LOGINRavenI can hear myself screaming and I can’t stop it, the sound tearing out of me over and over, my whole body shaking so hard Anaya has both arms wrapped around me just to keep me upright.“I want my baby.” My voice breaks apart on every word. “I want my baby, please, someone find my baby—”“They’re searching every inch of this property.” Dave kneels in front of me, holding both my hands in his, his own voice unsteady despite trying to sound calm. “She’s still here, Raven. She hasn’t left the grounds. They’re going to find her.”“She was just in the crib,” I sob. “She was just there, I just fed her, I just—”“Breathe.” Catherine sits beside me, one hand rubbing slow circles against my back. “Just breathe, sweetheart. Panicking won’t bring her back any faster.”Aunt Martha stands near the far wall, hands clasped tightly in front of her, keeping her distance, saying nothing, watching with an expression I don’t have the capacity to read right now.The front door bursts open.Roman.Nad
Raven“I can’t believe she’s actually home.” I can’t stop staring at her, tucked against my chest, eyes drifting closed after her feed, small and warm and impossibly, finally, ours. “She’s so beautiful.”Anaya leans over the crib rail, studying her with a critical squint. “Why does she look so much like Roman? His genes really said no contest. Yours didn’t even put up a fight.”“She has my eyes.” I brush a finger gently over her cheek. “That counts for something.”“Barely.” Anaya grins. “But fine, I’ll allow it.”I finish settling Nadir and hand her carefully into Anaya’s waiting arms. “Watch her for me? I need to go check on our guests.”“Go be a hostess. We’ll be right here.”The garden looks exactly the way I pictured it, soft white and blush pink balloons drifting gently in the afternoon breeze, flowers arranged in careful clusters along every table, a little celebration of everything we never got to have properly the first time around. No baby shower, no gender reveal, none of it
RomanRaven appears in the doorway of my study just after ten, something small held loosely in her hand, and the look on her face stops me mid-sentence, whatever I was about to say to someone over the phone dying instantly.“I’ll call you back,” I say, and hang up without waiting for a response.She crosses the room slowly and sets it on the desk in front of me.The collar.“Sugar.” My voice comes out soft, careful. “What’s this?”“I want you to put it on me.” Her voice shakes slightly, but she doesn’t look away. “I lied. At breakfast. All week, actually. I’ve been telling you I’m fine, and I’m not.”I stand and come around the desk, taking both her hands in mine. “I know you’re not okay.”“I want to be punished,” she says quickly, like she’s been rehearsing it. “For thinking the worst of this. For resenting you for something that isn’t your fault. Make it hurt. I deserve it.”“No.”Her eyes snap up to mine, startled.“You don’t deserve to hurt for having feelings, Raven.” I pick up t
RavenThe nursery smells like fresh paint and lavender, and I can’t stand still in it.Anaya is up on the step stool, straightening the mobile above the crib, little stars and moons turning slow circles in the afternoon light. I’m folding the same blanket for the third time, smoothing wrinkles that aren’t there anymore, because if my hands stop moving I’m afraid of what my face will do.“Okay, that one’s crooked no matter how many times I fix it.” Anaya climbs down, rubbing her palms on her jeans. “I think it’s supposed to be crooked. Character.”I force a laugh. It comes out thin.She catches it. Of course she catches it. Anaya has known me since we were kids trading lunch scraps in a school cafeteria, and there’s no version of me I can hide from her, not really, not even the version I’ve been perfecting all morning.“You barely touched your eggs at breakfast,” she says, folding her arms. “And you did that thing where you laugh a half second too late at everything your husband
RomanRebecca arrives right at six, dressed simply, hair pulled back, looking younger and more nervous than she did on that ranch porch weeks ago.Dinner starts easy enough. Raven asks about school, and Rebecca answers with the kind of polite reserve I recognize from myself at that age, careful not to take up more space than she’s been offered.“Freshman year,” she says, when I ask. “Just started high school this fall.”“Any plans for after you graduate?”“University, if I can manage it.” She glances down at her plate. “Nothing’s settled yet. The ranch takes up most of what we have.”“What would you study, if money weren’t a factor?”She looks up, surprised by the question, like nobody’s actually asked her that before. “Veterinary medicine. I’ve spent my whole life around animals. Feels like the only thing that makes sense.”“That’s a good answer,” Raven says warmly, and something in Rebecca’s shoulders relaxes slightly at the approval.We make it through the meal on careful,
Raven I sink down slow. Inch by inch. The stretch is perfect — thick, deep, the kind of full I haven’t felt in a while. I can feel him watching my face the whole way, the way my mouth falls open, the way my breath catches when he’s fully seated inside me, cock buried to the root. He’s so deep it almost hurts in the best way, and I’m soaked and shaking slightly, one hand gripping the back of the seat just to steady myself.“Okay?” he manages, voice rough.“More than okay.” My hips roll experimentally, testing the angle, feeling every ridge of him drag against my walls. Whatever sound comes out of him makes me smile against his mouth. “Seventeen weeks, Roman. I’ve missed this cock so fucking much.” His hand reaches up instinctively toward my breast, and I catch his wrist before he gets there, breath hitching for a different reason.“Not there,” I say quickly. “They’re — I’m still nursing. Pumping for her every few hours. Everything’s sensitive right now, more than usual.”He s
RavenThe restaurant is warm and softly lit, the kind of place that makes everything feel slightly more manageable than it actually is. We have menus open in front of us. I am staring at mine without reading a single word.“Right.” Anaya closes her menu with the authority of someone who made this d
Raven“Come on Cousin. Don’t embarrass me in front of my potential date. It was one incident—”“There were several incidents.”“The bucket thing was an accident.”I look between them. “The bucket thing?”Anaya’s eyes light up. “Oh, she doesn’t know.”“She doesn’t need to know,” Jack says, pointing
Roman Stepping into the office this morning, I’m reminded of all the problems that has compounded for me. “You actually did it, boss?” Marcus’s voice is low, controlled, but I hear the shock underneath it. He has worked for me long enough to know better than to wear his reactions openly. He isn’t
Raven“Vivienne is home. You will be nice to her.”That was what he called and told me when I was getting into the car.I am going to meet my soon-to-be stepmother. The irony of this whole situation is almost laughable.I am sitting in the back of this black limousine as James drives me to the pent







