Chapter 15: The CEO's Unexpected

BRABRA

Monday morning starts ordinary enough — the same alarm, the same twenty-two stairs, the same careful pace I've learned to move through the world at these past few months.

It stops being ordinary the moment I step out of my building and find a car waiting at the curb that isn't mine, a driver standing beside it holding a small sign with my name written across it in neat, careful handwriting.

"Brabra?" the driver asks, though he clearly already knows the answer.

"I didn't order a car." I glance around, half expecting some explanation to appear out of thin air.

"Mr. Andriy arranged it, ma'am. He asked me to take you to work from now on. Said something about the stairs at your building and the ones at your office both being a lot to manage most days."

My phone buzzes before I can fully process that. A message from Andriy.

Andriy: I know I should have asked first. I just didn't want you standing at a bus stop in the cold with your back the way it's been. If you hate it, tell me, and I'll cancel it today.

I stare at the message, torn between the old instinct to refuse anything that smells like control, and something newer, softer, that recognizes this for exactly what it is — not an attempt to manage me, but an attempt to make one small piece of my day easier.

Me: You should have asked first.

Andriy: You're right. I'm sorry.

Me: But I'm getting in the car.

I climb into the back seat, and the drive to work is smoother, quieter, and considerably more comfortable than the crowded bus I usually take. I don't tell him that. I'm not ready to make this too easy for him yet.

The bigger surprise comes at lunch.

I'm halfway through a sandwich at my desk when my coworker leans over the partition again, eyes wide in a way that tells me something unusual is happening before she even says a word.

"There's a delivery for you at the front desk," she says. "A big one."

I follow her to reception, where a small mountain of boxes waits, neatly stacked, each one labeled with a courier service I don't recognize. The receptionist hands me a slip to sign, glancing between me and the boxes with poorly concealed curiosity.

"What is all this?" I ask, though some part of me already suspects the answer.

Inside the first box, I find a set of prenatal vitamins, the exact brand Dr. Adaora recommended weeks ago that I never got around to ordering because of the cost. The second holds a soft, oversized pillow, the kind meant for supporting a pregnant body through the night. The third, a portable heating pad for the ache in my back that never fully goes away anymore.

My phone buzzes again.

Andriy: I asked your doctor's office what you actually need, since I figured you wouldn't tell me yourself. I hope that's not too much.

I laugh despite myself, a startled, disbelieving sound that draws a curious glance from the receptionist.

Me: You called my doctor's office?

Andriy: I asked politely. She was very professional about it.

Me: This is a lot, Andriy.

Andriy: I know. Tell me if it's too much and I'll dial it back. I just wanted you to have what you needed without having to ask for it.

I sit with that for a long moment, surrounded by boxes I never expected, from a man who apparently spent his weekend quietly gathering information about vitamins and pillows and heating pads instead of doing whatever a CEO usually does on a Sunday.

My coworker peers over my shoulder at the open boxes, eyebrows climbing steadily higher. "Okay. I need details. Who is spoiling you like this?"

"It's complicated," I say, which has become something of a standard answer for most things these days.

"Complicated good, or complicated bad?"

I think about the car waiting outside my building this morning, the message asking permission after the fact, the careful, uncertain way he keeps checking whether he's overstepped instead of assuming he hasn't.

"Complicated good," I say, and I mean it. "I think, for the first time in a while, actually good."

She smiles, satisfied enough not to push further, and helps me carry the boxes back to my desk, both of us pretending not to notice the way my hands are trembling slightly, not from fear this time, but from something closer to disbelief.

Me: It's not too much. It's just... unexpected.

Andriy: Good unexpected, I hope.

Me: Good unexpected.

That evening, he calls instead of texting, his voice warm and a little uncertain in a way I'm still not used to hearing from him.

"I wanted to ask before I did anything else," he says. "I know I overstepped with the car. I don't want to make a habit of surprising you without asking first."

"You could have just asked," I say, though there's no real edge in it anymore.

"Would you have said yes?"

I think about it honestly. "Probably not. I'm still learning how to accept help without feeling like I owe someone something for it."

"You don't owe me anything," he says quietly. "I need you to understand that. Not for the car, not for the vitamins, not for any of it. I'm not keeping score, Brabra."

"I know." I press my hand against my stomach, feeling the familiar flutter, steadier now, more present than it's ever been. "I'm just not used to someone doing things simply because they want to. It's going to take me a while to stop looking for the catch."

"Take all the time you need." A pause, softer than before. "For what it's worth, there isn't one. A catch, I mean. I just want to take care of you. However you'll let me."

I close my eyes, letting the words settle somewhere warm in my chest, still cautious, still careful, but a little less braced than I was even a week ago.

"Goodnight, Andriy," I say eventually.

"Goodnight, Brabra." A pause. "Tell them goodnight from me too."

I glance down at my stomach, smiling despite myself, and press my palm flat against the gentle movement beneath it.

"He says goodnight," I whisper, once the call has ended, once the apartment has gone quiet again. "I think we're going to be okay. I don't know how yet. But I think we might actually be okay."

Outside my window, the city hums on, indifferent as always to the quiet, unexpected kindness that arrived in cardboard boxes today, and the man who sent them, still learning, one small surprise at a time, exactly how to prove that this time, he isn't going anywhere.

ANDRIY

I spent most of Sunday on the phone with a clinic receptionist, a pharmacist, and eventually a very patient customer service representative from a company that sells pregnancy pillows, and I don't think I've ever felt less like myself in my life.

It should have felt strange. Men in my position don't spend their weekends comparing heating pad reviews. My assistant would have handled all of it in twenty minutes if I'd simply asked him to. But some part of me wanted to be the one making the calls, reading the reviews, choosing the exact pillow that seemed like it might actually ease the ache she mentioned once, briefly, like it wasn't worth my concern.

Everything about her feels worth my concern now.

I almost didn't send the car this morning. I sat with my thumb over the message to the driver for longer than I'd ever admit to anyone, half convinced she'd see it exactly the way she saw my first attempts to help — control dressed up as care. But I thought about her climbing those twenty-two stairs every night, her back aching, and I decided I'd rather risk her anger than risk her comfort.

You should have asked first, she told me. She was right. I'm learning that being right and being welcome aren't always the same thing, and that the space between them is where I actually need to be paying attention.

My phone rests on my desk, her last message still glowing on the screen. Good unexpected.

I allow myself a small, unfamiliar smile at that, alone in my office long after everyone else has gone home for the evening.

I don't know exactly what we are yet — not quite together, not quite anything with a name I'm comfortable using out loud. But I know I intend to keep showing up in small, unexpected ways for as long as it takes her to stop bracing for the catch that isn't coming.

One day at a time, I promised her.

Today, I think, was a decent start. Tomorrow, I intend to find another one. And the day after that, another still, for as long as she'll let me keep trying.