I heard Lila before I saw her.
The penthouse intercom buzzed at two in the afternoon like someone was trying to break it. Thirty seconds later the elevator doors flew open and a blur of purple hair and combat boots launched across the marble straight at me.
"NORA ELEANOR HART, YOU ABSOLUTE MENACE!"
Lila Moreau tackled me into the couch so hard we almost toppled over the back. She smelled like vanilla cigarettes and the same cheap peach perfume she'd worn since we were nineteen. I squeaked, half-laughing, half-crying, and she squeezed me so tight my ribs protested.
When she finally let go she held me at arm's length, green eyes narrowed.
"You ghosted me for twelve days, got knocked up by a billionaire, moved into a palace in the sky, and all I get is one cryptic text that says 'I'm fine, talk soon'?" She flicked my forehead. "I should kill you. I brought wine and murder plans."
Theo appeared in the doorway, arms folded, expression somewhere between wary and murderous. He had clearly been briefed about Lila's existence, but briefings were not the same as experiencing Hurricane Lila in real time.
Lila turned, sized him up in one sweeping glance (six-four, barefoot, black sweatpants riding low, still damp from the shower), and whistled.
"So you're the sperm donor with the magic penis." She stuck out her hand. "Lila Moreau. Best friend, chaos agent, professional cock-block when required."
Theo blinked once. Then, to my eternal shock, he shook her hand.
"Theodore Valadier. Father of the child, owner of the aforementioned penis, and currently trying to keep Nora alive and uneaten by paparazzi." His voice stayed perfectly level. "You're early."
"I'm always early when my soulmate disappears into a skyscraper with a man who looks like a Bond villain who does yoga." She dropped onto the couch and patted the cushion beside her. "Sit, Nora. We're doing the interrogation now."
Theo opened his mouth (probably to throw her out), but I grabbed his wrist.
"She stays," I said softly. "She's the only person who's never left me."
Something flickered across his face, raw and aching. He nodded once and disappeared toward his office, but not before I saw the way his hand brushed my hip, protective, possessive, reassuring.
Lila watched him go, then turned back to me with raised brows.
"Okay, he's terrifyingly hot and clearly obsessed. Explain."
So I did.
I told her everything: the bar, the begging, the black AmEx, the two pink lines, the night I almost ran, the way he fell to his knees in my shitty apartment and begged me to stay.
By the time I finished we were both crying.
Lila wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her oversized Ramones shirt.
"You know why this scares the shit out of you, right?" she asked quietly.
I looked out the window at the city far below and nodded.
"Because everyone leaves," I whispered. "Mom left. Every foster family left. Even you went to Paris for two years and I thought—"
"I came back," she cut in fiercely. "I never left you, Nora. Distance isn't leaving. And I'm here now."
She reached for my hand and placed it on her chest, right over her heart.
"Feel that? Still beating for you, bitch. Always will."
I laughed through the tears.
She studied me for a long moment.
"You're waiting for the other shoe to drop," she said. "Waiting for him to wake up and realize you're just the girl from the bar who got pregnant. But babe… that man looked at you like you hung the moon and then built the sky around it so no one else could touch it."
I swallowed hard.
"I'm scared if I believe this is real, it'll hurt more when it ends."
Lila pulled me into her lap like we were still broke college kids sharing a twin bed.
"Then let me be the one who reminds you: I see you every day. I will notice if he stops looking at you like you're oxygen. And if he ever, ever makes you feel small, I will burn this penthouse down with him in it. Okay?"
I nodded against her shoulder.
She kissed the top of my head.
"Now show me the nursery he's apparently already building, because I need to make sure it has adequate space for the stripper pole I'm installing when you're not looking."
I snorted. "He'll have a stroke."
"Excellent. I like my billionaires lightly seasoned with panic."
We spent the afternoon sprawled on the nursery floor (currently empty except for a single white crib that probably cost more than my old car) eating Thai food straight from the containers and arguing about whether babies could be goth.
Theo found us at seven, covered in curry and surrounded by baby-name printouts Lila had stolen from his printer.
He took one look at the chaos, sighed like a man whose entire world had tilted permanently off its axis, and sat down on the floor with us.
Lila handed him a carton of pad thai without asking.
He ate it.
I fell a little more in love right there.
When Lila finally left at midnight, promising to return tomorrow with inappropriate onesies, Theo closed the door behind her and leaned against it.
"Your friend is a national security risk," he said.
I walked into his arms.
"She's my sister in every way that matters," I told his chest. "And she just gave me permission to stop waiting for you to leave."
He went very still.
"I'm not leaving, Nora." His voice cracked. "I'm terrified every single day that you'll decide I'm not enough and you'll take our baby and walk out that door. But I will spend the rest of my life proving I'm worth staying for."
I tipped my head back and looked at him, really looked: the faint shadows under his eyes, the way his hands trembled just slightly against my back, the raw, naked fear he only ever let me see.
I rose on my toes and kissed him slow.
"Then take me to bed," I whispered. "And fill me until I can't remember what empty ever felt like."
He carried me there without another word.
That night he made love to me like a man proving a theorem: slow, deliberate, relentless. When he finally came, buried deep, forehead pressed to mine, he whispered against my lips, "You are my home."
And for the first time in twenty-nine years, I believed someone when they said it.