Page 73 of His Orders

I try not to cry. Sometimes, I succeed.

It happens as I’m folding laundry on the couch. The television hums in the background with some old rerun I’m not watching. The room smells like cinnamon and fabric softener, like something whole and clean. I reach for a soft onesie I bought weeks ago, pale yellow with little stars across the chest, and something inside me twists hard. I press a hand to my stomach, not expecting anything, not expecting her.

And then she moves.

It’s the lightest thing. A shift. A roll. A nudge from within that isn’t gas or muscle or wishful thinking but her. My baby. The child inside me, alive and kicking.

I sit perfectly still. My palm is flat and trembling over the small swell beneath my sweatshirt, breath locked tight in my lungs. There it is again—a soft thump like a knock from the inside, like she’s letting me know she’s here, that she’s listening, that she’s part of everything now.

Tears fill my eyes, hot and stinging and impossible to hold back. Not because I’m afraid. Not because I’m sad. But because there is something so unspeakably beautiful about feeling her move, feeling this tiny person I’ve grown in silence, press herself into the world for the very first time. It is magic. It is unbearable to keep this to myself. I rise from the couch on shaky legs, wiping the tears from my cheeks, barely registering the softness of the lights around me or the gentle hum of music playing softly from the living room speaker. My feet find the hall without thought, drawn like water to gravity. The house is quiet, the kind of quiet that stretches out like a held breath, but I know where he is.

His office door is open just a crack. Enough for the warm amber glow of his desk lamp to spill into the dark hallway, brushing over the hardwood floor like firelight. I hear the rhythmic click of keys, the low murmur of a file closing, and then silence.

He is inside.

I knock once, softly. The kind of knock that isn’t really a knock, more like a whisper wrapped in skin. The door creaks as I push it open, and he looks up at once, eyes alert, back straight in his chair. His laptop screen reflects faint lines of code and a digital map marked in red, but whatever he’s doing, he slams the lid shut the moment he sees me.

“What is it?” he asks, and his voice is sharp at first—guarded, careful—but it softens when he sees my face.

I can’t find the words. They scatter like petals before a storm, leaving me mute in the doorway with too many emotions swelling at once. He begins to rise, his chair groaning faintly beneath him, but I shake my head, stepping forward until I’m close enough to see the shadows beneath his eyes, the stubblealong his jaw, the tension in his shoulders that never quite leaves anymore.

Then I do the only thing I can. I take his hand.

It is warm and solid, calloused in all the familiar places, and I guide it down slowly, pressing it over the curve of my stomach.

He doesn’t speak. Not at first. His hand just rests there, steady and open, waiting.

For a heartbeat, there is nothing. Just silence. Just the thick, breathless pause of a world suspended.

Then it happens.

A flutter. A small, unmistakable movement, like a knock from the inside. Like a wave hello. His breath catches. His hand goes still.

I watch his face, unable to look away. He stares at his hand like it doesn’t belong to him, like the sensation is something foreign and too sacred to hold. His eyes are wide, not in fear but in awe, and for the first time since I told him the truth, I see it. The wall cracks.

Something shifts behind his expression. Something deep and seismic, as if this—this single, fragile motion beneath his palm—is rewriting every story he’s been telling himself since the day I broke his heart. His thumb brushes gently over the rise of my belly, almost reverently, like he’s afraid to scare her away.

And still, he says nothing, but he doesn’t have to.

His fingers tighten slightly, just the smallest pressure, the gentlest anchor, as if he’s trying to hold this moment in place before it slips through his hands. And maybe that’s why I believeit—why, for the first time since all of this began, I let myself believe that this isn’t the end of us.

29

ETHAN

The halls of St. Vincent’s narrow behind me as I shrug out of my coat and hand off the last of my charts this afternoon, the white noise of monitors and murmured diagnoses receding like a tide. My hands still smell faintly of latex and soap, the imprint of the day etched into my skin with the kind of weight only exhaustion can bring. Normally, this part of my shift brings a rare, fleeting calm. But not today. Not when I’ve been checking my phone between surgeries, not when every shadow feels too familiar, and every silence feels like a trap waiting to spring.

My phone buzzes just as I’m turning toward the elevators, the vibration sharp against the pocket of my scrubs. I don’t even glance at the caller ID. I know it’s her.

“Ivy?” My voice tightens with something I don’t bother disguising. Worry. Fear. The weight of too many what-ifs.

She sounds small. Tearful. “I’m sorry to bother you,” she says quickly, as if she’s already bracing for disappointment. “I just… I thought they stopped, Ethan. I thought maybe he’d finally let it go.”

I press the heel of my hand against my brow and close my eyes. “What did he do?”

There’s a pause. Her breath hitches like she’s fighting to keep herself steady, and I know she’s on the verge of unraveling. “He sent a message. Just now. He waited days, Ethan. Like he was giving me space. But it’s worse this time. He didn’t say much. Just…I know what you’ve been doing.”

That’s all it takes. One line, one display of control from Daniel Holt, and Ivy’s world starts to tilt again. And I’ve had enough. More than enough.

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