Chapter 3 - The Photograph in His Hand
Dominic Russo had spent years training himself not to react.
Anger was information.
Fear was information.
Surprise was information.
Men survived in his world by giving away as little as possible.
But when he had picked up the photograph outside Norah’s bedroom the previous night, he had forgotten every rule he had ever learned.
He had recognized the image immediately.
An ultrasound.
A baby.
For nearly a minute he simply stood there.
Then everything about Norah during the previous four months rearranged itself inside his mind.
The nausea.
The exhaustion.
The oversized clothing.
The refusal to drink wine at Lily’s birthday dinner.
The coffee she no longer touched.
The hand drifting unconsciously toward her stomach.
The appointment.
The lie about the tumor.
Dominic had not slept.
Now Norah stood in front of him wearing a pale-blue robe over her nightclothes, one hand gripping the doorframe.
Her face had gone colorless.
“Where did you find that?”
“In the hall.”
“Give it to me.”
Dominic did not move.
“Is this yours?”
Norah stared at him.
“That’s none of your business.”
A strange heat moved through his chest.
“It became my business when you invented cancer to hide it.”
“I said it was benign.”
“That is your defense?”
“Dominic—”
“How far along?”
She looked away.
“Norah.”
Her eyes returned to his.
“Twenty-one weeks.”
The number landed harder than Dominic expected.
He calculated automatically.
Twenty-one weeks.
The safe room had been roughly nineteen weeks ago.
Close enough considering pregnancy dating.
Dominic felt every muscle in his body tighten.
Norah saw the realization.
“Don’t.”
His voice came lower.
“Don’t what?”
“Do whatever you’re about to do.”
“What am I about to do?”
“I don’t know.”
That answer cut deeper than accusation.
Dominic stepped into the room.
Norah immediately stepped backward.
He stopped.
There it was again.
Fear.
Of him.
Dominic lowered the ultrasound.
“Is the baby mine?”
Norah’s eyes filled.
He had expected denial.
Instead she closed them.
That was his answer.
Dominic’s chest tightened.
“Norah.”
“Yes.”
One word.
Barely audible.
“Yes, Dominic.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Dominic looked at the photograph again.
His child.
He had a child growing three floors beneath his bedroom, and he had known nothing.
Norah wrapped both arms around herself.
“You’re angry.”
“I’m trying to understand.”
“That means you’re angry.”
“No.”
She laughed bitterly.
“You don’t have to protect my feelings.”
“I’m angry that you lied.”
“There.”
“But not because you’re pregnant.”
Norah stared at him.
Dominic struggled to find words that belonged to ordinary men.
Words he rarely needed.
“Are you healthy?”
She blinked.
“What?”
“The baby. Are you both healthy?”
“Yes.”
He nodded once.
“Good.”
The answer seemed to confuse her.
Dominic walked toward the window.
He needed distance.
“Were you ever going to tell me?”
Norah did not answer.
He turned.
“Were you?”
“I don’t know.”
Something cold settled in his stomach.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I was trying to survive one day at a time.”
“Survive?”
Norah’s fear shifted into anger.
“Yes, survive.”
“I have never touched you in anger.”
“You don’t have to.”
Dominic frowned.
“Do you have any idea what people say about you?”
“I know what I am.”
“No, you know what you tell yourself you are.”
“Be careful.”
She flinched.
Dominic hated himself instantly.
He softened his voice.
“Norah.”
She turned away.
“You control everyone here. The guards report to you. The drivers report to you. The staff report to you. My phone reports to you.”
“That security exists because people have tried to kill my daughter.”
“And if you decided my baby belonged to you?”
Dominic became still.
Norah looked directly at him now.
“What would stop you?”
He had no immediate answer.
Not because she was right.
Because he understood why she believed she might be.
His silence frightened her more.
“Exactly.”
“No.”
Dominic approached carefully.
“I would never take your child.”
“Our child.”
The correction escaped her before she could stop it.
Dominic’s expression changed.
“Our child,” he repeated.
Norah’s lower lip trembled.
He looked at the ultrasound.
“Boy or girl?”
“I don’t know.”
“You didn’t ask?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because knowing made it feel more dangerous.”
Dominic frowned.
“That makes no sense.”
“It makes perfect sense if you’re the person carrying the baby.”
He accepted the rebuke.
Norah sat slowly on the edge of the bed.
For the first time, Dominic noticed how tired she truly looked.
Not pale.
Not sick.
Exhausted.
“You’re five months pregnant and still carrying Lily upstairs?”
“She weighs thirty pounds.”
“That wasn’t the point.”
“I’m pregnant, not made of glass.”
“You’ve been doing laundry.”
“It’s my job.”
“Not anymore.”
Her head snapped upward.
“No.”
“No what?”
“You are not firing me.”
“I didn’t say I was.”
“You said my job isn’t my job anymore.”
“I said you’re not hauling baskets around the house.”
“I can work.”
“I know.”
“I need to work.”
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t.”
Dominic’s patience frayed.
“Then explain it.”
Norah stood.
“If I stop working and become the woman carrying Dominic Russo’s baby, everything changes.”
“It already changed.”
“For you maybe.”
“For both of us.”
“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”
Dominic said nothing.
Norah crossed the room.
“Lily needs me to be Norah.”
“You are Norah.”
“Not if everyone starts watching me like I’m carrying some royal heir.”
Dominic almost smiled at the phrasing.
He did not.
“You are carrying my child.”
“And there it is.”
“What?”
“Ownership.”
Dominic stared at her.
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“But everyone else will.”
She was right.
That irritated him because he hated how easily she could see the consequences of his name.
Dominic placed the ultrasound on her dresser.
“I won’t tell anyone.”
Norah looked genuinely shocked.
“You won’t?”
“No.”
“What about your doctor?”
“You keep yours.”
“What about security?”
“They don’t need to know.”
“What about Lily?”
Dominic hesitated.
“Eventually.”
Norah nodded slowly.
The tension in her shoulders eased by a fraction.
Then Dominic asked the question that had bothered him all night.
“Were you planning to run?”
Norah looked toward the floor.
His answer came again through silence.
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“With my child?”
She looked up sharply.
“Our child.”
Dominic clenched his jaw.
“Were you going to disappear?”
“If I had to.”
“You would take the baby and vanish?”
“If I thought you were going to take the baby from me, yes.”
Dominic turned away before he said something he would regret.
Outside the bedroom, a floorboard creaked.
Norah noticed it too.
Both looked toward the door.
Dominic opened it immediately.
The hallway was empty.
Almost.
At the far end, a shadow disappeared around the corner.
Dominic’s expression changed.
Norah saw it happen.
The father vanished.
The Don returned.
“Stay here.”
“What happened?”
“Someone was listening.”
Her blood chilled.
“Who?”
Dominic stepped into the hallway.
“I’m going to find out.”
He walked away.
Norah closed the door and locked it.
Her hands shook.
The secret was out.
Perhaps not to the entire mansion.
Not yet.
But someone besides Dominic might now know.
And Norah understood something terrifying.
The baby was no longer simply a secret she needed to hide from Dominic.
If the wrong person had overheard them, the baby could become leverage against him.
Against Lily.
Against her.
Down the hallway, Dominic entered the security office and told his head of security to pull every camera recording from the eastern wing.
Twenty minutes later, Dominic stared at the monitor.
A figure had indeed been outside Norah’s room.
A man wearing the uniform of his own security team.
The problem was that Dominic recognized every member of the team.
He did not recognize this one.
And that meant someone had entered his home wearing one of his uniforms.
Someone who had just heard that Norah Hayes was pregnant with Dominic Russo’s child.
The secret had lasted five months.
May you like
Now Dominic feared it might not survive the next twenty-four hours.
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