Page 144 of Diego

She's not wrong, and I can't argue her point. I run a hand over my jaw and look away for a moment, toward the pizza box sitting open on the table, because the ordinary little scene suddenly feels completely at odds with what I have just done to her evening. Her life.

I came here because I heard she was sick. I wanted to see her, make sure she was eating, find out whether she needed anything. Somewhere between the hallway and this couch, I turned that concern into an ultimatum.

“I do not want to take anything from you,” I say finally. Truthfully. “I want you in this baby’s life. I want you safe. I want the baby safe. I want to know that if I am across the city and something happens, somebody I trust is close enough to reach you when I can’t. That is the reason for all of this.”

Her anger has not disappeared, but exhaustion is beginning to show underneath it. She looks down and presses her lips together for a few seconds before lifting her eyes again. “I need time to think about this.”

“You have it.”

“And I mean actual time, Diego. I don’t want another surprise tomorrow because you decided something else for me while I was sleeping.”

The words hurt, but I don’t let that show. I nod and reach for my coat, knowing I have pushed this far enough for one night.

“You’ll have the time you need.”

She watches me pull the coat on, still guarded, and I cannot blame her. The apartment felt warm when I walked in. Small, comfortable, hers. She was barefoot on the couch eating pizza and worrying about something that had nothing to do with my family’s enemies or security rotations.

Now the room feels different because I brought all of that through her front door with me.

I stop near the door and look back at her. “Blair, I meant what I told you at the penthouse. You are not doing this alone. Nothing I said tonight changes that.”

“It changes quite a bit from where I’m standing.”

I cannot argue with that either. “Think about it.”

“I will.”

There is more distance in those two words than there was between us when I arrived. I open the door, then hesitate with one hand on the knob because every instinct I have tells me to fix this before I leave.

Usually I can. I know how to negotiate, persuade, charm, threaten, or buy my way through almost any problem put in front of me. None of those things belong here. Blair does not need another argument from me tonight, and she certainly does not need me trying to make an ultimatum sound kinder than it was.

“Good night, Blair.”

“Good night, Diego.”

I step into the hallway and hear the lock turn behind me before I reach the elevator. I stand there waiting for the doors to open, staring at the numbers above them while the conversation repeats itself in my head.

Everything I told her was true. The baby will need security. Blair will need it if she is raising my child. I will not compromise on either point, because I know too well what can happen when somebody gets close enough to hurt a member of my family.

None of that changes the fact that I just sat in her home and told a pregnant woman that access to her own child came with conditions set by me.

The elevator opens. I step inside and press the button for the lobby, but the certainty I carried into her apartment does not follow me in.

I know why I did it.

I know I would make the same demand again if the baby’s safety were at stake.

I still feel like shit.

By midmorning, I have read the same paragraph in the acquisition report three times and could not tell anyone what it says if my life depended on it. The numbers are right in front of me, the projections are straightforward, and on any other day I would have finished the entire thing before my second coffee.

Instead, my mind keeps circling back to Blair standing in her apartment in gray sweats, looking at me like I had taken something from her before the baby is even born.

I lean back in my chair and rub a hand over my face just as Mario walks into my office. He shuts the door behind him, which tells me immediately this is not a casual visit. My oldest brother rarely wastes time getting where he intends to go, and judging by the way he studies me before crossing the room, I already know what subject has brought him here.

“You look like hell,” he says as he takes the chair across from my desk.

“Good morning to you too.”