Chapter 8: The Hand Over Her Stomach

BRABRA

The pain hits me in the middle of the hallway, without warning, sharper than anything I've felt in days.

I'm carrying a stack of folders back to my desk when it grips me low in the stomach, hot and sudden, and my knees buckle before I can stop them. I reach for the wall, folders sliding out of my arms, papers scattering across the floor in a mess I don't have the strength to care about right now.

"Brabra!"

I don't have to look up to know whose voice that is. I'd know it anywhere now, low and urgent, closer than it has any right to be so quickly.

His hands find my shoulders before I fully register him crossing the hallway, steadying me before my legs give out completely.

"I've got you," he says, and there's nothing controlled about his voice now, nothing careful. Just raw, immediate concern. "Don't move. Just breathe."

I press one hand flat against my stomach on instinct, the same gesture I've been hiding from him for weeks, except this time I don't have the strength left to hide it. Pain rolls through me in a wave that steals my breath entirely, and I grip the front of his shirt with my free hand just to stay upright.

"Talk to me," he says, crouching slightly to stay at my eye level, one arm firm around my back. "What hurts? Is it your stomach?"

I can't answer right away. I focus on breathing, in through the nose, out through the mouth, my mother's old trick failing me completely for the first time in weeks.

"Brabra." His voice sharpens with something close to fear now. "Look at me. What's wrong?"

The pain finally starts to ease, slow and reluctant, leaving me shaking in the circle of his arm. I become aware, all at once, of exactly how close we're standing, his hand splayed protectively against my back, my palm still pressed to my stomach, still trapped beneath his worried gaze.

He looks down.

At my hand.

At the exact spot where it rests.

Something shifts behind his eyes — understanding arriving in slow, careful pieces, the way a picture comes into focus when you finally step back far enough to see the whole of it.

"Brabra," he says again, quieter this time, almost unsteady. "Your hand."

I snatch it away like it's been burned, but the damage is already done. I can see it settling into his expression, the pieces clicking together one by one behind those sharp, calculating eyes I've spent weeks trying to avoid.

"It's nothing," I say, my voice trembling despite every effort to steady it. "Just cramps. I need to sit down."

"That wasn't cramps." He doesn't let go of me, doesn't step back, though I can feel him working to keep his voice level, controlled, the way it always is. "I've watched you do that same thing for weeks now. Every time you think no one's looking."

"Andriy."

"How far along are you?"

The question lands like a physical blow, direct and unavoidable, and for one terrifying second I consider lying again, reaching for one more careful excuse to keep the wall standing between us.

I don't have anything left to build it with.

My eyes fill before I can stop them, and I hate how quickly the tears come, how little control I have left over any part of this moment.

"Please," I whisper. "Not here. Not like this."

Something in his face softens, just slightly, enough that I almost don't recognize him. "Okay." He straightens, keeping one hand firm at my elbow, steadying me without crowding me. "Not here. Can you walk?"

I nod, though I'm not entirely sure it's true.

He guides me toward the small meeting room at the end of the hall, the same one from our first real conversation weeks ago, and closes the door behind us with a quiet click that feels louder than it should.

I sink into a chair, both hands pressed to my stomach now, no longer bothering to hide the gesture. What would be the point, now that he's already seen it, already understood exactly what it means?

He doesn't sit across from me this time. He crouches in front of my chair instead, bringing himself level with me, his eyes searching my face with an intensity that makes it hard to breathe for reasons that have nothing to do with pain.

"Brabra." His voice is careful now, deliberately gentle, like he's approaching something fragile enough to shatter if he moves too fast. "Are you pregnant?"

The word hangs in the small room between us, and for one terrifying second I actually consider telling him the truth. My mouth opens. Nothing comes out.

"Brabra." He says my name again, softer this time, his hand hovering near mine on the arm of the chair without quite touching it, like he's asking permission he already knows I'm too afraid to give. "You can tell me. Whatever it is."

I press my hand harder against my stomach, and the movement alone seems to answer a question I haven't found the courage to answer out loud.

"It's not what you think," I say, the lie shaking loose from me before I can stop it, before I can even decide if it's really a lie or just the last wall I have left standing.

His eyes narrow slightly, not with anger, but with something closer to disbelief. "Your hand hasn't left your stomach since I found you in that hallway. You went pale the second I asked. That's not nothing, Brabra."

"It's a stomach issue," I say, hating myself for every word. "Stress. It's been a hard few weeks."

"Look at me and tell me that's the truth."

I can't. I know I can't, and I think he already knows it too, because the silence that follows stretches long enough to become its own kind of confession.

A sharp knock lands against the door before either of us can say anything else.

"Sorry to interrupt—" My coworker pokes her head in, eyes flicking between us with poorly hidden curiosity. "Brabra, there's a call for you. They said it's urgent."

I've never been so grateful for an interruption in my life.

"I have to take this," I say, already on my feet, my legs steadier than they have any right to be given how hard my heart is pounding.

"Brabra." Andriy rises too, blocking the door just enough that I have to stop and face him one more time. "This conversation isn't over."

"It has to be. For now." My voice comes out quieter than I mean it to, but firmer too, some last reserve of strength I didn't know I still had. "Please. Just — not today."

He studies me a moment longer, jaw tight, eyes still searching, and then, slowly, he steps aside and lets me pass.

I don't look back until I've reached the safety of my own desk, and even then, only long enough to see him still standing in the meeting room doorway, watching me go with an expression I can't read and don't have the strength left to try.

My hands are shaking so badly I can barely hold the phone when I finally pick it up, though the call, as it turns out, is nothing more urgent than a vendor confirming a delivery date.

I sit there afterward, both hands pressed flat against my stomach, and let myself breathe for the first time in what feels like an hour.

"He knows," I whisper, so quietly even I can barely hear it. "Or he's close enough to knowing that it doesn't matter anymore."

I don't know how much longer I can keep this hidden behind half-truths and urgent phone calls that arrive exactly when I need them to. But today, at least, I bought myself a little more time.

I just don't know yet whether that's a mercy, or only a delay of something I can't outrun forever.

ANDRIY

I stand in that empty meeting room long after she's gone, staring at the chair she left behind like it might still hold some answer she wasn't ready to give me.

It's not what you think.

I've heard enough lies in boardrooms to recognize one instantly, dressed up in careful, practiced words meant to close a door before it opens too far. She's good at it, better than most people I deal with. But not good enough to hide the way her hand shook when she said it, or the way her eyes wouldn't quite hold mine.

I press my palm against the back of the chair, thinking of the way she gripped my shirt in that hallway, the way her whole body curled protectively around something she wouldn't name.

I've built a life on reading people before they finish speaking. I don't get this wrong often.

I don't think I'm getting it wrong now.

My phone buzzes in my pocket. I ignore it, the way I ignored the Hensley contract an hour ago, the way I've apparently started ignoring most things that used to matter more to me than they do this week.

Twins. Not one, but two.

I haven't let myself say the word out loud yet, not even alone in an empty room, but it sits there anyway, undeniable, waiting for her to finally stop running long enough to confirm it.

I straighten my jacket and walk back toward my office, already turning over the question of how much longer I'm willing to wait before I stop asking gently and start insisting on the truth.

Not much longer, I think.

I've never been a patient man. I don't intend to start learning now.