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“I’m not sure,” she said, surprising them both. “The thing is, I don’t really agree with inherited wealth. I think you’re a bit of an outlier, to have branched out and achieved your own professional success, without any real need to do so. In my experience, most people born to obscene wealth find it…demotivating.”

“I don’t disagree.”

“I made up my mind a long time ago to give away the majority of my money by the time I die.”

“Cheery.”

“It can do a lot of good for a lot of people.”

“People like you once were?”

“You don’t have to be Freud to guess at that. I’ve seen what poverty is like, and I know what money can do. I know what a good education can do.”

“Then why a trust for our kids?”

“If I’m going to bring a person into the world, then I need them to be secure,” she said, after a beat. “I need to know that no matter what, they’ll be cared for, if I’m not here.”

“I see.”

“The future is unpredictable. Anything could happen to you, me, some crazy uncle of yours might embezzle your family’s fortune between now and tomorrow, your business might collapse, AI robots might take over the world⁠—,”

He laughed. “Even cheerier. The good times keep coming with you.”

“I’m just someone who likes to prepare for the worst but work towards the best.”

“I get it. And I agree with you. A trust makes sense. What if we don’t allow access to it until they’re thirty? That gives them long enough to find their own way in the world, and provided we don’t end up destitute on the streets, we’ll always be there to help if needed. But for what it’s worth, Tia, I agree wholeheartedly with your sentiment. Beyond providing a safe home environment, the experience of travel and a good education, I don’t think children should be spoiled and indulged to the point they can’t boil water.”

Her heart thumped and for the first time in a long time, she felt as though she were truly in lockstep with someone other than Roman. And that was different. Their ‘lockstep’ was the kind of thing you felt with a sibling, because they’d grown up together, leaned on each other, then trauma-bonded over the loss of her best friend and Roman’s sister, Grace. This was different. With Hamish, it felt somehow more…cosmic. She balked at the description, glad he couldn’t hear her thoughts, even if he did have an uncanny knack of understanding her.

“You raise an excellent point. Give them a few years and some cooking lessons and we’ll have a chef or two on our hands. Problem of our kitchen ineptitude neatly solved.”

“I like it. Why stop there? We’ll get them vacuuming, cleaning the windows.”

“I do think they should have chores,” she said.

“I agree.”

“Are you just saying all this to get me to go along with your proposal?”

He laughed. “No. I can see why you might think so, but I would never lie about something so important. This has to be right.”

She nodded, only slightly weirded out by how very right it did feel.

“I like the idea of creating a family without it being messy,” she said, after a beat. “Growing up, my home was an overflow of emotion. My parents fought all the time, they were loud, aggressive, angry, then making love, then angry again. It was unpredictable and…and…”

“Scary,” he said, his raspy voice softened by unwanted pity.

She nodded once. “Ever since, I’ve worked hard to keep things ordered. I like rational thought, consideration, predictability. I could never live with someone who raised their voice to make a point, who drank to excess regularly and swore, who punched holes in walls or worse.”

He leaned forward, putting a hand on hers, surprising her with the insistence of his touch. “I can assure you, none of those things are me.”

She stared into his eyes with a sinking sensation that he was somehow putting a hex on her, because this all just felt inevitable now. More surprising was that she wanted it to go faster. If they agreed to do this—and she was close—she just wanted it to happen, so they could start preparing for the baby.

Which raised another excellent point. “When you suggested this, I presume you weren’t proposing that we try to get pregnant the old-fashioned way?”

Her heart raced at the very idea, and his hand withdrew almost as abruptly as it had reached across.

“No. I don’t think that would be wise.”