POV Norah
The hotel room was too quiet, the kind of quiet that made the news on my phone sound louder than a scream.
“Hospital visit inconclusive,” the headline read. “No immediate danger to pregnancy.”
Below it: grainy photos of Alaina clutching her stomach, mascara streaked, a hand to her forehead as she was wheeled under bright ER lights. Clip after clip. Comment after comment.
Words like “heroic,” “devastated,” “Crawford heir,” “mystery woman,” and “surrogate” flashed up until my eyes burned.
My stomach turned. I put the phone face down and stared at the ceiling. White. Blank. Safe, if I pretended hard enough.
A text buzzed.
Fiona: You okay?
Fiona: PR is everywhere. Hospital says she’s fine.
Fiona: Like I told you—she’s acting.
I typed, erased, typed again.
Me: I’m so tired.
Fiona: Sleep, babe. Lock your door. I’m five minutes away if you need me.
I didn’t answer. I curled on top of the duvet, knees to my chest, dress still on, hair still pinned because I didn’t have the energy to pull it down.
My eyes burned and I blinked until the chandelier in the dining hall stopped replaying on the inside of my eyelids. Until his voice stopped echoing.
She is the woman I love.
Then the slam of doors. The running steps. Alaina’s cry.
A knock hit my door. One, then two, then three—urgent. My heart leaped into my throat.
“Norah?” His voice, muffled through wood. Lower. Rougher. “Please.”
I lay there for a full breath, then two. My hand moved before my head could catch up. I unlatched the chain and opened the door.
Xander filled the hall—tired eyes, jaw shadowed, tie in his pocket, jacket half-buttoned like he’d put it on in a hurry. His hair was damp from the misty night.
He looked like he’d driven straight through his own thoughts.
Xander didn’t wait for permission. He stepped inside, closed the door with his shoulder, and then he was in front of me, too close, too real.
He looked at the bed, at the room service tray I hadn’t touched, at my shoes kicked in different directions like I’d tried to run in place.
“Norah,” he said again, softer.
I didn’t trust my voice. “What do you want?”
He exhaled, almost a shudder. Then he dropped to his knees.
It wasn’t careful. It wasn’t pretty.
He went down like the floor had pulled him there, palms open, head tilted up, pride stripped away.
“I’m not leaving you again,” he said, every word raw. “I don’t care about Alaina, or what my grandmother or family says. You and our baby are everything to me. Let me prove it.”
I stared at him. At the man who had carried another woman into the night.
At the same man who had stood in a room of wolves and called me the woman he loved.
“You left,” I whispered. “You said you wouldn’t… And then you did.”
“Because she screamed it was my child dying,” he said quickly. “Because the room demanded it. Because my grandmother ordered it. Because I forgot, for a second, that I don’t answer to them anymore.” He shook his head hard. “The hospital found nothing wrong. Nothing. I left the moment the doctor said it. I came here.”
“How did you know where I was?”
He swallowed. “Fiona.”
Of course. I made a mental note to murder her with a hug.
He leaned forward, slow, like he didn’t want to scare me. He rested his forehead against mine, careful, asking.
“Please, Norah. Don’t walk away from me. Don’t walk away from us.”
His breath warmed my lips. My heart pounded so hard I felt it in my wrists.
“I can’t keep breaking,” I said. “I can’t…”
“I know.” His voice went smaller. “I know.”
“Alaina will keep pushing.” My hands trembled between us. “Your grandmother will keep poisoning rooms. Every time there’s a scene, you run and… And I’m left behind with the echoes.”
“No more.” He closed his eyes like it hurt him to promise it. “I booked Alaina at a hotel far from the penthouse. I told her she doesn’t come back until she shows a test that proves anything. And if it does—then I will handle the legal part, not the emotional part. She does not get me. Not my time. Not my home.”
“And the press?”
“I’ll burn it down,” he said, without heat, only certainty. “We release a statement in the morning. We say the dinner was a private family event. We say you are my partner and the mother of my child, and we ask for privacy. I’ll put legal on anyone who feeds rumors.”
“Your grandmother will hate that.”
He almost smiled, the kind that isn’t happy at all. “My grandmother already hates what she can’t control. She can hate me louder tomorrow.”
I pulled back just enough to focus on his eyes. They weren’t cold. They were bruised with worry. “And Chris?”
His jaw worked. “I’m not discussing my brother tonight. Not in your hotel room. Not with you shaking.”
“I’m not—” I started, then looked down at my hands.
I was.
He lifted my fingers and kissed my knuckles like they were made of glass.
“Come home,” he said. “Let me take care of you tonight. Eat. Sleep. Tomorrow I’ll meet with legal. Tomorrow I’ll call my mother and set a boundary she won’t like. But tonight… please, let me hold you and prove I’m still here.”
“You said that before.”
“I’m saying it again until it’s true enough that you don’t have to ask for proof.”
I almost laughed. It came out like a cracked sound. “That’s not how proof works.”
“Then tell me what does.” He inched closer, still kneeling, still looking up as if the word “sorry” had bones. “Give me a list. I’ll start tonight.”
“Don’t run,” I said. “Not when it’s hard. Not when they scream. Not when the room wants you to perform for them.”
“Done.”
“Don’t hide me.”
“Never again.”
“Don’t make me find out news from headlines.”
“I’ll put my phone in your hand before anyone else’s,” he said. “Everything that touches me touches you first.”
My throat closed. The room swam a little. I swayed; he steadied me, hands light at my hips, waiting for a ‘yes’. I didn’t give it, but I didn’t push him away.
“Sit,” I said.
He looked confused.
“On the floor,” I added, pointing. “If you’re staying, you’re not towering over me like a judge.”
He sat cross-legged. It should have looked ridiculous—$5,000 suit, hotel carpet, a king-sized bed behind him like a stage. It didn’t.
He looked human. He looked mine.
“Talk,” I said.
He did. He told me every minute from the dining room to the hospital and back. He told me what the doctor said, word for word.
Xander told me about the cameras, the microphones, the way his grandmother’s driver tried to steer him toward the family car, and how he took his own keys instead.
He told me how the nurse took Alaina’s blood pressure and rolled her eyes because it was normal. He told me he stood in the hallway and wanted to punch a wall because he wasn’t with me.
“Why didn’t you call?” I asked quietly.
“I wanted to bring you me, not a voice,” he said. “I wanted to knock and not leave.”
We sat there until the clock by the bed blinked 1:43 a.m. He reached for my hand again, then paused, asking without words. I let him take it. It was warm. It was steady.
“I love you,” he said, not like thunder this time. Like a secret he wanted to keep and couldn’t.
Tears stung the backs of my eyes. I hated that it felt like oxygen when he said it. I hated that I wanted more and less at the same time.
“What if tomorrow hurts?” I whispered. “What if the next day does?”
“Then I’ll be there for the hurt.” He squeezed. “And the day after. And the one after that. Until the days stop asking you to doubt me.”
Silence stretched—soft, heavy, not empty. His forehead tipped toward mine again. The world narrowed to breath, to skin, to the steady drum under his ribs.
“Please,” he said, barely sound. “Please.”
A tear slid out before I could stop it. It fell warm between us.
“You have one last chance, Xander. One.”