For three heartbeats, the only sound was the faint, electric hum of the conference room’s climate control. Liam didn’t move. He didn’t blink. The charcoal marker slipped from his fingers and hit the carpet with a soft *thud*, rolling under the table. The fury, the weariness, the challenge—all of it drained from his face, leaving behind a terrifying blankness. It was the void before the storm surge.
“You’re… what?” The words were flat, stripped of inflection.
“Pregnant.” She repeated it, the clinical term somehow making it more real, more monstrous. “Approximately six weeks. The timeline… aligns with Barcelona.”
He took a step back, as if physically pushed by the statement. His shoulder bumped the whiteboard, smudging a delicate line of the drawing. He didn’t seem to notice. He ran a han
