Chapter 3

Ethan Cross lived in a penthouse that occupied the entire top floor of a converted Tribeca warehouse. Exposed brick, soaring windows, the kind of space architects dreamed about. It should have been warm. Instead it felt like a museum — beautiful, curated, and fundamentally empty.

The door opened before I knocked. A woman in her sixties with sharp eyes and a warm mouth appeared, drying her hands on a towel.

"You must be Aria. I'm Mrs. Park. I've kept this home for eleven years." She surveyed me with grandmotherly authority. "You're too thin. Come eat."

I followed her past walls of art and furniture worth more than my annual salary into a kitchen that was mercifully alive — fragrant with sesame oil and garlic, the only room that felt like a human actually inhabited it.

She placed a bowl of jjigae in front of me and waited until I took a bite.

"He won't tell you anything about himself," she said, sitting across from me. "So I will. He works twenty hours a day. Doesn't sleep enough. Hasn't had someone in this apartment who wasn't on payroll since—" She caught herself. "A long time."

"What happened?"

"His sister. Car accident. Four years ago." Her voice softened. "He was supposed to drive her that night. He chose a board meeting instead."

Before I could respond, the front door crashed open with a force suggesting it had personally offended someone. Heavy footsteps. Then Ethan appeared in the kitchen doorway, tie loosened, jaw clenched, radiating fury that made the air thin.

He stopped when he saw me. Recalculated.

"You're early."

"You said this weekend. It's Saturday."

"I meant Sunday."

"Then you should have specified."

Mrs. Park made a sound dangerously close to a laugh. Ethan's eyes cut to her, then back.

"Your room is at the end of the east hall. Stay out of the study."

"What's in the study?"

"My privacy." He turned. "Dinner at eight."

Dinner was civilized warfare. We sat at a table built for twelve with a demilitarized zone of mahogany between us. He scrolled emails on his phone; I ate Mrs. Park's galbi in silence until I cracked.

"Do you always work during meals?"

"Do you always state the obvious?"

"Only when I'm eating with someone who has the emotional range of a parking meter."

His phone lowered. Something cracked behind those dark eyes.

"You're not what I expected," he said.

"What did you expect?"

"Someone performing gratitude. Someone careful." His gaze held mine across the candlelight. "You're not performing anything."

"Is that a compliment?"

"An observation." He set down his phone — a concession that felt seismic. "Tell me something that isn't in the file."

The truth clawed at my throat. I'm pregnant. I'm terrified. I'm pretending. I swallowed it.

"I can identify any classical piece within the first four bars."

His eyebrow rose. "Prove it."

He pulled up a recording. Four notes: "Chopin. Ballade No. 1."

Another: "Debussy. Clair de Lune."

Another: "Rachmaninoff. Second Concerto, third movement."

He stared at me with undisguised fascination. "How?"

"My mother was a pianist. She played constantly. Before she got sick."

Something shifted in his expression — recognition. One grieving person seeing another.

Then my stomach turned. Not butterflies. The violent, merciless roll of morning sickness that respected no timeline and no dignity.

I stood. "Excuse me—"

I barely made it to the guest bathroom. When I finally straightened, shaking, splashing cold water on my face, I looked up into the mirror.

Ethan was standing in the doorway. Arms crossed. Eyes black and unreadable.