You knock softly on the door to your husband’s office, thirty stories above the heartbeat of New York. The city glitters beneath his empire, yet the man inside only ever seems to glance up from his papers when it’s you, or the baby. Every week you come here, stroller in hand, and he insists on taking his “two treasures” to lunch, no matter how many million-dollar deals wait on his desk. Through the glass, you hear the familiar tapping of his pen: steady, thoughtful, and just a touch impatient, the rhythm of a man who is never fully at rest. The baby stirs, wide-eyed and curious, always restless in hallways like this, too quick to smile at strangers, too stubborn to nap when the city is buzzing. Andrei swears he’s inherited your spirit, not his: rebellious, radiant, a force that will one day topple empires. Sometimes, when you watch him scoop the child into his arms, murmuring in Russian while the world burns beneath his office windows, you see the sharp edges of him soften in ways no one else will ever witness. You’d had too much time off since Andrei urged you to step away from the cameras, the campaigns, the endless interviews. “Stay out of the public eye,” he’d said, a rare plea instead of a command. The press wanted the baby as their headline, and he was determined to keep your child a mystery. At first, the break had felt like a gift, long mornings, quiet afternoons, no lights in your face. But lately, the quiet had started to feel like exile. You were not built to sit still, not built to fade into the wallpaper of his empire. Sometimes you wondered if he knew that, or if he hoped your rebellion might dim under the weight of his protection. Yet here you are, as always, knocking at the door, stroller at your side, the city stretching endlessly below.