Aria watched the numbers descend on the elevator, wishing she could blurt out her secret to one of the strangers standing next to her.

She scanned them surreptitiously, wondering which one she would choose.

The guy in bike shorts and a helmet, probably a messenger, given the clipboard in his hand?

The young woman in a crisp skirt and jacket, studiously tapping at her phone?

The older gentleman in a fedora with a faraway gaze?

The elevator dinged as they reached the ground floor, the doors sliding open. A moment later, she exited with everyone else, joining the throng passing through the spacious marble lobby.

It didn’t matter. There was only one person she wanted to tell anyway.

It was warmer than usual outside, spring a promise whispered on the breeze. She put her hands in her coat pockets, touching the slip of paper inside as she joined the crowd hurrying over the pavement in Midtown Manhattan. She’d only walked a few steps before she spotted the SUV that was part of her new security detail.

The driver — a man named Enzo — jumped out of the car.

“Actually, Enzo, I’m going to walk for a bit, stretch my legs,” she said before he could open the door.

He scowled and she could almost see the wheels turning in his brain, could almost hear him reliving a conversation in which Damian told him, in no uncertain terms, that he was not to leave Aria alone for even a minute in the city.

“You can follow me if you like,” she said. “Or you can have Andre tail me if you need to stay with the car.”

She bent down a little to wave at the man in the passenger seat.

“I won’t be long.”

She smiled at Enzo and started walking, not wanting to give him time to argue. If she was going to agree to the detail, they would work not just for Damian, but for her. She appreciated their protection, especially while Malcolm was still on the loose, but she wouldn’t have her movements limited because she didn’t want to inconvenience them.

She headed down the street, knowing Enzo and Andre were probably scrambling to follow her and forcing herself not to feel guilty. She didn’t check to make sure they were there.

They were there.

Damian wouldn’t have entrusted her safety to men incapable of trailing a woman walking at a normal pace though the streets of the city.

She hadn’t realized she was heading for Greenacre Park until she got there. A tiny green space nestled between Midtown’s skyscrapers, the park was like a hidden cove in the middle of the metropolis. A waterfall gurgled down a series of stone steps, and the gardens were already beginning to come to life. Several people sat at the bistro tables near the water, some of them reading, others chatting or sitting quietly.

She took a seat at one of the empty tables near the water and removed the slip of paper from her pocket.

Their baby looked like a little peanut, although she could clearly make out the sphere of its head, the tapered body and tiny limbs. She could hardly breathe looking at it, could hardly move knowing it was growing inside her.

She’d put off going to the doctor because she hadn’t known how to do it in secret without any money. Her credit cards — the ones paid for by Primo — had been canceled long ago, and she didn’t have any other money.

Then Damian had told her about the money distributed in various accounts, an insurance policy for her independence and her future. She almost hadn’t heard the rest — that he was talking to his lawyer about having her named the beneficiary of every asset he owned.

She didn’t want to think about Damian not being with her, and anyway, it was the gift of independence that was the most staggering of all.

Primo would never have dreamed of giving her a private account. He’d been generous with money, rarely questioning her about her purchases, but she’d known he had access to them, had known he looked at the credit card and bank statements.

It meant nothing was really private. She’d thought about it even when she’d purchased personal items, trying to hide them in the midst of other large purchases at the grocery or drugstore for no other reason than that she was trying to hold apart some small part of herself.

Now she had access to money — and a lot of it — with no strings attached. Damian had even instructed her to change the passwords and PINS. She hadn’t done it, but the fact that he’d so openly suggested she do it spoke volumes about his faith in her, in the love they shared.

She’d made a doctor’s appointment the next day.

She’d been careful since she found out about the pregnancy, taking vitamins, avoiding alcohol and high-mercury fish, anything the online articles said might pose a danger for the baby. She’d gotten as much sleep as possible, had treated her body like the sacred vessel it had become in her mind.

Still, she’d been nervous. She hadn’t had a sonogram or any kind of examination since discovering the pregnancy. What if she’d made a mistake? What if something was wrong with the baby?

But everything had been perfect, the baby’s heart beat like a runaway train inside her stomach, not the thump she’d expected, but a choo-choo-choo sound shown as a flash on the ultrasound screen.

She’d had to hold back tears as the doctor, a direct but warm woman with black hair and gray eyes, pointed out the various parts of the baby’s anatomy. The doctor said everything looked fine, and Aria had left with a prescription for prenatal vitamins and iron, and an appointment for the following month.

Guilt had warred with euphoria as she’d gotten dressed and left the building.

She needed to tell Damian. She was robbing him of these early months of her pregnancy, of the chance to see their child and hear his or her heartbeat, to share in her excitement.

And she was doing it for selfish reasons. To protect her own desire to see Malcolm die.

She hadn’t exactly been thinking clearly these past few weeks. She’d buried her grief about Primo under layers of logic and the determination to kill Stefano and Anastos.

But it didn’t matter that Primo had deserved what happened to him — that he’d brought it on himself in spite of having more than one opportunity to get out alive.

He’d been her brother. Losing him hurt.

No amount of reason or rage would change that. Hiding her pregnancy from Damian didn’t change it either. Even being in Greece when Damian killed Anastos hadn’t changed it.

She didn’t want her relationship with Damian to be built on lies or omissions. Didn’t want to hide from him the way she’d been forced to hide from Primo.

They had to be themselves with each other, come what may.

That was their bargain.

She heard Nora on the beach when they’d talked about Braden and Damian.

Sometimes I push to get my way, sometimes he pushes back. We always work it out.

Aria had admired Nora so much for her bravery, had recognized her own cowardice in the shadow of Nora’s words. While Nora had opted to be honest — even if it meant a fight — Aria had hid, hanging on to her rage, her desperation to exact revenge on Stefano Anastos and Malcolm. In a way, she’d put those things above Damian.

She owed him an apology for that, owed him the truth.

She looked down at the picture in her hand before slipping it back in her pocket. The sky had darkened while she’d been sitting, and she was suddenly anxious to get home to Damian. To have dinner and look at him across the little kitchen table, to fall asleep against him in the study.

To tell him everything.

She picked up her pace as she headed for the park’s exit, smiling at Andre when she saw him leaning against a tree marking its entrance.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, “ she said to him. “I’m ready to go home now.”