Her body was the body of a woman who had used it as a working instrument for years.
And it carried the evidence of that.
For a brief moment she considered the word humiliation.
It surfaced in her mind quietly.
She did not say it aloud.
Humiliation was a response she could not afford.
What mattered was continuing to exist.
For now, that was the only objective.
She turned back around.
And began to move.
The pole was cool beneath her palms, a familiar surface, a point of reference in a room that otherwise belonged entirely to him.
Her body found the rhythm through habit rather than thought.
She moved across the pole slowly, turning and lowering herself with the controlled precision that had taken years to learn.
Her muscles remembered the balance, the timing, the small adjustments that made the movement appear effortless.
For several moments she remained within the circle of light.
Then she stepped away from the platform.
And walked toward him.
Santiago sat in the single chair with the effortless composure of a man who had never questioned his right to occupy any space he entered.
His eyes followed her.
Slowly.
Carefully.
She felt the weight of that attention as something almost physical.
When she reached him, she lowered herself onto his lap.
Not hurried.
Not hesitant,
Simply the final movement in a performance she had already committed to completing.
And she waited.
The contact registered immediately.
The fabric of his trousers against her bare thighs.
The warmth of his body meeting hers.
Then, without any deliberate intention she could detect, his hand moved to her stomach.
Only two months along, the change was still subtle. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
Barely visible to anyone who did not already know it was there.
But he noticed.
Something in the curve of her body, or perhaps simply instinct, caused his palm to press flat against her skin.
She forced herself not to move away from the contact.
Instead she shifted, rising slowly from his lap.
She stepped behind the chair.
Her hands found his shoulders first, light but deliberate.
They moved down his arms, then returned upward to the back of his neck.
She pressed herself lightly against his back and allowed her hands to slide forward across his chest, feeling the steady, even rhythm of his heartbeat beneath the fabric of his shirt.
She breathed near the side of his face.
Warm.
Quiet.
She did not speak.
Her hands continued their slow exploration, across his shoulders, down the firm plane of his chest, following the lines of his body as she registered things she had not noticed before.
He was physically fit.
More than she had expected.
Her hand passed near his wrist and she noticed the watch there.
The kind of object that cost more than everything her family had owned across several generations combined.
The shoes on his feet represented two, perhaps three years of her income.
She noticed all of it.
And kept moving.
The steady rhythm of his heart did not change.
Not when her hands traced the surface of his chest.
Not when she leaned closer against his back.
Not when her face came close enough to his that she could feel the warmth radiating from his skin.
He was entirely in control of himself.
And she realized she resented it.
The resentment rose quietly, sharp and immediate, a feeling she had no right to indulge.
But she could not afford resentment.
Resentment was another luxury she did not possess.
Thirty-six, she thought.
Perhaps thirty-eight at most.
Younger than she had first assumed in the shock of the sitting room.
The kind of man whose face carried the weight of the life he had lived rather than the passage of years alone.
“Face me.”
His voice was quiet.
Absolute.
She moved around the chair and stood before him, directly inside the circle of light.
The mirrors surrounding the room reflected her from every direction simultaneously.
She could see herself from the side.
From behind.
From angles she had never seen before.
There was no direction from which she was hidden.
He looked at her properly now.
His gaze began at her face.
For the briefest moment she thought his eyes paused there, registering the fear she had not entirely managed to erase.
Then his gaze moved downward.
Unhurried.
Taking in everything.
Before rising slowly back to her face.
“Turn around.”
She obeyed.
She faced the mirrors.
And watched his reflection watching her.
“You are pregnant,” he said.
It was not a question.
“Yes.”
“How far along?”
“Two months.”
Silence followed.
She could feel his attention on her back, on the line of her spine, on the slight curve she had not yet learned to conceal.
Whose child is it?”