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Not believing me but not pushing. Yet.

"I'll be late tonight," he said finally.

"Dinner with the Japanese investors."

"I remember." I kept my back to him, selecting a dress from the closet with false deliberation.

"I've got that charity thing with Zoe anyway."

He crossed to me then, one hand settling at my waist, turning me to face him. His palm warm through the thin silk of my robe.

"Savannah," he said, voice dropping to that register that always made my skin tingle, "tell me what's wrong."

For a moment, I almost did. Almost blurted out the truth that was ricocheting inside me with increasing panic. But the words wouldn't come. Couldn't form past the knot of fear in my throat.

"Nothing's wrong," I insisted, rising on tiptoe to press a kiss to his jaw. "Just morning brain fog. Go finish getting ready. You'll be late."

He studied me a moment longer, that penetrating gaze that had seen through my defenses from our very first meeting. Then, unexpectedly, he released me.

"We'll talk tonight," he said, the words carrying the gentle weight of inevitability rather than demand.

After he left, I sat on the edge of the bed and allowed the panic full rein. Memories crashed over me like waves, drowning rational thought beneath their force.

"You were a mistake, Savannah. A beautiful, beloved mistake, but a mistake nonetheless."

My mother's voice, soft with wine and regret during one of her rare moments of candor. I'd been twelve, asking innocent questions about why I had no siblings, why she and my father seemed to live in carefully negotiated détente rather than the passionate marriages my friends' parents demonstrated.

"I wasn't ready. I wasn't prepared. But your father wanted you so desperately, and I... I thought having you would fixsomething broken in me. In us."She'd brushed my hair back, her smile sad, distant."Never have a child to fix yourself, Savannah. It's not fair to either of you."

The memory shifted, blurred, reformed—I was sixteen now, standing in our kitchen after my first heartbreak, sobbing about a boy who'd chosen someone else.

"This is why I warned you about giving your heart away,"my mother had said, pouring herself another glass of chardonnay rather than offering comfort."Men will always disappoint you. The trick is to need them less than they need you."

I pressed my hands against my still-flat stomach, trying to connect with the reality growing inside me.

A child.

Lucas's child.

Created in passion, in connection, in the most intimate surrender I'd ever experienced. But was it wanted? Was it wise? Was I equipped to be the kind of mother I'd never had?

My phone buzzed with a calendar reminder: client meeting in an hour.

No time for existential crises.

No space for the panic that threatened to consume me. I stood, compartmentalizing with the practiced ease of a woman raised by parents who valued composure above emotional honesty.

I showered, dressed, and applied makeup with mechanical precision.

Transformed myself from a terrified woman to a polished professional through the ritual of preparation. By the time I stepped into the Alder West offices, I'd almost convinced myself the morning's discovery was happening to someone else. Almost.

"You look like hell," Zoe declared, materializing in my doorway after my third client call. She closed the door behind her, eyes narrowing with the same assessment Lucas had performed earlier.

"Spill."

"I'm fine." I shuffled papers on my desk, avoiding her gaze.

"Just tired. Didn't sleep well."