vaguely toward my belly.

Sabrina took a sip and leaned against the archway.

“She does seem tense,” she said.

“Tense?” Ryan repeated.

“She’s become a full-time burden.

Always tired.

Always worried.

Always acting like she’s carrying the world because she made a few spreadsheets and warmed up dinner.”

I felt my pulse in my throat.

“Leave,” I said to Sabrina.

Ryan’s smile vanished.

“You don’t get to tell anyone what to do tonight,” he said.

“Ryan.”

“No, listen to me.

I signed the biggest contract of my career today.

Do you understand what that means? Things are different now.

I’m different now.”

“No,” I said quietly.

“This is just you with less effort hiding it.”

His expression changed so fast it made the room colder.

He crossed the distance between us and shoved me hard enough that my hip struck the arm of the chair by the window.

Pain flashed bright and immediate.

My hands flew to my stomach.

Sabrina stopped smiling for exactly one second.

Then she looked away.

“Ryan,” I said, my voice gone thin, “don’t.”

He grabbed my wrist.

“You think you can talk to me like that after everything I’ve done?” he snapped.

I tried to pull free.

He dragged me toward the carved chair near the window, the one we had bought because he liked how expensive it looked.

There was a basket beside the fireplace filled with throws and decorative cords.

He snatched one of the silk-lined cords, looped it around my wrists, then around my waist, pinning me awkwardly to the chair.

I was not overpowered because he was strong.

I was overpowered because I was protecting the child inside me from every sudden movement.

“Ryan, stop,” I whispered.

He stepped back, breathing hard, and pointed at me as if I were the problem he had finally diagnosed.

“That contract changed everything,” he said.

“I’m in charge now.

You hear me? In charge.

And you? You’re just weight.

Expense.

Obligation.”

Sabrina’s face had gone pale, but she still did nothing.

Ryan laughed again, softer this time, uglier.

“You know what the best part is? Richard Halstead himself signed off on it.

The man has standards.

The man recognizes value.

That’s how far I’ve come.”

Then, because cruelty makes idiots careless, he added, “Men like me don’t stay tied to women like you forever.”

A sound came from the foyer.

Not loud.

Just the quiet click of a door closing.

Ryan turned, annoyed at first, then confused.

My father was standing inside the house.

He had set a dark wool coat over one arm.

In his other hand was a small wrapped box with silver paper, the kind he always used because my mother once told him colored bows looked desperate.

Behind him stood his head of security, Daniel, broad-shouldered and watchful, and our family attorney, Mara Kline, who had apparently come from the same board dinner and now looked as if she were deciding how many lives would be ruined before midnight.

Ryan’s face emptied.

I had seen men afraid before.

I had never seen ambition itself seem to leave a body.

“M-Mr.

Halstead,” he said.

My father looked first at me.

He took in the cord around my wrists.

The redness along my skin.

My breathing.

The way I was bracing around