Page 139 of Nine Months to Bear
The club’s bass reverberates through my bones, but all I hear is Taras’s voice on repeat:You’re in love with her.
Wrong. Love is for men who haven’t watched their fathers choke on their own blood. Love is for people who believe in happy endings instead of shallow graves.
The leather finally releases me with an obscene sound. I’m halfway to standing when Taras materializes through the smoke and strobe lights like a ghost I’ve conjured from vodka fumes and self-loathing.
My brain stutters stupidly. He left. I watched him walk away twenty minutes ago. Or was it longer? I can’t remember.
“Blyat’.” I blink hard, but he’s still there. “How much did I drink?”
“Not enough if you think I’m a hallucination.” Taras drops into the seat across from me, his face carved from stone. No trace of his earlier smirk.
“Come back to continue the lecture?” I scowl. “Let me save you the trouble. I’m not in love with her. I don’t need a therapist. And I definitely don’t need my lieutenant playing matchmaker like some geriatric babushka with too much time on her hands.”
“No more lecturing.” He pulls out his phone, the screen casting harsh light across his scarred knuckles. “I brought news.”
“Unless it’s about the feds backing off or Iakov choking on his own tongue, I don’t?—”
“You’re gonna want to see this.” His face does that thing—that careful nothing that means everything’s about to go to shit.
“See what?”
He turns the screen toward me. “This just went live.”
The headline punches me in the throat:Aster Fertility Solutions: A Baby Making Business Built on Sex.
My blood runs cold as I scan the article. It’s filled with photos from the gala and baseless speculation about our “arrangement.” Thinly veiled accusations about Olivia trading her body for funding.
Every word is designed to destroy her.
“It’s already spreading.” Taras scrolls through his phone to show me hundreds of comments. “Three gossip sites picked it up. Boston Business Journal’s running it tomorrow.”
“Kill it.”
“I can’t, Stef. It’s everywhere already. Besides—” He shrugs. “—it might work in our favor. Tank her reputation, make the acquisition easier?—”
My hand closes around his throat before I register moving. “She’s carrying my child, motherfucker.”
Taras doesn’t fight back. Just meets my eyes, waiting.
I release him, step back, try to remember how to breathe. “Get Mikayla home safe.”
“Fuck that. She can?—”
“That’s an order.”
His jaw works, but he nods. Smart man. He knows when I’m past the point of negotiation.
I leave through the back exit, past dumpsters and alley rats. The cold hits like a baptism, but it doesn’t wash away the image of Olivia reading that article. I can already picture it: Her face will crumble. She’ll look at me and wonder if I orchestrated this, too.
Because I could have.
Wouldhave, three months ago.
The drive home blurs past. Red lights become suggestions. Speed limits become jokes. All I can think about is getting to her before she sees it. Before the world caves in on her.
The house is too quiet when I enter. Security cameras track my movement, but even they seem judgmental tonight. I step into the kitchen and?—
“Enjoy your big night out?”
