Page 67 of Pack Baby for the Silver Foxes

Rain ran down her cheek. She didn’t wipe it away.

“What are you doing in London?” I asked.

Her mouth opened but nothing came out.

She looked past me toward the office, then at the river, then down at the hand still resting low over her stomach. Her fingers curled there, protective before she seemed to realize what she’d done.

The new note in her scent rose again. Soft violet, warmth under rain. My blood went cold.

“Mary?”

“I...” She bit her lip hard enough to blanch it. “I came to tell you something.”

“Okay.”

“And Lincoln.”

“All right.”

“But then I saw your office.”

That wasn’t what I’d expected. “My office frightened you?”

“No.” She frowned. “Yes. Not because of the office. Because of what it means.”

“It means we work there.”

“It means you’re rich.”

“You knew that.”

“I knew you were fancy. Fancy is one thing. Carrara marble on the floor is another.”

“Mary.”

“Don’t say my name like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re about to make sense and ruin my panic.”

I stepped closer by half a pace. “You don’t need to choose anything because of money.”

Her eyes snapped to mine. “I know that.”

“Do you?”

“Yes. Artem gave me enough money to get free of my father. I’m not skint, Hudson. I’m not here because I need a wallet with a jawline.”

Despite everything, a laugh nearly escaped me. I swallowed it because her hands were shaking. “Then why are you here?”

She looked down, not talking. All I could hear was the river, the rain, and the rush of traffic beyond the embankment. Mary drew one breath, then another. When she spoke, the words were barely louder than the weather. “I’m pregnant.”

The city disappeared. Or it simply ceased to matter.

Mary stood in front of me in the rain, pale and shaking, with one hand over her stomach and our scent wrapped around her like a truth she’d carried across an ocean.

My body understood first. It was in the new softness in her scent, the way her hand rested over her middle, the exhaustion, the fear. My mind arrived late and brutal. The baby could be ours.