Chương 2
He had not acted like a monster.
That was what frightened me.
Monsters were easy to hate.
People were harder.
My phone buzzed while I stood there.
Unknown number.
My heart stopped before I even opened the message.
Are you available to talk?
I stared at the words.
No name.
No explanation.
But I knew.
Only one person could make my hands shake from four simple words.
I deleted the message without replying.
A few seconds later, another one appeared.
I know you saw this.
I turned the phone face down.
The rational part of my brain told me not to panic.
The other part remembered that Alessandro Vitali was not a man people ignored.
My shift ended early because I made three mistakes in less than an hour.
The supervisor asked if I was sick.
I lied.
Again.
Outside the hospital, rain had started falling lightly.
I stood beneath the entrance roof watching people rush toward their cars.
A woman laughed while trying to cover her child with a jacket.
A delivery driver complained about traffic.
Two nurses argued about where to get dinner.
The world kept moving because nobody knew mine had stopped.
My phone buzzed again.
This time it was Liam.
Where are you?
I typed a response.
At work.
Then deleted it.
I typed another.
On my way home.
Then stopped.
For the first time that day, I admitted something I had been avoiding.
I did not only fear Alessandro finding out.
I feared what would happen if he did not care.
The thought hurt more than the danger.
Because somewhere between the hotel room and this terrible morning, I had started believing that the man behind the reputation might have been real.
And if he was real, then losing him would be a different kind of disaster.
I walked toward the train station with one hand resting protectively over my stomach.
I had no plan.
I had no idea what came next.
But I knew one thing.
Running had worked for six weeks.
It would not work forever.
The thought followed me all the way home, sitting beside me on the train like another passenger who refused to leave.
I watched the city slide past the window and tried to convince myself that fear was not the same thing as truth.
Maybe Alessandro had forgotten me.
Maybe the message had nothing to do with me.
Maybe I was turning every shadow into a threat because I had spent six weeks carrying a secret that made everything feel dangerous.
Then I remembered the unknown number.
I remembered how quickly the message appeared after I deleted the first one.
That was not a coincidence.
When I reached Liam’s apartment, the lights were on.
I stood outside the door longer than I should have, listening to the familiar sounds inside.
The television playing quietly.
The sound of dishes moving in the kitchen.
Liam humming without realizing he was doing it.
A normal evening.
A normal life.
A life I had been trying to protect by keeping everything hidden.
I unlocked the door and stepped inside.
Liam was sitting at the kitchen table with a plate of untouched food in front of him.
“You took your time,” he said.
“I had to walk.”
“In the rain?”
I looked down at my jacket.
Water had soaked through the shoulders.
“Apparently.”
He pushed the plate toward me.
“You need to eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“That’s not an answer.”
I almost laughed because it sounded exactly like something he would say.
Liam never raised his voice.
He never demanded anything.
He just kept standing there with the same patient expression until people admitted what they were avoiding.
“I had a bad day.”
He nodded slowly.
“Okay.”
The word carried disappointment.
Not anger.
That was worse.
I put my bag on the chair and sat down.
For several seconds neither of us spoke.
The apartment felt smaller than usual.
Maybe because there was suddenly another person inside it.
A person neither of us could see.
“I’m pregnant,” I said.
The sentence came out so quietly I almost wondered if I had actually spoken.
Liam blinked.
His hand stopped halfway toward his coffee mug.
“What?”
I looked at the table.
“I’m pregnant.”
The silence afterward felt endless.
Then Liam leaned back.
He did not look shocked in the way I expected.
He looked like someone trying to understand a language he had never heard before.
“Are you sure?”
I nodded.
“I took two tests.”
He rubbed his face.
For a moment, he looked twenty-five instead of the person who always acted like he had everything under control.
“Okay.”
I swallowed.
“Okay?”
“No, I mean... I don’t know what I mean.”
That was more honest than anything else he could have said.
He stared at the floor.
“Does he know?”
My fingers tightened around the edge of the table.
“No.”
Liam looked up.
“Does he need to?”
The question landed harder than I expected.
“I don’t know.”
“That usually means yes.”
“You don’t understand.”
“You’re right.”
He looked away.
“I don’t.”
The admission surprised me.
Most people would have pretended they understood.
Liam never did that.
“But I know you,” he continued.
“And I know you’re scared.”
I looked down because he was right.
“I’m scared of what he’ll do.”
“Who is he?”
I did not answer.
Liam waited.
The clock above the stove clicked with every second.
“Emma.”
I closed my eyes.
“Alessandro Vitali.”
The name changed the room.
Liam’s expression shifted immediately.
Not recognition exactly.
Concern.
The kind that came before someone told you something you did not want to hear.
“How do you know that name?”
I hated the question because I did not have a simple answer.
“I met him.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“He was at the gala where I worked.”
Liam stood up slowly.
“You were at a Vitali event?”
“It was a charity gala.”
“Emma.”
“I didn’t know what it was.”
“That’s not true.”
May you like
I flinched.
The accusation hurt because there was a piece of truth inside it.
