Chapter 292
Aria’s POV
Devon led me down the hallway, past the primary bedroom and his study, to a door that had always been closed when I'd stayed here before. His hand hovered over the doorknob for a heartbeat, and I saw the tension in his shoulders, the way he was bracing himself for my reaction.
Then he opened the door.
I gasped.
The room had been completely transformed. What I vaguely remembered as a generic guest room with stark white walls and minimal furniture was now... a nursery.
The walls had been painted a soft, buttery yellow—warm but not overwhelming, gender-neutral but undeniably cheerful. A white crib stood against the far wall, already assembled and dressed in simple gray linens. A changing table, a dresser, a plush rug in muted geometric patterns. And by the window, a comfortable rocking chair with a small side table, positioned to catch the morning light.
"I had it done while you were at the loft packing," Devon said from behind me, his voice carefully neutral. "If you don't like the color, we can—"
"It's perfect," I breathed, stepping into the room. "Devon, when did you—"
"After the board meeting." He moved to stand beside me, his gaze fixed on the crib. "When I realized you were really going to keep the baby. Our baby. I wanted..." He paused, seeming to struggle for words. "I wanted you to come home to a space that was ready. That showed you I'm serious about this. About us. About being a father."
I turned to look at him fully. In the warm yellow light of the nursery, he looked younger somehow, less like the ruthless businessman who'd crushed my father's empire and more like the man who'd held me through nightmares, who'd fought his own family to protect me, who'd stood beside me in a hospital and promised to be my partner in all things.
"You consulted with a pediatrician?" I asked, remembering what he'd said about the wall color.
A faint smile tugged at his lips. "And two interior designers. And read about forty articles on optimal nursery environments. The pediatrician recommended yellow for emotional development and circadian rhythm support. Something about warm colors promoting better sleep patterns in infants."
"You researched infant sleep patterns."
"I researched everything." His expression turned serious. "Aria, I know this pregnancy wasn't planned. I know we're doing everything backwards—marriage before love, babies before we've even figured out what we are to each other. But I'm not going to half-ass fatherhood. If we're doing this, we're doing it right."
The words should have felt suffocating. They should have triggered every defense mechanism I'd built up over years of my father's conditional love and Ethan's empty promises. But instead, they felt like... relief.
"I'm scared," I admitted quietly.
"Good. So am I." He turned to face me fully, and I saw the fear reflected in his gray eyes. "I'm terrified I'll screw this up. That I'll turn into my father, cold and controlling and caring more about the Kane legacy than the actual human beings carrying it forward." His hand moved to my still-flat stomach, hovering there with something like reverence. "But I'm more scared of losing you. Of losing this chance. So I'm going to try, Aria. I'm going to try so fucking hard to be the kind of man—the kind of father—that you and this baby deserve."
The tears came before I could stop them. I leaned into him, letting him wrap his arms around me, feeling the steady beat of his heart against my cheek.
"We're a mess," I said against his chest.
"Yeah," he agreed, and I could hear the smile in his voice. "But we're a mess together. That has to count for something."
I pulled back to look up at him, this complicated man who'd bought me like a business transaction and somehow become the only person I trusted completely.
"Thank you," I said simply.
"For what?"
"For this." I gestured at the nursery, at the photographs in the living room, at the life he was trying to build for us. "For trying. For caring. For... for being you."
He cupped my face in his hands, his thumbs brushing away the tears still sliding down my cheeks. "I told you before—your war is my war. That includes the war of figuring out how to be a family." His lips quirked. "Even if neither of us has a fucking clue what we're doing."
I laughed despite myself, the sound watery but genuine. "We're going to be terrible at this."
"Probably." He kissed my forehead, then my cheeks where the tears had been, then finally my lips—soft and sweet and full of unspoken promises. "But we'll be terrible at it together."
Three days later, I stood in the marble lobby of the New York County Criminal Court, my hand clasped in Devon's, waiting to be called as a witness in The People v. William Harper and Victoria Ross Harper.
The prosecution was charging both with first-degree murder in the death of Elizabeth Harper—my mother.
I'd thought I was prepared for this. I'd reviewed the evidence with David White, our lawyer, at least a dozen times. I knew what questions would be asked, what answers I needed to give. I understood, intellectually, that this was necessary. That justice demanded its performance, its rituals, its slow grinding of the truth into something legally actionable.
But understanding it and living through it were two very different things.
"You okay?" Devon asked quietly, his thumb stroking the back of my hand.
"Ask me in three hours," I said, watching the media circus outside through the courthouse windows. Camera crews and reporters jockeyed for position on the steps, their voices a dull roar even through the thick glass.
My father's arrest had been national news. The scion of a respected media empire, revealed as a murderer who'd slowly poisoned his first wife to make way for his mistress. The tabloids had called it "The Arsenic Bride" case, because apparently even tragedy needed a catchy nickname in the age of clickbait journalism.
Victoria's involvement had only made it juicier. The social-climbing second wife, the scheming public relations executive who'd wormed her way into the Harper household as a trusted employee before seducing my father. The daughter she'd planted in my father's life like a cuckoo in another bird's nest.
And Scarlett. Poor, pathetic Scarlett, arrested as an accessory after the fact, charged with trafficking and knowing conspiracy to conceal a felony. The baby of the family, Victoria's golden child, now facing years in federal prison.
The media loved it. The public ate it up. And I... I just wanted it to be over.
"Miss Harper?" A bailiff appeared in the doorway. "The prosecution is ready for you."
Devon's hand tightened on mine. "I'll be right there," he said. "Second row, directly behind you. If you need to look away from them, look at me."