“This time,” Noah countered. “Next scandal might not go so well. Then we’ll deal with it.” Victoria looked up from her tablet. “Together.” That word together kept coming up lately, carrying weight neither of them fully acknowledged. Christmas came quiet and strange. Emma wanted to spend it with Victoria, who’d admitted she usually spent holidays alone in her enormous house.
“That’s sad,” Emma declared. “You should come to our place. We have traditions.” “Hey,” their apartment was too small for company, so they compromised and spent Christmas Eve at Victoria’s house. Noah made dinner while Emma decorated cookies, and Victoria attempted to help without burning anything. It felt domestic in ways that made Noah’s chest ache, like they were a family instead of whatever they actually were.
Emma gave Victoria the gift she’d been working on, a handmade baby blanket she’d somehow knitted with Mrs. Chen’s help. It was lumpy and imperfect, and Victoria cried looking at it. “This is the most beautiful thing anyone’s ever made me,” she said, holding Emma tight. “Mom taught me that the best gifts are the ones you make,” Emma said seriously.
“Because they have love in them.” Noah’s eyes burned. Sarah would have loved this. Emma being kind and thoughtful, finding ways to include someone who needed family. Victoria’s gift to Emma was a college savings account with $50,000 already deposited. “You can’t give her that much money,” Noah protested. “I can, and I did.
Emma’s brilliant. She should be able to go to any school she wants without worrying about cost.” Victoria looked at Noah steadily. Accept the gift. Let me do this. Noah wanted to argue on principle, but Emma was hugging Victoria and crying happy tears, and he couldn’t bring himself to ruin that.
“Thank you,” he said quietly. “Really? Thank you.” They watched Christmas movies after dinner, Emma eventually falling asleep between them on the couch. Victoria’s head drooped onto Noah’s shoulder, exhausted from pregnancy and stress. Noah sat very still, not wanting to disturb either of them, thinking about how his life had become something he never could have predicted.
Around midnight, Victoria stirred. “Sorry,” she mumbled, fell asleep. “It’s fine.” She didn’t move away, and neither did Noah. They sat there in the quiet house with Emma sleeping between them, and it felt like something inevitable was happening, whether they were ready for it or not. Noah. Yeah. you all. I’m glad you stopped that night in the storm. I’m glad it was you. Me, too.
Victoria lifted her head to look at him, and her expression was so open, so vulnerable that Noah’s breath caught. This is probably a terrible idea, she whispered. Probably, Noah agreed. But when Victoria leaned in, he didn’t stop her. The kiss was soft, tentative, tasting like hot chocolate and possibility.
When they pulled apart, Victoria was smiling. Definitely a terrible idea. The worst, Noah confirmed. Emma shifted in her sleep and reality crashed back in. They were her boss and employee, a pregnant woman and a single father. Two people whose lives were already complicated enough without adding this. We should talk about this, Victoria said. Yeah, we should.
But maybe not tonight. tomorrow. Noah agreed. We’ll figure it out tomorrow. Tomorrow came with its own crisis. Victoria’s water breaking 6 weeks early and Noah racing her to the hospital at 3:00 in the morning while Emma stayed with Mrs. Chen and Clare coordinated everything by phone. The baby arrived 12 hours later, tiny and screaming and perfect.
Victoria held her son with tears streaming down her face. And when she looked at Noah standing beside the hospital bed, she said, “I want you here for all of it. If you want that.” Noah thought about wisdom and complications and all the reasons this was a bad idea. Then he thought about the life he’d been living before.
Safe, lonely, just surviving instead of actually living. “I want that,” he said, and meant it with everything he had. Whatever came next, they’d face it together. The first three weeks were chaos wrapped in exhaustion, wrapped in something Noah couldn’t quite name, but felt terrifyingly close to happiness. Victoria’s son, Lucas James Sinclair, named after her grandfather and the nurse who delivered him, was tiny and loud and completely dependent.
Noah had forgotten how overwhelming newborns were, how they demolished any concept of schedule or sleep or personal space. Victoria was a wreck. Not the polished CEO eo who commanded boardrooms, but a scared new mother who called Noah at 2:00 in the morning because Lucas wouldn’t stop crying and she was convinced something was wrong.
“He’s been screaming for an hour,” Victoria said, and Noah could hear the tears in her voice. “I’ve tried everything, feeding, changing, holding him, putting him down. Nothing works.” “Is he running a fever?” “No, I checked three times. then he’s probably fine, just fussy. Some babies are like that. What if he’s not fine? What if I’m missing something? Noah sat up in bed, wide awake now, despite it being the middle of the night.
Do you want me to come over? Victoria was quiet for a moment. You don’t have to do that. I know. Do you want me to? Yes, she whispered. Please. Noah left Emma sleeping with a note on her nightstand and drove to Victoria’s estate in the dark. She answered the door in sweatpants and a t-shirt with spit up on the shoulder, her hair a mess, eyes red from crying.
