Page 162 of Say My Name

Then Dominic’s name fills every part of me.

I reach for my phone before I’ve consciously decided to move. His contact is open by the time I register what I’m doing, his name at the top of the screen and the call button beneath it.

My first instinct is to call him.

The contract gave Dominic titles, rights, responsibilities, and carefully defined access to the future we had outlined. It specified medical decisions and financial obligations. It drew clean lines around custody and separate households.

None of that explains why he is the person I need right now.

I don’t want to notify him because he is the biological father. I want to hear his voice change when I tell him, that low rumble of surprise. I want him here, barefoot on my bathroom tile, looking at those two lines with me. I want his arms around me and the quiet certainty he gave me every time I started to believe I had to carry everything alone.

My thumb hovers over the call button.

For two weeks, Dominic has given me what I demanded. Every email is professional. Every conversation is necessary. He doesn’t stop beside my office unless work requires it, and he hasn’t touched me since the night I let him love me while refusing to give him anything to stay for.

I exit his contact and open our messages instead.

The blank field waits.

Elena (draft): The test is positive.

The five factual words tell him everything he is entitled to know. Clean. Precise. Nothing about the way my own hands are shaking.

I read the message until the words blur.

Then I delete it.

My fingers return to the keyboard.

Elena (draft): I’m pregnant. Can you come over?

My chest tightens around the request.

The idea of asking is its own sharp ache. What I’m really asking is for him to come back and give me another chance after I spent months proving I wouldn’t choose him.

I delete that message too.

I lock the screen before I can type a third version.

I lock my phone and set it face down beside the sink. My reflection looks pale and stunned, mascara untouched on the counter and hair still damp from the shower. In less than an hour, I’m supposed to walk into Rowe Holdings and sit through a full day of meetings as if Thursday morning hasn’t split my life into before and after.

I pick up the test.

For one reckless second, I imagine carrying it straight into Dominic’s office. I imagine placing it on his desk and telling him the truth before fear can reorganize it into something safer.

Instead, I open the linen cabinet.

I wrap the test in a clean washcloth and slide it behind the stack of white towels on the top shelf. I push it far enough back that I can’t see it, then close the door on the proof of everything I wanted.

And the man I still can’t bring myself to tell.

When the elevator reaches Rowe Holdings, I’m eighteen minutes late for the first time in four years. I have reduced the morning to three facts.

The test is positive. Dominic is the father. He deserves to know.

The doors open, and I step into the office with my bag over one shoulder and every emotion I own locked behind the expression I use during hostile negotiations.

Maya looks up as I approach her desk. Her usual greeting dies before it reaches her lips.