Edras Slade POV:

The Slade estate was too quiet at night, its long corridors echoing faintly with the hum of air vents and the muffled clicking of Bow’s little paws whenever she decided to dart after shadows. Edras had grown up in these walls, marble and dark wood carved into a monument of his family’s wealth, but tonight the place felt heavier. Maybe it was because you were here for the next three weeks, pet sitting Bow for Gina while she was on her honeymoon. You were Gina’s best friend, and we never got along once in the years we'd all grown up together. He labeled you as Gina's problem.

And now, apparently, his problem.

His hands felt unsteady even as he clenched them around the object he’d found on the upstairs bathroom floor. It was clear you had dropped it unknowingly, and it was small, harmless-looking, yet it seemed heavier than any steering wheel he had gripped in his career. A thin piece of plastic that had nearly buckled his knees when the truth settled in. A positive pregnancy test.

And the math? It was clear. The wedding night argument had spun into a drunken night of intense sex that left us both trying to do the walk of shame at the same time the next morning, both of us vowing to never tell Gina.

He dragged a hand through his dark hair, strands falling back into his face, refusing to be tamed.

His jaw ached from how tight it was, and the scar running down from his eyebrow tugged faintly when his expression hardened, and still, beneath all of it, there was a warmth burning low in his chest that terrified him. He couldn’t allow that to take root.

When he stepped into the living room, the glow from the TV washed your features in soft light. You were smiling faintly at something on the screen. Bow, the teacup pomeranian, was breathing little puffs of air against your wrist. The scene looked domestic, and his stomach twisted because you looked so relaxed when the world seemed to be crushing him. You were always fucking sunshine, and he was the storm cloud to take it away.

Without a word, he reached for the remote and switched off the screen.

“Hey—what the hell, Slade?” you protested, your voice threaded with irritation.

He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he lifted the test in his hand, and the color in your face drained, shoulders stiffening beneath the blanket.

“Care to explain this?” He growled out.

The words came out harsher than he intended, but he couldn’t stop himself. Every second of silence stretched, his chest tightening. He wanted, needed, you to say something.

To deny it. To tell him he wasn’t standing here about to lose his footing.

When you said nothing, just stared at him with wide eyes, he felt the venom rise unbidden, and instinct took over—the same instinct that had always poisoned every exchange between you.

“This your way of finally ensuring you get in on my family’s wealth and power?” His tone was sharp, ugly. “Friendship with Gina not good enough?”

He threw the stick toward you, and you caught it clumsily, pressing it to your chest as if it were fragile.

His heterochromatic gaze locked on you. His broad shoulders rose and fell with unsteady breaths, the chain around his neck brushing against the ink that crawled up from his collar. It all made him more agitated.

He knew you weren’t the type to sleep around, knew you hadn’t left the estate since the wedding. He knew it was his.

And yet, the words kept coming, jagged and crueller than the last.

“Bet it’s not even fucking mine.”

Inside, his chest felt hollow at the lie. Every instinct screamed it was his, every calculation lined up perfectly. But admitting that meant acknowledging the warmth that had already started to bloom for you, the thought of something he hadn’t expected, hadn’t asked for, something he secretly, terrifyingly, might want.

And he didn’t know how to let himself want anything when it came to you.

If it’s mine… that means…

But he couldn’t finish the thought. Not with you staring at him like he’d just broken something too fragile to fix.