Chapter 9: Small Hours

Three weeks passed the way weeks do when you stop counting them, in small pieces instead of one long stretch.

I learned the house the way I hadn’t let myself the first few days, which cabinet had the good mugs, which floorboard near the library creaked, the fact that Marta hummed old boleros under her breath when she thought no one was listening.

I learned Dorian’s schedule too, without meaning to. Gone before seven most mornings. Home late, sometimes past ten, sometimes not at all if a deal in another time zone kept him tethered to his phone through the night.

We fell into something that almost passed for normal. Breakfast some mornings, when our schedules happened to overlap. A text here and there, mostly logistics, when’s your next appointment, do you need the car, Marta says you didn’t eat again. Small things. Careful things.

Neither of us reaching for more than that, not after the kitchen, not after I’d told him I wanted to know the difference between duty and desire and he hadn’t been able to give me an answer.

I told myself that was fine. I told myself a lot of things were fine, these days.

Even though some weren’t, my hospital visits were becoming more frequent, to check the baby’s status and for prenatal care. What was worse was the nausea and could bear the dizziness and the fatigue but the nausea was too much.

Marta was always there though, she treated me like her own daughter, something I wish my mom were alive to do. I barely ate because of the nausea and when I did I’d vomit.

Thankfully Dorian wasn’t always at home, while I looked and felt like a mess

“Small bites,” she said, setting it in front of me. “Ginger tea’s steeping too. My sister swore by it with all four of hers.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“I know.” She patted my shoulder once, brisk and warm at the same time, and went back to whatever she’d been doing before I interrupted her morning. “Eat anyway.”

I managed half the toast before my stomach settled enough to trust it. It was strange, how much steadier I felt with her fussing over me than I had in weeks of trying to manage everything on my own, like some small, tired part of me had been waiting for someone to just take care of things for a while.

My phone buzzed on the counter. Ines, confirming my appointment for later that morning, the six-week scan, the one where they’d finally get a clear look at how everything was progressing.

I held the counter feeling dizzy again, maybe I was standing too much. I needed to rest on something, but I couldn’t find the chair and then the nausea started to come in. Finding my way to the sink and vomiting again

I felt someone brush my hair back as I puked my breakfast out. “Marta… everything hurts” I cried.

“It’s not Marta.” His voice was low, steady, closer than I expected. “It’s me. I’ve got you.”

I froze for half a second, mortified even through the haze of nausea, but my body didn’t seem to care about my pride the way my brain did. Another wave hit before I could pull back, and he held my hair the whole time, one hand steady against my back, like he’d done this before, like it didn’t disgust him the way I was sure it should have.

“I’m sorry,” I managed, when there was finally a pause long enough to speak. “You shouldn’t have to see this.”

“Stop apologizing. It isn’t your fault.” His voice was quiet but firm. “Can you stand, or do you need a minute?”

I thought for a second, but my head was hazy. “I don’t know.”

He didn’t ask again. He just gathered me up, careful and certain, one arm under my knees, the other around my back, and lifted me like it cost him nothing at all. I was too tired and too embarrassed to protest, my head finding his shoulder almost on instinct, the fabric of his shirt cool against my overheated skin.

“Where’s Marta?” I mumbled.

“Grocery run. I got back early.” He carried me toward the living room, easing me down onto the couch like I might break. “You’re freezing.”

“You just said everything hurts.” He crouched in front of me, studying my face with an intensity that made me want to look away and made it impossible to. “That’s not fine, Noelle.”

He disappeared for a moment and came back with a blanket, tucking it around me with hands that were surprisingly gentle for someone who ran a company by being anything but. Then a glass of water, and a cool, damp cloth he pressed lightly against the back of my neck himself, instead of just handing it to me.

“Small sips,” he said. “Not too fast.”

I did as he said, watching him over the rim of the glass

“You’re pale. Have you been going to the hospital?”

“Mm” I nodded

“You didn’t have to do any of this,” I said quietly, once the room stopped tilting. “You could’ve just called Marta back.”

“I know.” He sat on the edge of the couch, close but careful, giving me room. “I didn’t want to.”

I looked up at him confused of his response “I will be around more often if you need me” he continues

“You don’t have to rearrange your schedule for morning sickness,” I said, brushing it off . “I have Marta.”

He jaw tightened but he quickly returned bad to a composed posture “there’s something I also wanted to discuss with you” he said

My interest was immediately piqued “what’s that?”

He clears his throat “when your done with your appointment we’ll talk”

“That’s not ominous at all,” I said. My brows raised

Something almost like a smile tugged at his mouth. “It’s not bad news. I don’t think it’s bad news. It’s just—” He paused, choosing the next words carefully, the way he did most things. “It’s a conversation that needs both of us actually paying attention, not one of us half-conscious on a couch.”

I chuckled, that was a funny way to say it “Fair enough.”

He stood, smoothing his sleeves down again, some of the composure sliding back into place like armor he was putting back on. “Rest today. I mean it. Marta will check on you when she’s back, and I’ll be around the rest of the afternoon if you need anything before then.”

“You said you’d be around more,” I said. “Was that part of the conversation, or a separate thing?”

He looked at me for a long moment, something unreadable passing behind his eyes. “It’s part of it,” he admitted. “But I’d rather explain it properly than have you piecing it together from half a sentence on your worst day this week.”

I let that sit, some small, curious part of me wanting to push, the rest of me too tired to manage it.

“Okay,” I said. “Later, then.”

He nodded once and left, and I lay there afterward, blanket pulled up to my chin, running through every possible version of what “a conversation that needs both of us paying attention” could mean. A custody arrangement, maybe. Something about the clinic’s ongoing legal mess. Or something else entirely, something that had to do with the way he’d looked at me a moment too long before catching himself.

Later that afternoon, after the appointment, after Ines had confirmed everything was progressing exactly as it should and gave me some drugs to help out with my nausea and dizziness.

I came home to find him waiting in his study “You wanted to talk,” I said, closing the door behind me.

“I did.” He gestured to the chair across from his desk, “and how do you feel now?” He asked, as I sat, “mm. Better, I was given drugs” I told him and he nodded

I rubbed my hands together feeling nervous, some old instinct bracing for bad news even though he’d promised it wasn’t. “I’ve been putting this off longer than I should have. Partly because I didn’t want to add to everything else you’re carrying right now. But it’s not going away, and I’d rather you hear it from me than find out some other way.”

My stomach tightened, an entirely different kind of nausea than the morning’s.

“There’s no version of this staying private forever,” he said. “The clinic error. You living here. Eventually, the pregnancy itself, once it’s visible. I have a public life whether I want one or not, and the moment any part of this reaches the press, and it will, they won’t print the truth. They’ll print whatever sells.”

“So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying I’d rather control the story before someone else writes it for us.” He held my gaze, steady despite the weight of what he was asking. “I want us to consider being seen publicly. Together. Not forever, not as anything more than what makes sense to protect you, the baby, and frankly, both of our reputations, until we’ve figured out what this actually is.”

The room went quiet.

“You’re asking me to fake a relationship,” I said slowly.

“I’m asking you to let people see something that isn’t entirely false,” he said.

“Whatever this is between us, it’s not nothing. I’d rather it look like something real than have to explain a lie.”