24. A Month, Maybe Less

24. A Month, Maybe Less

Dr. Jeff asked her to come in, and this time he took her pulse himself instead of leaving it to a nurse.

“I couldn’t examine you properly yesterday,” he said. “Caleb was still around. I keep expecting him to walk back in.”

He tried again to push the transplant, though his own voice had lost some of its conviction. He’d quietly looked into donors himself over the past week and come up with nothing.

“If Caleb got involved,” he said carefully, “with his resources, we might actually find someone in time.”

“I don’t deserve Caleb’s help,” Tania said. “Isn’t it almost funny? I’m going to die of the exact same thing that killed his mother. Maybe a parent’s sins really do pass down.”

Dr. Jeff didn’t argue with that. Instead, his face turned graver still.

“The baby’s heartbeat is weaker than I’d like,” he said. “Tania, listen to me. A month is what I can promise you right now. Not guaranteed. If you ended the pregnancy, that number could look very different.”

 

• • •

 

Strangely, Tania felt something close to peace walking out of that appointment. She told herself Caleb’s recent warmth was only about the baby, nothing more, and decided that was enough. She’d spend whatever time she had left making the most of it.

She called Cecile for a drink that evening. Cecile took one look at her and frowned.

“You’re so pale. Are you sleeping at all?”

Nicole showed up before Tania could answer, sliding into the booth uninvited. Cecile groaned.

“Is he stalking me now? Seriously?”

They chatted anyway, Cecile’s complaints softening the longer he stayed. Tania’s phone buzzed partway through. Mr. Carlson.

“Good news,” he said. “The company’s loan issue got resolved. Wasn’t your husband, before you ask. My brother’s partnering with your old company to license your designs. Wanted you to know so he doesn’t try to shortchange you later.”

He offered her a permanent position as his exclusive designer. Tania thanked him and turned it down gently.

She went home afterward feeling unexpectedly lonely, and ended up cooking a full lunch she had no real reason to make, then drove it straight to Caleb’s office.

 

• • •

 

Caleb raised an eyebrow at the container she set on his desk, but he didn’t push it away.

Marcus lingered near the door, eyeing the food hopefully, until Caleb physically walked him down the hall toward the cafeteria and came back alone, locking the office door behind him.

Once he’d finished eating, he crossed to where Tania stood at the floor-to-ceiling window, sipping water, and wrapped his arms around her from behind.

“Did you only come to bring me food, Mrs. Wilson?” he murmured against her ear.

She turned in his arms, something playful pulling at her mouth despite everything. “What if I didn’t?”

Marcus picked exactly that moment to burst back in, already halfway through a sentence about the afternoon schedule, and turned three shades of red before backing straight back out.

“I thought I locked that,” Caleb muttered, already lifting Tania off her feet.

He carried her through to the private suite attached to his office and shut the door properly this time.

 

• • •

 

Mr. Stanton arrived at the villa to find Sophia hollowed out, barely moving from the couch, her skin gone sallow.

She’d stopped eating the moment she learned the baby wasn’t Caleb’s. Stopped feeding Sia too, leaving it to the new maid, who she’d taken to slapping whenever the baby’s crying got to be too much.

Mr. Stanton scooped Sia up automatically, cooing at her out of habit, before catching himself and shoving her back at the maid like the baby had suddenly turned to something contaminated.

“She won when it mattered,” Sophia said bitterly, staring at nothing. “Tania. She always wins.”

She passed out mid-sentence. Mr. Stanton carried her to the car himself, shouting for the driver.

Across town, Dora was mid-argument with Jordan, who wanted to know exactly what had been in the papers she’d burned.

“I never even read them,” Dora snapped. “Why does it matter?”

“Because Tania deserves to know what her own uncle wanted her to have.”

Dora slapped him across the face. “Are you in love with her? Is that what this is?” She spat the words like they tasted foul. “You’re a monster, you know that?”

Her phone rang before Jordan could answer. Her father, telling her Sophia was in the hospital.

 

• • •

 

Dora arrived to find her sister nearly unrecognizable, and Mr. Stanton stormed out of the room in a fury the moment she got there, already dialing Caleb from the hallway. The call rang out unanswered.

Sophia told Dora everything from her hospital bed, or her version of it, painting Tania as the villain in every sentence.

Mr. Stanton boarded a flight to the ice city that same night, muttering to himself the whole ride that killing Tania’s uncle clearly hadn’t been threat enough.

He found Caleb’s grandfather waiting when he arrived, and explained everything in a rush.

The old man’s expression didn’t change much. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll handle this myself.”