RAVENNA
The knock came just as I was drying my hands. Three sharp knocks, no pause. The kind of knocks that came with urgency and one that needed to be obeyed.
Elias wasn’t home, he’d gone out to the lumber yard earlier and promised to be back before lunch. I hadn’t expected visitors, and definitely not anyone who knocked like they owned the world.
I wiped my palms on my apron and opened the door.
She was there, Elias’s ex.
Even without the soaked cloak and sobbing theatrics from the last time, I knew it was her. Her face, sharper now, shocked and confused.
And when her gaze landed on my belly, on the gentle swell of six months of something precious, her lips twisted.
“Oh,” she said, voice like bitter wine. “So it’s because of you?”
I blinked, confused, trying to understand what sh
