Page 31 of Nine Months to Bear
I open my mouth, but no sound comes out.
“I always knew you had it in you, Olivia. All this time wasted on that little clinic when you could have been making the right connections.”
The warmth I’d felt moments ago curdles in my stomach. No matter what she says or how she says it, she’s not proud of my work. She’ll never be proud of my work.
She’s only excited about who I might be sleeping with.
“My clinic isn’t a waste of time,” I say, jaw clenched. “It’s my life’s work.”
The fact it’s currently circling the drain is a minor detail I won’t bother bringing up.
“Of course, darling,” she says dismissively. “But wouldn’t it be nice to have both your ‘work’—” She says it like it’s a hobby I’m taking up, like cross-stitching or whittling. “—anda man worth having? Someone who understands ambition?”
I ought to hang up. But that hopeful little girl in me that still yearns for her approval will take it in any form it can get—even if that form is wrapped in the barbed wire of backhanded compliments.
“I knew you’d find your way eventually. All those years of rebellion… But now…” She pauses, and I hold my breath. “I love you, you know. You’re finally becoming who you’re meant to be.”
Three decades of waiting for those words, and they come now, tangled up in her glowing approval of a man who looks at me like meat on a butcher’s block. A man who dismissed every perfect candidate because…
Because he wantsme.
I make a mumbled excuse about a patient waiting and end the call before she can point out it’s nearing midnight and no patient of mine is even conscious right now.
I slam my phone down on my desk and look at Viktoria Fitzsimmons’s face again. Before I can stop myself, I grab the folders, twist in my office chair, and shove them into the shredder. The colored paper confetti fills the basket as, page after page, I destroy each file in turn.
Once I’m done, I follow the adrenaline rush back to my phone. Stefan’s name is at the top of my text threads.
The cursor blinks, waiting for my surrender.
I type:Tomorrow. 9 A.M.
The message is sent before I can second-guess it. Before I can shame myself for sending my dignity through the shredder in the name of survival.
I’m no better than Dr. Walsh. But maybe, if I can stomach the path I’ve chosen… I will be.
I empty the shredder bin into the large trash bag in the lobby. Evidence of the path not taken. The woman I couldn’t afford to be.
I throw it all in the dumpster on my way out.
14
STEFAN
I drum my fingers on the mahogany desk, wood hard under my hand. I check my watch yet again. Third time in the last five minutes. The second hand keeps sweeping around as if time is moving forward, but it sure as fuck doesn’t feel like it. The ticking doesn’t settle me. It just winds me tighter.
Olivia will be here soon.
Her text last night still burns in my memory:Tomorrow. 9 A.M.Finally, the stubborn doctor is going to surrender.
And why shouldn’t she? I always get what I want. Always. It’s merely a question of how long it takes for people to accept the inevitable.
I adjust my tie, though it’s already perfectly centered. Something about Olivia Aster makes me restless. Like I need to dominate something…someone…just to regain equilibrium. It’s fucking irritating.
Last night’s dream returns unbidden: Olivia in my penthouse, my shirt hanging loosely over her shoulders, hair cascadingdown her back as she stood at the window overlooking the city.Mycity.
I haven’t had a woman in my house in years, but I didn’t mind seeing her there. I wanted to move behind her, press her against the window, lift up the hem of her shirt, watch her moans condensate on the cool glass.
Then she turned. Her belly was round, and I knew instantly that the child was mine. The possessive satisfaction that surged through me was unlike anything I’ve ever known.
