Chapter 1 - The Photograph Between Them
For several seconds, Donovan Hayes did not touch the ultrasound photograph.
He stared at it as though Maeve had placed a loaded gun between them.
The image was small, grainy, and almost impossible to understand without someone explaining what he was looking at. A curved spine. A tiny skull. A hand lifted beside a face that had not yet learned how to smile.
A life.
His child.
Maeve sat opposite him, her fingers wrapped tightly around the edge of the table.
“You can say something,” she whispered.
Donovan raised his eyes.
“How many people know?”
The question struck her harder than she expected.
Not Is the baby healthy?
Not Are you feeling all right?
Not even Why didn't you tell me?
“How many people know?” she repeated.
“About the pregnancy.”
“My doctor. A friend. My landlord, probably, considering I practically live on crackers and ginger tea these days.” She swallowed. “Why?”
“Because if you are carrying my child, someone could use you to get to me.”
Maeve laughed once, without humor.
“There it is.”
His brow furrowed.
“What?”
“The first thing you see when you look at me isn't a woman carrying your child. It's a vulnerability.”
Donovan's expression tightened.
“I didn't say that.”
“You didn't have to.”
He glanced around the café. The barista had found an urgent reason to reorganize paper cups behind the counter. A man near the window was studying the same newspaper page he'd been reading for the past ten minutes. Even the customers pretending to mind their own business seemed unusually interested in the conversation at the corner table.
Donovan lowered his voice.
“I'm asking because the world I live in is dangerous.”
“And you think I don't know that?”
“You know what people write about me. You don't know everything they leave out.”
“I know enough.”
“No.” He paused, choosing his words carefully. “You know I have enemies. You don't know what some of them are willing to do.”
Maeve looked down at the photograph.
She had imagined this moment so many times during the past four months that she had grown ashamed of herself.
Sometimes, in the privacy of her apartment, she had imagined Donovan holding the ultrasound image and smiling. She had pictured him asking questions, perhaps even laughing in disbelief when she showed him how small their child was.
Other times, she had imagined him taking one look at the photograph and offering her money to disappear.
The truth, she was beginning to realize, could be much more complicated than either fantasy.
“I didn't tell you because I was afraid,” she admitted.
Donovan remained still.
“Afraid of me?”
“Of what being connected to you would mean.”
He looked as though he wanted to argue, but she continued before he could.
“I had one night with you, Donovan. One night. It was the most unexpected thing that had happened to me in years, and I knew it couldn't become anything more.”
“You don't know that.”
“I knew enough to leave before sunrise.”
His jaw shifted.
“You disappeared while I was asleep.”
“I left a note.”
“A note that said you were sorry and that I shouldn't look for you.”
“It was the truth.”
“It wasn't an explanation.”
“What explanation would have satisfied you?” Maeve asked. “That I was scared of the newspapers? That I had no idea whether you'd remember me once the sun came up? That I went home and spent three weeks wondering if I'd made the biggest mistake of my life?”
Donovan's eyes sharpened.
“You wondered that?”
She regretted the confession immediately.
“Forget it.”
“No.”
“Donovan—”
“I spent four months trying to find you.”
The words came quietly, without theatrical emphasis.
That made them worse.
Maeve stared at him.
“Four months?”
“I had your first name. I knew where we'd met. I had security footage from the gala, but the camera covering the balcony was partially obstructed.” He glanced at the photograph. “I hired people to identify you. I searched hotels, hospitals, event records. I contacted everyone who worked at the venue.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to see you again.”
The simplicity of the answer unsettled her.
“People like you don't spend four months looking for someone they slept with once.”
“People like me?”
“You know exactly what I mean.”
“Yes,” he said. “I do.”
He leaned back slightly, allowing space between them.
“And I'm telling you that I did.”
For a moment, Maeve could hear nothing but the rain tapping against the windows.
She wanted to believe him.
That frightened her more than his reputation ever had.
“Why didn't you find me?” she asked.
“Your name wasn't on the gala's guest list.”
“I wasn't an invited guest. My friend had an extra ticket.”
“Your friend?”
“Claire Morgan. She worked for the charity organizing the event. She got sick that afternoon and gave me her invitation instead.” Maeve looked at him. “I wasn't supposed to be there.”
Something changed in Donovan's expression.
“Claire Morgan,” he repeated.
“Yes.”
“Where is she now?”
“Boston. Why?”
He did not answer immediately.
Instead, he picked up the photograph.
His fingers were steady, but his eyes moved over the image with an intensity that made Maeve's chest ache.
“Have you had a difficult pregnancy?”
“Some nausea. A few sleepless nights. My doctor says everything looks normal.”
“Do you have another appointment scheduled?”
“Next Thursday.”
“Where?”
She pulled her hand back.
“That's not your business.”
Donovan stopped.
For an instant, she saw the instinct to demand an answer cross his face. She also saw him force that instinct down.
“You're right,” he said.
The unexpected admission left her without a reply.
“I'd like to be involved,” he continued. “I'd like to know when your appointments are, whether the baby is healthy, and whether you need anything. But I won't pretend that becoming the father gives me the right to control you.”
Maeve searched his expression.
“And if I say I don't want you involved?”
The question landed between them like a challenge.
Donovan looked at the ultrasound again.
“I'll be devastated,” he said. “But I won't use my money, my influence, or my people to force you into a relationship with me.”
“Would you really accept that?”
“No.”
She blinked.
He met her eyes.
“I would ask you to reconsider. I'd ask whether we could speak again. I'd probably spend an unreasonable amount of time trying to figure out what I did wrong.” The corner of his mouth moved, though it was not quite a smile. “But I wouldn't force you.”
Maeve looked away before he could see how deeply that answer affected her.
She had spent five years with Derek, a man who treated every disagreement like a personal insult. She had learned to measure her words, soften her opinions, and apologize for feelings that inconvenienced him.
Donovan Hayes, a man whose name made powerful people lower their voices, had just accepted a boundary without punishing her for drawing it.
She didn't know what to do with that.
“I don't need you to buy me a house,” she said.
“Good. I wasn't planning to buy you a house.”
“I don't need an allowance.”
“I assumed you wouldn't.”
“And I won't move into some enormous mansion surrounded by men carrying guns.”
“That might be inconvenient,” he said.
She narrowed her eyes.
“Was that a joke?”
“An unsuccessful one.”
Against her will, Maeve almost smiled.
For the first time since he had entered the café, Donovan's shoulders relaxed.
Then his phone vibrated.
He checked the screen.
Whatever he read erased the brief softness from his face.
“What's wrong?” Maeve asked.
“Nothing you need to worry about.”
“Don't do that.”
“Do what?”
“Tell me something is wrong and then decide I can't handle hearing about it.”
He looked at her for a long moment before putting the phone facedown.
“Someone outside is taking photographs of us.”
Maeve's blood turned cold.
“Who?”
“I don't know yet.”
She twisted toward the window.
Across the street, beneath the rain-darkened awning of a closed tailor shop, a man stood beside a black sedan. He wore a navy cap pulled low over his forehead and held a phone at chest level.
When their eyes met through the glass, he lowered the device.
Then he walked toward the driver's side of the sedan.
“Do you know him?” she whispered.
Donovan turned just enough to see the man.
The change in him was immediate.
His face became expressionless. His eyes went hard. Whatever warmth had existed a moment earlier disappeared behind a wall Maeve could not begin to penetrate.
He reached for his phone.
“Julian.”
The man who had entered behind him answered on the first ring.
“Sir?”
“The man under the awning. Navy cap. Black sedan.”
“I have him.”
“Don't approach him in front of her.”
A pause.
“Understood.”
Donovan ended the call.
Maeve stared at him.
“Who is he?”
“I'll find out.”
“Is this because of you?”
“I don't know.”
“That's not reassuring.”
“I know.”
She pushed her chair back.
“I want to go home.”
Donovan stood immediately but did not reach for her.
“All right.”
“I mean it. I don't want to be taken to some private compound. I don't want to be surrounded by your men. I want to go home, lock my own door, and pretend this afternoon never happened.”
He nodded.
“I'll arrange a car.”
“No guards.”
“A driver, then.”
“I can take a taxi.”
“Maeve.”
She stiffened.
He noticed and corrected himself.
“Would you allow me to arrange a driver? Someone who will take you directly home and leave once you are inside?”
She hesitated.
“Why?”
“Because I would sleep better tonight knowing you arrived safely.”
“You barely know me.”
“I know enough to care whether you make it home.”
The answer was so simple that she could not find a reason to reject it without admitting how desperately she wanted to accept it.
“Fine,” she said. “One driver. No one follows me upstairs. No one gets to decide where I live.”
“Agreed.”
Donovan moved to help her with her coat, then stopped when he noticed her watching him.
“May I?”
Maeve nodded.
He held the coat open without touching her more than necessary. When she slipped her arms into it, his gaze fell briefly to her belly.
There was something almost painful in the way he looked at it.
As though he were trying to imagine a child he had never known and already feared losing.
Outside, the black sedan pulled away from the curb.
Donovan watched it disappear into traffic.
Then his phone vibrated again.
This time, he answered without looking at the screen.
“Tell me.”
Julian's voice came through low and tense.
“We identified the man.”
“Who is he?”
“A courier who works for Matteo Vescari.”
Donovan did not move.
Matteo Vescari had spent the past three years trying to weaken Donovan's control over the city's waterfront. He had bought judges, bribed union officials, and arranged two separate attempts to force Donovan out of his shipping operations.
Neither man had officially declared war.
They had simply made each other's lives more expensive.
“Why would Vescari be interested in Maeve?” Donovan asked.
Julian hesitated.
“There's something else.”
“Say it.”
“The courier wasn't photographing you, sir.”
Donovan's gaze slowly returned to Maeve.
“He was photographing her.”
And for the first time that afternoon, Donovan Hayes felt a kind of fear no amount of money or violence could make disappear.
Because someone had found the woman he had spent four months searching for.
May you like
Someone had known where she would be.
And someone had decided that Maeve was worth watching long before Donovan ever walked through the door.
