LOGINBella pov We officially merged all our businesses a few days after we got back, on a Thursday, in a conference room full of lawyers and paperwork. Caleb signed everything without reading it because I'd already reviewed it all. Black Enterprises and Hart Worldwide folded together in an equal partnership. Our lawyers called it unusually clean and refreshingly non-adversarial.We'd worked out the details on the island, at the kitchen table one afternoon. Neither of us found drafting business agreements during our honeymoon strange.The media called us a power couple headline after headline. Photos showed us at the press conference, standing together exactly as we were.At breakfast the next morning, Caleb scrolled through the coverage on his phone."Power couple," he said."I saw.""They've used that phrase fourteen times.""I counted eleven."He set the phone down. "How do you feel about being half of a power couple?""I was a power on my own for years. Adding you has complicated my b
Bella POVThe penthouse smelled like Tom's shampoo and someone had been baking, which meant Maya had been here, and I stood in the entry hall for a moment with my bag at my feet and just breathed it in.Two weeks ago, it had been two weeks of sea air, constant sex, and endless talking. In that short time, I got to know more about Caleb than I had in our entire previous life together.The moment we stepped back into the apartment, the familiar smell of home hit me. It felt real—equally worth wanting.Caleb came in behind me, set the bags down, and went still. “Maya,” he said."Has to be," I said.Tom came running from the kitchen and launched himself at me. I caught him as his arms wrapped around my neck and legs around my waist."You were gone forever," he said into my shoulder."Fourteen days," I said."That's forever.""Did you miss me?"He pulled back, grey eyes solemn like his father's. "Every day. Maya let me have ice cream twice. I told her you wouldn't mind.""Did she say I wou
Bella POVI did the math properly on day eleven. Dates, cycle, symptoms, timeline. I sat on the edge of the bath at six in the morning while Caleb slept, and I did it clearly and completely and looked at the answer without flinching.The answer was not seafood. The answer was not travel or different water or wedding planning or the body adjusting to anything.I sat there for a while with it.The nausea had been there every morning for weeks. The way certain smells started to irritate me. The tiredness that arrived in the afternoons which was so unusual, which I had been attributing to sun and swimming and the general physical activities of a honeymoon. The way I'd cried in the shower days ago for no reason I could name, which was not something I did, which was not something my body did, not without cause.There was a cause. I pressed both hands flat on my knees and looked at the bathroom wall and let the full weight of it dawn on me.I was not going to buy a test today. There was one
Caleb POVI noticed the wine first. Bella would pick up her glass, hold it, set it back down. Sometimes she'd take a sip and sometimes she wouldn't, but either way the glass ended the evening mostly full. She ordered sparkling water at dinner which was so unlike her.The mornings were the other thing. She was always up before me, which wasn't unusual — Bella had always woken early, it was one of her factory settings. But she was quieter in that first hour than she'd been even two weeks ago, moving through the kitchen in a drowsy manner.On day five I asked if she was sleeping well."Fine," she'd saidI knew better than to push. Bella came to things when she was ready and not a moment before, and pushing her toward something she hadn't yet decided to look at directly was the fastest way to make her put a wall up. So I watched and waited.Day seven started the way most days had started — me waking to an empty space beside me, following the smell of tea to the terrace, finding Bella alre
Bella pov A few hours later we were in the kitchen because Ruth had stocked the kitchen and neither of us had any particular reason to go anywhere and cooking had become one of the small domestic things we'd discovered we were good at together.I was doing something with tomatoes when he came up behind me and slid both arms around my waist and pressed his mouth to my neck, warm and deliberate.I tipped my head and felt the familiar pull of it and then said, “Caleb.”“Mm.”“We just had sex.”Four hours ago,” he said, against my neck.“That’s recent.”“It’s really not.”“I’m cooking.”“The tomatoes can wait,” he said, and I could feel him smiling against my skin.“Let me finish this,” I said, “and then we can discuss your timeline.”He pressed one more kiss below my ear — and stepped back. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll open the wine.”He set a glass beside me and I looked at it and felt my stomach do the small quiet thing due to the smell of the wine, I picked it up and took a sip and put it
Bella POVI woke up at six and lay still for a moment, waiting. The nausea arrived on schedule low and unhelpful, sitting somewhere between my stomach and my throat, the same way it had arrived every morning for the past few weeks. I breathed through it the way I'd been breathing through it, and after a few minutes it retreated enough to be manageable.Caleb was still asleep, one arm across my waist, his breathing slow and even. I looked at his face in the early light — the particular quiet of him asleep, and felt the warmth of the morning and decided that nausea was not going to be the thing I focused on today.I got up carefully and went to make tea.By nine we were on the beach.It was the kind of morning that felt designed — water so clear you could see the bottom twenty feet out, the heat already building but not yet unreasonable, the beach entirely ours in every direction. Caleb had brought the good towels and a bag with water and fruit and a book he hadn't opened in days becau
Bella pov The song was ending, our dance almost over, and I knew I should step away. But his arms were strong and warm around me, his scent was drowning me, and for just a moment, I let myself imagine what it would be like to give in. To let him kiss me in front of everyone, claim me publicly, mak
Bella pov I turned to find Ethan Pierce, CEO of Pierce Industries and one of the few self-made billionaires in the room. I'd met him a few times at business events, always found him charming and intelligent."Ethan, good to see you." I shook his hand. "You know Caleb Black?""We've met." Ethan's s
Bella pov The board meeting lasted another two hours. In the end, the vote was unanimous—Richard was out as CEO and chairman, and I was in. He'd keep his shares, what few he had left, but he'd have no control, no authority, nothing.As the board members filed out, Richard stayed behind, his face t
Bella POVI made it back to the penthouse in record time, my mind still spinning from what happened in the elevator. The kiss, the confession, the way my body had betrayed me completely.Tom was in the living room with Maya, building what appeared to be a penguin village out of blocks."Mommy!" He







