CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: CRAVINGS AND COMPLICATIONS
MAYA
Pregnancy was a lot of things.
Beautiful? Sometimes. Terrifying? Always. Unexpected? Definitely. And suddenly I was no longer just a girlfriend, a woman, or even a writer,I was someone's entire universe in the making.
The morning sickness hit hard. So did the cravings.
"Why do you want frozen pickles at 2am?" Damian asked, blinking as I dragged him out of bed.
"Because they're calling to me," I replied seriously.
He groaned. "We live in a gated estate. In a thunderstorm."
"And yet," I said, pointing to the car keys, "you are still going."
He went. Of course he did.
DAMIAN
There's something humbling about watching the woman you love fall asleep with your hoodie bunched under her belly, mid-chew of peanut butter and crackers.
She'd taken over my world.
And yet, the world outside hadn't slowed down for us.
There were board meetings waiting. Press digging around. Shareholders worrying about my 'absence' from public view.
I knew I had to step back into my world. The empire didn't run itself. But walking away from Maya even for a few hours felt like abandoning something sacred.
"Go," she said one morning, catching me stalling. "You're not running away. You're just running things."
I kissed her forehead. "Call me if the baby wants sushi or if you want to punch me."
She smirked. "Same number for both."
MAYA
While he went back to being the sharpest CEO the media had ever envied, I tried to write.
Tried.
But every word I typed felt foreign. I wasn't the same Maya. Not anymore.
So I did what I always did when the world spun too fast: I called Lola.
"You're nesting," she declared after five minutes of rambling.
"I'm barely pregnant."
"You're still Maya. You nest with metaphors. Some women fold baby clothes. You reorganize your plot arcs and cry over tea mugs."
She wasn't wrong.
DAMIAN
Work was brutal.
The vultures smelled blood whispers of weakness, rumors of injury, questions about whether I was still the man who made billion-dollar decisions in seconds.
I shut them down with one boardroom speech.
But the cost was energy. Mental bandwidth. Time.
And time away from her.
One evening, I came home late. The lights were low. The air smelled like lavender and cinnamon toast.
I walked in to find her asleep on the couch, one hand over her belly, the other holding the book I'd written a blurb for years ago.
And in that moment, I knew: this was the only empire that truly mattered.
MAYA
He tried to hide how tired he was. How the strain weighed on him.
But I saw it.
He'd fall asleep in odd places the chair, the tub, halfway through folding laundry (which he never actually finished).
So I planned a distraction.
"Pack a bag," I told him one Thursday.
"For?"
"Somewhere without phones. Or meetings. Or protein powder."
He grinned. "Does it have indoor plumbing?"
"Even better it has pancakes and a fireplace."
We drove to a lakeside cabin that weekend.
Just us. Stars overhead. Baby between us. A playlist of jazz, soft laughter, and stolen kisses.
And for the first time in weeks, everything was still.
He rubbed my back as I fell asleep and whispered, "You're my miracle, Maya."
And I believed him.
Because sometimes, love isn't loud or dramatic or perfect.
Sometimes, it's just two flawed people choosing each other again and again.
Even when the world tries to pull them apart.