say if he knew. I wonder if he would even care.
"I already love you," I whisper to my belly, pressing my palm flat against the skin where my baby grows. "Whatever happens, whatever we have to face, I love you. You're mine. And no one is going to take you from me."
I toss my phone on the bed and rummage through the drawers for clean undergarments still with tags just as Luna promised. I pull those on and go back for a pair of pajamas.
I find a soft cotton set in pale blue. I pull on the shorts and then button the top. I’m bone tired when I turn back to the bed and crawl under the covers, exhausted in ways I didn't know a person could be. The sheets are cool against my heated skin, the pillow soft beneath my aching head.
Sleep pulls at me, heavy and irresistible. My last thought before I drift off is that tomorrow, everything changes. Tomorrow, I take the first step toward a new life.
I don't notice the phone screen still glowing on the pillow beside me.
I don't see the notification that pops up. Message delivered. I don't see the small green check beside a name that isn't mine.
I don't know that my naked photos, complete with the caption 2 months pregnant, are currently winging their way through the digital ether toward the phone of Luca Valentina.
I'm already dreaming by the time his phone chimes across the city.
Dreaming of dark eyes and gentle hands and a future I convinced myself I could never have.