Page 88 of Obsession & Oath

But really, what did I expect her to say? That Hernando Lacruz had gotten bored waiting around, and it was no longer my father’s intention to marry me off?

I lie back, trying to force some clarity into my thoughts.

But then the doctor’s expression changes, her gaze flickering to the floor before she clears her throat.

A chill crawls over my skin. “Doctor?”

She looks back at me, her face serious and almost regretful. Her voice drops a notch, almost as if she’s apologizing.

“Carmen,” she begins carefully. “There’s something else I need to tell you.”

I sit up straighter, ignoring the dizziness that follows. “What? Melissa, please, just?—”

“You’ve been through a lot, Carmen. The bullet wound will heal. You’ll be fine physically. You’re actually in remarkably good health, so there’s nothing to worry about.”

But then there’s a moment of silence that feels like it lasts forever.

“You’re...pregnant.”

The word hits me like a punch to the gut. I blink, not quite understanding, not fully processing what she just said.

Pregnant.

The doctor’s face falls when she looks at my face, as if somehow my expression has just confirmed her fears.

“I know this is a lot to take in. I—I don’t know what you plan to do about it. But your condition will require care. Like I said, your health is in excellent condition, but moving forward...”

She keeps talking while the word echoes in my head.

Pregnant.

Everything else around it is fading away, drowning in the tidal wave of shock crashing over me. I feel the world spin around me. The pain in my head intensifies, and a new kind of ache begins to pulse in my chest.

Pregnant.

For a moment, I feel utterly disconnected from my body—like it doesn’t belong to me anymore.

I didn’twantto think about it. Not now. Not with everything else that’s been falling apart.

I press a hand to my forehead, trying to ground myself, trying to catch my breath, trying to ease the pain. But the words keep swirling around in my mind.

Pregnant.

My mind flashes through the last few months. The moments with Dante, soft kisses, long kisses, long nights in his sheets and mine. Pleasure and routine and something so close to love, but it was never given that name.

For a brief moment, a small flicker of something soft and unexpected stirs within me. The thought of carrying Dante’s child.

Pregnant.

A baby.

Something tangible that came from us, from those sacred moments we shared in Italy. The stolen glances, the fleeting touches, the times we walked and danced under the sun and laughed like nothing in the world mattered.

Those memories—those moments with him—suddenly take on a weight, something more permanent, more real than anything else I’ve ever known.

I close my eyes and picture it: the soft weight of a child in my arms, a living, breathing reminder of somethinggood.A reminder of laughter in the halls of the Iron Castle, of Evelina’s proud smile, of espressos in the sunroom.

But that feeling is fleeting, gone as quickly as it came, replaced by a wave of cold, suffocating reality. I can’t hold onto the thought of a future that doesn’t exist.

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