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She tells me about a book she finished, argues with me over something in the news I hadn’t paid attention to, and I catch myself more interested in the argument than any of the calls waiting on my desk.

Last night she made a case for some show she’d been watching on her phone before all of this, animated in a way I haven’t seen from her before, and I found myself asking follow-up questions I didn’t need answers to just to keep her talking, watching the way her hands move when she’s excited about something rather than defending herself against me.

I’ve started noticing things about her I never set out to notice. The way she reads with her knees pulled up to her chest, book balanced against them.

The quiet that settles over her in the mornings before she’s fully awake, softer than her usual sharpness.

The way she hums under her breath sometimes without seeming to know she’s doing it, some half-remembered tune from a life that used to be entirely hers before any of this started.

The crease that forms between her eyebrows when she’s genuinely absorbed in something rather than just performing interest for my benefit, an expression I’ve come to recognize as more honest than most of what she shows me on purpose.

None of it is useful information, not the kind I usually collect about people, and yet I’ve cataloged all of it anyway, kept away in the same part of my mind I usually reserve for things that actually matter.

I reach up and tuck a strand of hair back from her face, and she leans into the touch instead of pulling away, her eyes falling half shut at the contact.

“Can I ask you something?” she says, eyes still closed.

“Anything.”

“Have you done this before? Gotten someone pregnant, I mean.” She opens her eyes, watching my face carefully. “You never talk about it. The baby. I don’t know if that’s because you don’t think about it or because you think about it too much to say anything.”

“Never before you,” I say it plainly, no hesitation in it. “Forty-two years old, and I never once thought this would be part of my life. Men in my position don’t usually get to keep something this soft. Too many people would use it against me if they knew how to find it.”

“But you’re keeping it anyway.”

“I’m keeping all of it. You. The child. Whatever comes with both of you.” I rest my hand flat against her stomach, feeling nothing yet, too early still, but I leave it there anyway. “I didn’t expect to want this. I want it more than I’ve wanted almost anything else in my life.”

She covers my hand with hers, but before she can say anything, I speak.

“Come with me.” I stand, pulling her up with the hand still joined to mine, not gentle about it this time.

“Where?”

I lead her down the hall, past her room, past mine, to the door at the end of the east wing. I punch the code into the panel, the lock releasing with a quiet click, and I keep my hand flat against the wood instead of opening it yet.

“There’s something I never told you.” My voice drops lower than I mean it to. “That first week. I found you in here. You didn’t know I was in the doorway.”

Her breath catches, and I watch the exact moment it lands, her eyes going dark instead of embarrassed. “How long were you standing there?”

“Long enough to know exactly what you sound like when you’re alone and don’t think anyone’s watching.” I step closer, close enough that she has to tip her head back to hold my eyes. “Long enough that I’ve thought about it more times than I should admit to you.”

“You should have told me sooner.” Her hand fists lightly in my shirt, no hesitation in the grip. “You should have told me a long time ago.”

“I’m telling you now.” I push the door open behind her, not breaking her gaze. “Everything you want in this room, you get tonight.”

She steps through first. I follow and close the door. The quiet click of the lock settles the space around us.

The warm light is exactly as I left it. It pools across the dark wood shelving that runs along two walls, every item still arranged with the same deliberate order I insisted on years ago.

The padded bench sits in the center, angled toward the full-length mirror. The low cabinet remains closed. The length of rope hangs neatly on its hook. The air smells faintly of leather and clean wood. Nothing has been disturbed since the night I stood in the doorway and watched her.

She turns in a slow circle, taking it in again now that she knows I was here. Her eyes move over the shelves, the bench, the mirror, the rope. There’s no embarrassment in her expression when she looks back at me. Only a darker, sharper interest.

I keep a small distance, giving her the first move, as I promised.

She closes it. Her hands find the front of my shirt and pull me down into a kiss that’s deeper and slower than the ones we’ve shared in her room. No rush. Just the press of her mouth and the quiet certainty that neither of us is stopping this time.

I let her set the pace. When she walks us backward toward the bench, I follow. The soft give of the padding under her weight is familiar to me in a way it has never been familiar to anyone else. She sinks onto the edge of it. I stay standing between her knees for a moment, looking down at her in the same mirror that once showed me her face while she touched herself.