Page 98 of The Endless Want

My heart thumps once, hard.

“I don’t know what I feel half the time,” he continues. “Not in ways that make sense. I just know I can’t stop thinking about you. And I can’t stop thinking about the child you’re carrying.”

The words hit me like a tide—pulling me under, pulling me forward, pulling me apart.

I grip the back of a chair to steady myself. “You can’t say things like that and expect me to just… what? Smile? Pretend the last few months didn’t happen?”

“I’m not asking you to pretend,” he says. “I’m telling you where I’m standing now. You don’t have to meet me here. You don’t even have to like it.”

“Then what do you expect?”

“Respect,” he says simply. “And to give it back.”

I stare at him, breath trembling. “Declan… I’m not asking you for love. I’m not even asking for trust. I’m asking for safety. For our child. For myself.”

“You have that,” he says, and for once he doesn’t sound volatile or defensive. He sounds certain. “For the first time in months, I know exactly what I can give.”

My chest tightens. “You said you don’t know how you feel.”

“I don’t,” he admits. “But I know what I can’t do. I can’t ignore you. And I can’t pretend this doesn’t matter. Any of it.”

The honesty disarms me more than anger ever could. I reach into my bag, fingers brushing over the folded piece of glossy paper. I take it out slowly and hold it between us.

“Here,” I say softly.

He looks at it like it might burn him. “Is that⁠—?”

“Yes.”

He takes the ultrasound picture with careful hands, like it’s made of glass. His eyes sweep over the grainy shape—the small curve, the little shadow of a spine—and something inside him shifts almost visibly. His breath leaves him in one slow exhale.

“That’s ours,” he whispers. “That’s—” He stops, swallows, tries again. “That’s real.”

“I know.”

He sits down heavily in one of the chairs, still staring at the image. His thumb traces the corner, slow and reverent.

I watch him—this man who terrifies half the city, whose temper could level mountains, who has survived wars and betrayal and bloodshed—and he looks undone by a blurry black-white photograph the size of a postcard.

Something in me softens. Not forgiveness. Not yet. But something that recognizes the truth of him. Something that remembers the man beneath the scars.

“I want to try,” he says, looking up at me.

My eyes sting. “I want that too.”

We stand there for a long moment. No talking. Just breathing the same air for once without bracing for impact.

And then⁠—

He steps closer. I don’t move away. The distance folds like paper.

“Tell me to stop,” he murmurs. “If you don’t want this. Tell me to walk out and I will.”

I swallow. “I don’t want you to stop.”

His hand touches my waist, tentative, warm, spreading over the curve of my growing belly as if asking for permission. I nod, just barely. He exhales shakily.

I rest my hand over his. “Just… don’t break me again.”