Page 94 of Single Mom's Daddies
Victor rises from his chair. “We will not pretend everything is fine, Roman. Not again. The timing, the delivery style, the lack of a card—it fits.”
“She’s not a target,” Roman says.
“She’s the mother of our child,” Victor snaps.
Roman rakes a hand through his hair, jaw clenched. “Costello doesn’t know that.”
I gulp. Can’t help it. “Are you sure?”
Roman turns to me, gentler now. “You’re just a nanny. That’s all. He has no reason to come after you.”
I force the words out. “Is that all I am to you?”
Roman flinches. “No. Of course not. That’s not how I meant it. Just, that’s all he knows about you.”
“But is it?” Victor asks, voice grim. “If he knows…”
They fall into argument again—about how, about why, about who slipped. I don’t stay to hear the rest. I leave them shouting.
Roman’s voice, usually so contained, is rising—furious, but laced with something else now. Fear. Victor isn’t shouting so much as correcting, demanding precision, as if facts will give him control.Nikolai, for once, stays quiet, and that silence speaks louder than either of the others.
I walk out of the study, the box with the black rose still clenched in my trembling hand, and make my way upstairs. My knees feel loose, like they’re not fully connected to the rest of me. Every step feels slow. Distant.
I know where I’m going.
I don’t have to think about it.
I find Ivy in the playroom, tucked against the far wall with Mila and Alex, all three of them surrounded by a sea of LEGOs. Color-coded chaos. Brick towers and half-built ships. A dragon with one wing. It’s not easy to play while hooked up to a rolling monitor, but she makes it work.
Ivy’s laughing—really laughing—at something Mila says. Alex holds up a crooked LEGO figure with six heads and a cape made of aluminum foil. It looks like a villain from a dollar-store comic book.
For just a second, the world quiets. I stand there and breathe. She’s okay. She’s still okay.
I step into the room. Ivy notices me first. “Mama!” She waves, then scrambles up from the carpet. “Come see the castle we built. It has a moat and a trapdoor and a secret library.”
“A secret library?” I say, forcing my voice to stay light. “That’s the best kind.”
I crouch beside her as she shows me the little drawbridge, the paperclip ladder that leads to the upper balcony. Mila beams proudly. Alex narrates everything with the solemnity of a museum tour guide.
For five minutes, I forget the rose. Forget the pregnancy. Forget the cold threat pressing into my back like a knife. Just for five minutes, I let myself be her mom.
When the nurse knocks softly on the open door, I turn. “Ivy’s vitals are excellent today. Pulse, pressure, oxygen saturation—all strong.”
“Really?” I ask.
She nods. “Honestly, considering everything she’s been through, it’s remarkable.”
“Thank you,” I say.
Dr. Vlad appears just behind her, flipping through a tablet. “Still no word on a donor heart. But she’s holding steady.”
Wish the same could be said about me.
He looks at me a moment too long—like he’s silently reminding me that I’m not the only one carrying a secret. Then he disappears back down the hall.
I brush Ivy’s hair off her forehead. “Feeling good today?”
She nods. “The best.”
