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She sits up as her head snaps around toward the monitors.

“He’s okay.”

My voice rises above the various beeps and ticks of the machines. But her shoulders bunch up until she sees the steady pulse for herself. Slowly, she sinks back into the pillows. Her eyes shift to the window. The room overlooks Central Park, the flourishing greenery a stark contrast to the skyscrapers and buildings that ring the perimeter.

“Any more updates?”

Her voice is huskier than it was last night, her tone firm but with a trace of worry beneath the bravado.

I debate for all of two seconds if I should wait for the doctor. No. Alessandra and I need to be able to have hard conversations, just the two of us. She’s not going to like what the doctor has recommended after she’s discharged. But to me, it’s not a recommendation. It’s common sense that will keep her and the baby safe.

“All the tests have come back normal. He wants to keep you for another twenty-four hours for observation.”

She’s still, almost unnaturally so, as she watches me. Then, at last, she nods. “What are you not telling me?”

Admiration flickers through me. Smart woman. It’s easy to picture her as a lawyer, someone who observes and evaluates. I still want answers. And I need to broach the subject of the will and the bequest for my mother. Once she’s feeling better, she will be a valuable resource.

“The doctor recommended you have someone stay with you for at least a week.”

The obvious solution hangs in the air between us. I know it. Judging by the instant hardening of her face, she knows it, too. She lives alone and, as of three months ago, wasn’t dating anyone. Aside from the occasional happy hour with her coworkers at Kingston, she rarely socializes. All details included in the lengthy investigative report one of my employees conducted following Lucifer’s will reading three months ago.

“If the doctor recommends it, I’ll make it work.”

I cock my head to one side. “You’re staying with me.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“I’ll stay with someone else.”

Jealousy flares in my chest. Did she start to date someone before she found out she was pregnant? I loathe my reaction asmuch as I do this faceless, nameless person she would prefer to stay with.

“Who did you have in mind?”

She folds her hands primly in her lap. “None of your concern.”

I hold up the paternity results. “This paper says otherwise. It’s not just about you, Alessandra. It’s making sure the baby is healthy, too.”

The sudden sadness in her eyes throws me for a loop. She shakes her head.

“So that’s it, then. Now that you know I’m not lying, at least about you being the father,” she adds with a snarky glance in my direction, “you think you suddenly have a say in my life.”

“I want you both to be safe.” She blinks as if that surprises her. And, I acknowledge with reluctance, it’s understandable given how our interactions have gone the last two months. “My penthouse is secure. I’ll be there most of the time, but all rooms are wired with state-of-the-art cameras and alarms that can alert first responders if I’m not and you have an episode like you did last night. You don’t have someone that can offer you that kind of reliability and stability as you heal.”

She looks down at her hands. Her fingers are threaded together so tightly her knuckles are white.

“No,” she finally whispers, her voice hoarse with grief. “I don’t have someone like that in my life. Not anymore.”

I force myself to stay seated even as my mind goes back to that night. We lay side by side, harsh breaths mingling as we recovered from our second bout of mind-blowing sex. She had been lying on her stomach, her back bare. Need guided my hand to her body, my fingers drifting over her heated skin with a light tenderness I’d never felt for anyone. Every time I touched the rises and falls of her body, the curve of her spine, the swell of her hips, it felt like leaving traces of me embedded in her skin.

I’d looked up at her then, seen the glint of tears in her eyes. I’d moved to her, pulled her close in the dead of night, cradled her as she’d cried. Her tears had flown hot against my neck as she’d leaned into me and taken every bit of comfort I’d offered. Even as she’d grieved, I’d been floored by her acceptance, her trust.

As her tears had dried, she’d told me about her mother. The woman who had raised her alone, fighting against odds to give her a shot at a successful life. For the first time in my life, I had shared, too. Felt seen by someone who had lived an almost identical experience to mine.

We’d gotten out of bed after that, donning robes to sip champagne on the terrace as our conversation shifted to more mundane topics like our favorite places to travel. But those revelations had forged a connection. One I had felt as I’d knelt before her on the balcony, undoing the belt of her robe and spreading her legs before I’d feasted on her in the moonlight. Then, with the taste of her on my tongue and her body warm and pliant in my arms, I’d carried her back into my room and made love to her again.

I remember the sex, yes. But I remember that moment, too, when something more than simple lust bonded us. Remember her grief as I see it etched on her face now, her loss juxtaposed by the steady beep-beep of the heart monitor. New life growing even as she mourns someone who won’t be around to see it.