The silence lasted exactly two seconds.
That was all the time Mira needed to locate her voice, and Avriana needed to locate her composure, and both of them needed to look at the man standing at the foot of the bed and understand, with full, unambiguous clarity, what he had just said.
"What," Mira said, "do you mean by that?"
Not a question. The flat, precise delivery of a woman who had heard the words perfectly and was giving him exactly one opportunity to mean something else by them. Her dark hair fell around her shoulders, the sheet still pooled at her waist, both hands flat against the mattress behind her — the posture of a woman who was pregnant, half-undressed, in a hotel room with a stranger suddenly present, and was managing all of that with a specific, controlled fury that was impressive under the circumstances.
Avriana had not found words yet.
