Chapter 6 -A house that isn’t mine

I texted him my address and within an hour a car was parked outside my door.

The car Dorian sent was quiet in a way that made my thoughts louder. No music, no small talk from the driver, just the hum of tires on the highway and my own reflection in the window, looking like someone I didn’t fully recognize yet.

I hadn’t packed much. A duffel bag with clothes I grabbed without really looking at them, my laptop, some of my documents and the folder Ines had given me with the clinic’s information, still unopened. Everything else I owned was still sitting in a house that didn’t feel like mine anymore.

After a long drive we reached a gate that opened before the car even slowed down, like someone had been watching for us. The driveway passed a stretch of trees, and then the house came into view, and I understood for the first time that “house” was the wrong word for it.

It was enormous. Modern, all glass and pale stone, lit from the inside in a way that made it look like it was glowing from somewhere deep underground. I sat there for a second after the car stopped, just looking at it, feeling smaller than I had all day, which was saying something.

A woman met me at the door, older than the assistant from the office, with kind eyes and an apron still on like she’d been in the middle of something.

“Ms. Ferro. I’m Marta, I look after the house. Let me show you to your room.”

“Is Mr. Reyes—”

“Not home yet,” she said, not unkindly. “He said to tell you to make yourself comfortable, and that he wouldn’t disturb you tonight.”

Something in my shoulders loosened, just slightly, at that. The guest wing was its own world, a hallway branching off from the main house with a door that locked from my side. My room had its own sitting area, a bed bigger than anything I’d ever slept in, and a window that looked out over dark trees instead of a street. Marta set my bag down and told me the kitchen was mine to use anytime, day or night, before leaving me alone with a quiet that felt different from the quiet in my own house. Not empty. Just unfamiliar.

I sat on the edge of the bed for a long time without moving.

I thought about Trent’s face when I told him to get out. About Josie’s voice shaking when she said four months. About Dorian standing near that window, telling me the sample was the only one he had left, and then refusing to say why.

I thought about my baby, half a stranger’s, half mine, growing inside me in a house that belonged to neither of us.

My phone buzzed. A text, not from Ines this time.

Dorian: Marta said you arrived safely. If you need anything tonight, her number is on the pad by your bed. I meant what I said. You won’t see me unless you want to.

I stared at the message for a while before typing back.

Noelle: Thank you. For tonight. For today, I guess.

The reply took a few minutes.

Dorian: You don’t have to thank me. None of this should have happened to you.

Dorian: Get some rest. Tomorrow can wait until tomorrow.

The thought came to my mind why Dorian would even be this nice, he barely knows me, and I’m sure he can’t just entrust me with the fact I’m in his house without running a background check.

Is he playing some sort of game?

I put the phone down on the nightstand trying to get rid of the thoughts and finally let myself lie back against the pillows, staring at a ceiling I’d never seen before, in a house I had no claim to, carrying a child that connected me to a man I’d known for less than twelve hours.

Somewhere down that hallway, in this unfamiliar house, was the person who now had more say in my future than anyone else alive. I closed my eyes and told myself I’d figure out what that meant tomorrow.

Sleep, when it finally came, came heavier than I expected. I woke to sunlight and, for one disoriented second, forgot where I was. Then it came back, all at once, the way bad news always does the morning after. I lay there for a minute, hand resting on my stomach out of habit now, and made myself get up before the thoughts could pull me back under.

First thing to do was to use the restroom, the bathroom was spacious and neat, it even had a tub. I told Trent I always wanted this, my smile faded remembering everything. I tried shaking it off and focused on freshening up.

That reminds me, I was so focused on the baby’s father that I didn’t check on the health status. After I quickly changed, I went to my bag that I used to pack my things and brought out the file. Carefully I opened it and scanned through everything, releasing a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. Everything was fine and a tip that I should rest and avoid getting anxious or anything too tasking.

Putting the file down,I stared at the door, not knowing if it was okay to come out, I hadn't eaten since yesterday morning. Though Marta told me if I needed anything I could ask but I didn’t want to be a bother around 7am to bring stuff for me. So I decided to find out for myself how to get to the kitchen, pulling my hair up into a loose bun, I threw on the baggiest top I’d packed. The kind of thing I never would have worn in front of anyone on purpose, and stepped out into the hallway before I could talk myself out of it.

The house was quiet in the daylight in a way it hadn’t been the night before, all that glass letting in more light than I knew what to do with. I followed the hallway back the way Marta had brought me, past rooms I didn’t have names for yet, until it opened into the main part of the house, and somewhere past that, I hoped, a kitchen.

Every doorway I passed, I glanced through first, bracing for the possibility of running into him before I’d had breakfast, before I’d figured out what my face was supposed to do.

I found the kitchen typically the way you find anything in an unfamiliar place, mostly by accident, turning a corner and realizing the space had opened up around me.

Dorian was already there.

He stood at the counter with his back half turned, sleeves rolled up, a mug in one hand like he’d been standing there a while, lost in whatever was on his phone. He hadn’t heard me yet.

I froze in the doorway, my brain doing the math on whether I could back out quietly before he noticed, and in the middle of that decision my hand caught the edge of a glass bowl sitting on the small table beside me, the kind of decorative thing that probably cost more than my old car.

It hit the floor before I could stop it, shattering loud enough to make my whole body flinch.