Two weeks crawl past in fragile equilibrium.
Weston and I orbit each other carefully—not avoiding, not connecting, just existing in the same space with too much unsaid between us. We pass the salt at dinner without touching. Work opposite ends of the pasture.
We've stopped speaking directly. Started communicating through the house instead.
He leaves the good coffee out for me—the expensive kind he usually hides. I leave his favorite mug clean and waiting. He fixes the squeaky step I complained about once, weeks ago. I mend the shirt he tore on the fence, leave it folded on his bed without a note.
We take care of each other in silence. Small gestures neither of us acknowledges. A conversation happening in objects and actions because words are too dangerous.
Theron watches this strange dance with raised eyebrows but says nothing. Smart man.
The ranch settles into routine, and I almost convince myself this strange limbo could last forever.
But my body has other plans.
The pregnancy is progressing whether I'm ready or not. My jeans don't button anymore—I've resorted to a hair tie looped through the buttonhole, hidden under loose shirts. My breasts strain against borrowed bras that no longer fit. The slight swell of my stomach is barely visible to anyone else, but I know it's there.
I feel it every morning when I wake. Every night when I lie awake calculating how much time I have left before hiding becomes impossible.
I start changing my wardrobe. The knotted shirts that showed my midriff—the ones Theron used to tease me about—get shoved to the back of the drawer. Loose flannels become my uniform. I steal one of Weston's oversized work jackets from the mudroom and wear it constantly, drowning in denim and secrets.
"Aren't you hot?" Theron asks one afternoon, eyeing the jacket. It's eighty degrees and climbing.
"I run cold."
"Since when?"
"Since now."
He doesn't push. But his eyes linger on me a beat too long.
Theron starts to notice again. Of course he does—Theron notices everything.
I catch him watching me at breakfast, honey eyes tracking from my face to my midsection and back again. His brow furrows. When I reach for orange juice instead of coffee for the tenth day in a row, the furrow deepens.
When I push away my eggs, looking vaguely green, something clicks behind his eyes.
I see the moment he starts adding it up. The fatigue. The food aversions. The baggy clothes. The way I've been moving differently, more carefully, like I'm protecting something.
He's too smart. Too observant. Too damn good at reading people.
He came directly to my room after morning chores, blocking my path with his body. Not aggressive—just present. Unavoidable.
"Can we talk?"
My heart hammers against my ribs. "About what?"
"About the fact that you've been wearing my brother's jacket for a week straight even though it's hotter than Satan's armpit outside." He crosses his arms. "About the coffee you suddenly can't stand. About—"
He gestures vaguely at my midsection. The motion is awkward, uncomfortable, like he doesn't want to be having this conversation any more than I do.
"About whatever's going on."
"Nothing's going on."
"Raven." His voice softens into something almost tender. "I'm not going to judge you. I just need to know if—"
He stops. Swallows hard. I watch his Adam's apple bob, watch him work up the courage to ask the question we both know is coming.
"Are you—"
The crunch of gravel cuts him off.
Both our heads snap toward the driveway. A sleek black sedan is rolling up the dirt road—expensive, polished, grotesquely out of place against the weathered ranch backdrop. Chrome catches sunlight. Tinted windows hide the occupant.
But I know.
Even before the door opens, I know.
My blood turns to ice. The summer heat disappears, replaced by a cold that starts in my chest and radiates outward until my fingers go numb.
No. No, no, no.
Not now. Not when I'm barely holding myself together. Not when Theron was seconds away from uncovering the secret I've been drowning in for weeks.
The driver's door swings open.
Jonathan Lockwood steps out, brushing invisible dust from his designer suit like the very air of this place has contaminated him. His silver hair gleams in the sunlight, perfectly styled. His shoes probably cost more than everything in this barn combined.
His smile is the same one he wears for cameras—warm, practiced, utterly fake. I've seen that smile my whole life. Watched him deploy it at galas and premieres and business dinners. It never reaches his eyes. Never means anything except "I'm about to get what I want."
He scans the ranch with barely concealed disdain. The weathered buildings. The scattered chickens. The dirt and hay and honest work of a place that doesn't exist for show.
Then his eyes land on me.
"Hello, sweetheart."
His voice carries across the yard, smooth and sharp as a blade. The same voice that announced my engagement without asking. The same voice that dismissed my dreams as childish. The same voice I've been running from since I flagged down a stranger's car and escaped into the night.
"Did you really think you could hide forever?"
I can't move. Can't breathe. Every muscle locks into place, old programming kicking in. Stand up straight. Smile. Don't make a scene. Be the good daughter, the perfect puppet, the girl who does what she's told.
He walks toward me with the casual confidence of a man who always gets what he wants. Every step is deliberate. Every inch of space he covers feels like a noose tightening around my throat.
Theron moves.
I don't realize it until he's standing slightly in front of me, his body angled between mine and my father's. Not aggressive—Theron is never aggressive—but protective. A barrier. A statement.
"Who the hell are you?"
His voice has an edge I've never heard before. Gone is the charming joker, the deflecting comedian. This Theron is something else entirely.
Jonathan's smile doesn't waver. If anything, it sharpens.
"I'm her father." His eyes flick over Theron with dismissive assessment—taking in the worn jeans, the dusty boots, the calloused hands of a working man. Finding him wanting. "And I'm here to take her home."
Home.
The word lands like a slap.
As if that mansion was ever home. As if the gilded cage he built around my life was anything but a prison with prettier bars.
"She's not going anywhere." Theron's voice is steady. Certain.
Jonathan laughs. The sound is warm, indulgent, terrifying. "And who exactly are you to make that decision? The hired help?"
"I'm someone who gives a damn about what she wants. Which is more than I can say for you."
Something dangerous flickers in my father's eyes. The mask slipping, just for a moment, revealing the cold calculation beneath.
"Raven." He says my name like a command. "We need to talk. Privately."
I should speak. Should tell him to leave, to go back to his world of deals and manipulations and daughters traded like commodities. Should find the voice I've been building these past weeks and use it.
But my tongue has turned to stone. My body won't cooperate. Twenty-one years of conditioning doesn't disappear just because you want it to.
I stand there, frozen, while two worlds collide in front of me.
The ranch—my sanctuary, my escape, my complicated almost-home—suddenly feels fragile. Like it could shatter at any moment under the weight of my father's presence.
He found me. After all these weeks of hiding, of building a new life, of pretending I could outrun my past—he found me.
And beneath Weston's stolen jacket, pressed flat against my stomach, my secret grows bigger by the day.
Two problems. Two impossibilities. And absolutely no way out of either one.