POV Kitty
Brianna leaned over the hospital crib, squinting at the tiny human inside like she was inspecting a suspicious avocado at the grocery store.
"Why is she so... shrunken?"
"Because some weird woman is hovering over her, trying to examine her tonsils." I shifted in my hospital bed, exhausted to my bones but already fiercely protective. "Don't call my daughter shrunken."
"I'm kidding! She's wonderful. Wrinkly, but wonderful." Brianna straightened, her expression softening into something almost maternal. "Like a very expensive raisin. A designer raisin. The Gucci of raisins."
"I will throw this pudding cup at your head."
"Violence already? Motherhood is changing you."
She perched on the edge of my bed, careful not to jostle anything important.
"Seriously though—have you thought of a name yet? You can't just call her 'the baby' forever. Well, you could, but it'd be weird at her college graduation."
"Damon and I haven't discussed it."
Brianna's eyebrows shot toward the ceiling. "You're planning to coordinate with Damon? Like actual co-parents?"
She snorted. "Does that man even have the brainpower to suggest something that isn't 'Porsche' or 'Hennessy'?"
"Clearly more brainpower than you."
Damon materialized in the doorway, looking unfairly put-together for someone who'd witnessed childbirth less than twelve hours ago.
He shuffled toward my bedside carrying the chocolate milk I'd been demanding between contractions like it was the Holy Grail.
"And I've already thought of names, actually." He handed me the milk with something almost resembling tenderness. "Audrey. Charlotte. Vivienne. Isabelle."
I blinked at him, chocolate milk halfway to my lips.
The names were... actually good. Not ridiculous, not mocking, not the kind of thing a man who named his car "Sheila" would suggest. Real names. Pretty names. Names that suggested he'd actually thought about this.
But something else surfaced in my mind. Something that had been brewing since I'd first felt our daughter kick.
"What about Eleanor?" I watched his face carefully, tracking every microexpression. "How would you feel about that?"
Damon went completely still.
Of course he recognized his mother's name. The woman who'd died when he was seventeen, whose loss had hollowed him out and rebuilt him into something defensive and sharp.
The mother Victoria had tried so desperately to replace.
His mask crumbled completely—vulnerability flooding his features, grief and hope tangled together in an expression that made my chest lurch. He turned to look at our daughter, voice barely a whisper.
"Eleanor." He tested the name like something precious, something that might shatter if handled wrong. "It suits her."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." He swallowed hard. "It really does."
Brianna, demonstrating a rare moment of emotional intelligence, cleared her throat loudly.
"I'm going to... find coffee. Or a bathroom. Or literally anywhere else on this planet." She squeezed my shoulder and disappeared through the door like the building was on fire.
Subtle as always.
Damon settled on the edge of my bed, the mattress dipping under his weight. He was quiet for a long moment—unusual for a man who typically filled silence with sarcasm the way normal people filled it with breath.
"I'm sorry." The words came out rough, scraped raw. "For not being there when it started. For being unreachable. For all of it."
He exhaled like he'd been holding it for hours. "You were going through something terrifying, and I was too busy being a coward to show up."
I should have made him grovel more. Should have held onto my anger, weaponized my disappointment, made him work for forgiveness.
Instead, I reached out and took his hand.
We both looked surprised by it.
"We're fine," I said quietly. "Eleanor is fine. That's what matters."
"That's very mature of you."
"Don't get used to it. I'm still planning your murder. I've just postponed the timeline."
Something shifted between us—a wall crumbling, a door cracking open.
We looked at each other, really looked, and for the first time since that bathroom at the party, I didn't see a complication or a mistake or a contractual obligation.
I just saw him.
Damon leaned in and kissed me.
Soft. Gentle. Nothing like our previous encounters—no desperation, no competition, no attempt to prove anything. Just a kiss that felt like a question and an answer all at once.
When he pulled back, his forehead rested against mine.
"Thank you," he whispered. "For the daughter I never thought I needed one. For Eleanor."
"Thank you for getting me pregnant." I winced immediately. "That sounded less weird in my head."
Damon laughed—open, genuine, devastating.
His smile transformed his entire face, making him look younger, softer, like the person he might have been before grief and his father and a lifetime of disappointment built those walls so high.
I caught his smile like a virus. Couldn't help it.
He leaned in again, and I was already tilting my face up to meet him, when the door opened.
Christopher walked in. Froze.
He took in the scene with the practiced composure of a man who'd learned to hide his reactions before he'd learned to walk: Kitty and Damon inches apart, hands intertwined, caught in a moment that was clearly not meant for witnesses.
Something shuttered behind his gray eyes. A door slamming closed so fast I almost heard the lock click.
"Chris…" I started.
But before anyone could speak, Arnold swept past his eldest son like Christopher was furniture, striding toward the crib with cold purpose.
His footsteps echoed on the hospital floor—sharp, deliberate, the walk of a man who expected the world to rearrange itself around his schedule.
He peered down at Eleanor with zero grandfatherly warmth. Stared. And stared.
The silence stretched painfully.
Finally: "A girl."
Not a question. An assessment. Clinical, calculating, like he was evaluating a stock that had underperformed expectations.
My maternal instincts roared to life, drowning out the exhaustion and the pain and the complicated tangle of emotions I'd been navigating.
I sat up despite my body's protests, despite the stitches and the soreness and the fact that I'd pushed a human being out of my body less than a day ago.
"A healthy girl," I said, my voice sharp enough to cut glass. "The child you demanded I bear. And I did."
Arnold nodded slowly, still not looking at me. Still staring at Eleanor like she was a puzzle he hadn't expected to solve.
"Correct." He straightened, adjusted his cuffs, and finally met my eyes with an expression that revealed absolutely nothing. "I wish you a swift recovery."
And then he left.
No acknowledgment of his granddaughter's name. No touch, no warmth, no indication that he'd just witnessed the birth of his first grandchild. He walked out like he was leaving a business meeting that had run over schedule.
The door clicked shut behind him.
Damon, Christopher and I exchanged loaded glances across the hospital room. No words necessary. We all felt it—the temperature drop, the shift in atmosphere, the distinct sensation of standing on ground that was about to give way.
A girl. Not the male heir Arnold wanted.
He was planning something.
And whatever it was, we were about to find out exactly how far Arnold Ashford was willing to go to get what he wanted.