The CEO's Midnight Remedy novel Chapter 408

ine CEO’s Midnight Remedy

Chapter 408

Aria’s POV

As autumn deepened into early winter, I settled into a routine that felt almost… normal.

Morning sickness, unfortunately, was not a myth. Most days I woke up nauseous, and more than once I barely made it to the bathroom in time. But Devon, in a show of attentiveness that would have seemed impossible six months ago, developed an uncanny ability to predict my nausea attacks.

He’d appear with ginger tea and saltine crackers before I even knew I needed them. He’d hold my hair back when the tea didn’t work. He’d run a cool cloth over my face afterward and murmur reassurances that I absolutely did not look as green as I felt.

“How are you so good at this?” I asked one particularly rough morning, after he’d just prevented me from face–planting on the bathroom

tile.

“Practice,” he said simply, helping me back to bed.

“Practice?” I raised an eyebrow. “Been secretly nursing pregnant women on the side?”

“Evelyn.” His expression shuttered slightly. “After the fire. She had medication that made her nauseous. I learned to read the signs.”

Oh. Right. His sister. The ghost that haunted him, the guilt he carried like a second skin.

I took his hand, threading our fingers together. “She’s lucky to have you.”

“I’m the reason she needs me,” he said flatly.

“Devon-

“Don’t.” He cut me off, but gently. “I know what you’re going to say. That it wasn’t my fault, that I was just a kid, that Connor’s the one who started the fire. But I was there. I could have gotten her out faster, done something different, been less of a coward-

“You were fifteen years old,” I said firmly. “And you pulled your sister out of a burning building. That’s not cowardice. That’s heroism.”

He didn’t look convinced. But he also didn’t pull away. He just sat there on the edge of the bed, my hand in his, staring at nothing

“The baby’s going to ask about her,” I said after a moment. “About Aunt Evelyn. What are you going to tell them?

His jaw worked. “The truth. That their aunt is the bravest person I know. That she survived something that would have broken most people. That she’s…” He paused, swallowing hard. “That she’s proof that you can come back from the worst thing that’s ever happened to you. Even if you’re never quite the same.”

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18:07 Wed, Jan 21

Chapter 408

I pulled him down to lie beside me, his head on my still–flat stomach, one hand splayed protectively over

“You’re going to be a good father,” I said softly.

“You don’t know that.”

was growing.

“I do.” I ran my fingers through his dark hair. “Because you care enough to be terrified of screwing it up. Bad fathers don’t worry about being bad fathers.”

He huffed something that might have been a laugh. “Is that the bar? ‘Marginally better than complete indifference‘?”

“It’s a start.”

We lay there for a while, quiet and content. Outside the windows, the city hummed with its usual chaos. But in our bedroom, with early morning light filtering through the curtains and Devon’s warmth pressed against me, everything felt…

Peaceful. For the first time in longer than I could remember, I felt genuinely at peace.

Of course, it couldn’t last.

“Aria.” Devon’s voice had gone tense. “Your phone’s ringing. Unknown number.”

I groaned, rolling over to grab it from the nightstand. “If it’s another reporter asking for a statement about my father, I’m going to lose it.”

But it wasn’t a reporter. It was David White, my lawyer.

“Aria,” he said without preamble. “Are you sitting down?”

My stomach dropped. “What happened?”

“Victoria Harper was found unresponsive in her cell this morning. The medical examiner suspects she ingested something–poison, most likely. She’s in critical condition but they don’t expect her to make it through the day.”