The smell of coffee turned her stomach.
It wasn't a violent reaction—just a quiet recoil, the kind that made her wrinkle her nose and step back from the kitchen without knowing why. Aria stood barefoot in the apartment, wrapped in Leon's discarded Oxford shirt, watching the dark brew bubble in the machine like it was something alien.
That was the third morning in a row.
She'd blamed the fatigue on work—the long hours adjusting to Castellan Industries' corporate demands, the pressure of learning on the fly, navigating polite but cutting stares in every boardroom. But the dizziness? The nausea? The way her body suddenly knew things it shouldn't?
Her fingers hesitated at the edge of the bathroom sink. A small white box sat beside her toothbrush, unopened but staring at her like it already knew the answer.
She didn't hear Leon leave that morning. He'd had an early call with Zurich. She was grateful for the space.
Aria opened the box with a mechanical precision, not letting herself think. She was just eliminating possibilities, ruling out stress and poor sleep and maybe a stomach bug. Nothing more. Nothing life-changing.
She took the test and laid it flat. Walked away. Counted to sixty. Then sixty more.
By the time she returned, her heart was already pounding.
Two pink lines.
Not one.
Not faint.
Not maybe.
She sat down on the cold bathroom tile and stared. A long, shuddering breath escaped her lips before she realized she was holding any breath at all. Her eyes stung. Not from sadness. Not even joy. Something else. Something wordless.
Something seismic.
By the time Leon returned home late afternoon, the apartment was spotless—and silent. Aria had tried to read, to nap, to distract herself. Instead, she'd spent three hours sitting on the couch, gripping the test like it might vanish if she let go.
He stepped through the door and dropped his coat. "You're home early," he said, walking toward her. "Everything alright?"
She looked up at him.
There were so many ways to say it. So many wrong ways to blurt out I'm pregnant. So many ways to ruin the moment before it began.
Instead, she stood, walked over, and curled her fingers into the front of his shirt.
"Would you still love me," she asked quietly, "if nothing ever went according to plan?"
Leon frowned slightly, cupping her jaw. "Aria. What is it?"
She pulled the test from her back pocket and placed it in his hand.
Leon looked at it, then looked at her. No reaction. No flinch.
Just silence.
His fingers closed around the stick so tightly it creaked.
Then he dropped it on the coffee table and pulled her into him. One hand on the back of her neck, the other pressed flat against her lower back.
She heard his breath shake.
"Say it," he murmured against her hair. "I need to hear it."
"I'm pregnant."
She felt the words strike his chest like a drumbeat.
He held her for a long time.
Then he kissed her—not roughly, not with hunger or fire—but with something far more dangerous.
Reverence.
When they finally moved to the bed, there was no urgency. Just skin and breath, quiet murmurs and the feeling of two people trying to understand that their world had just split open—and instead of falling, they were floating.