Time stops.His hand, on my neck, freezes. His eyes, so penetrating, dilate. One second, two. The silence of a cathedral after a collapse.Then, something breaks in him. Not anger. The exact opposite. A tension of a year, of a predator on the alert, of an anxious possessor, dissolves in an instant. His face, usually so controlled, cracks. His mouth parts. His eyes, of such a cold blue, fill with a light I have never seen in them. A light of an intensity almost painful.— What? he whispers.He did not hear. Or he dares not believe.— I'm pregnant, I repeat, a little louder, the words foreign on my tongue.Then, it happens. A tremor runs through his entire large body. His hand leaves my neck and comes to rest, with incredible delicacy, on my stomach. He places it there, as one places a hand on a sacred relic. His fingers spread, covering the flat surface, already seeking a curve, a warmth, a proof.— A child, he breathes. Our child.His voice is unrecognizable. Hoarse, broken by an emot
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