Page 41 of Secret Baby Daddy

I almost smile, something rare enough that I feel it happen rather than choose it.

“That’s precisely why it registered.”

Outside, the wind has finally settled, and the fire has burned down to something low and steady, and I understand that the woman across from me and the woman I’ve spent a year arguing with in conference rooms might not be two different people wearing the same face.

They might simply be the same person, choosing, moment by moment, exactly how much of herself the room is allowed to see.

I am beginning to suspect I’ve been making the same choice for far longer than I’ve been willing to admit.

11

PIPER

Nothing tests a working truce quite like an automated door deciding you’ve both been marked for your own protection.

I have spent three days treating this suite like a temporary inconvenience instead of somewhere I actually have to live, and Calder has spent those same three days treating it like a tactical problem waiting to betray him.

Between us, we’ve checked every lock, argued over every exit, and carefully ignored the fact that whatever line used to separate professional proximity from something else has gotten harder to find.

The fire throws long shadows across the walls.

Calder checks the security panel again, because of course he does, and I catch myself watching him instead of pretending to read the document open on my lap.

Somewhere in those three days, looking at him has stopped feeling entirely professional.

The power fails at 11:40, a hard cut with no warning, the fire the only light left in the suite for a second before Calder is already moving, flashlight in hand, checking the panel with the same brisk efficiency he brings to everything.

“Grid’s down across the whole property,” he says. “Backup generator should have kicked in by now.”

“Should have.”

“Hasn’t.”

He taps the panel again, and a small red light blinks steadily where a green one should be.

“The suite’s on an independent fail-safe. When main power drops without generator backup confirming online, the system assumes a coordinated outage and seals the internal door until it verifies the threat isn’t active.”

“For how long?”

“Until Hayes gets eyes on the generator and manually overrides it, or until morning, whichever comes first.”

He says it evenly, but I catch the muscle working in his jaw.

“I’m sorry. I should have flagged the single point of failure on that system days ago.”

“You can’t account for every boiler and every generator on a hundred-year-old estate, Calder. Even you.”

“I can try.”

“That’s not the same as succeeding, and you know it.”

I say it gently, which surprises us both.

We spend twenty minutes confirming there’s truly nothing to be done, Hayes on the radio, apologetic and useless from the far side of a door that won’t budge until its own logic decides we’re safe, and then there are simply the two of us, one fire, one bed, and an entire night ahead with nowhere else in the suite to put either of our bodies.

There is a version of tonight where I let Calder take the floor and we both spend eight miserable hours pretending the arrangement is purely about professional distance.

A week ago, I probably would have chosen it on principle.