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"It means," Christian says, voice breaking on something that sounds dangerously close to relief, "that if Aria is pregnant, your inheritance has to be reinstated. The trust can't cut you out if doing so severs the next generation from Conrad's line."

Silence.

Aria's breath catches.

"You're protected now," Christian says. "The trust can't touch your share if it has to pass to your child."

For one second, none of it feels real.

Not the pool. Not the villa. Not the woman in front of me with her hand on my chest and my child inside her.

Aria's hand slips into mine.

Christian says something else. Maybe. I'm not hearing it.

Because the only thing I can process is that she chose me before any of this. And I got on a plane before I knew about any of it.

The rest is paperwork.

I bring the phone back to my ear.

"Make it official," I say.

Christian laughs once. Short, stunned, wrecked.

"Already working on it."

I hang up.

Aria looks at me, eyes wide.

"Well?" she asks.

I step into her space, put both hands on her face, and finally let myself smile.

"Ready to go home and fight a trust board?"

Her mouth curves.

"With you?" she says. "Anywhere."

I kiss her again.

Because I've spent the last month pretending I could survive without this, and I am done being that stupid.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

ARIA

I've never been in the boardroom before.

That becomes obvious the second Christian opens the door and I step inside, because my brain immediately goes a little blank in the face of the board trustees.

The room is enormous.

Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Seattle like the city owes this room something. A walnut table long enough to seat a small government. Leather chairs. Abstract art that's probably equivalent to the GDP of a small country.

It smells faintly like coffee, paper, and killing people's hopes and dreams.