The Alpha Captain Gave My Home to His First Love

My fingers went numb as I unhooked the silver wolf-and-moon mobile from the nursery ceiling.

Carter had installed it six months ago, after we started trying for a baby in earnest. He had stood on a step ladder for forty minutes, refusing to let me help because he wanted the first thing our child saw to be something he built himself.

Now two delivery men carried a stationary bike through the doorway while a third rolled in a set of parallel bars.

Three cardboard boxes marked SIENNA - TROPHIES followed them.

"We can donate the crib," Carter said from the hall. "If we need one later, we'll buy another."

I turned slowly. "Donate it?"

"It takes up too much floor space."

"It arrived two weeks ago. You spent an entire Saturday assembling it."

"And right now Sienna needs room to rehabilitate."

I lowered the mobile into a packing box containing unopened baby blankets, prenatal vitamins, and the nutrition notes I had started the morning my test turned positive.

"The basement gym has more space than this room."

"The stairs are a fall risk," he repeated.

"Then use the downstairs office."

"The team physio needs access to the equipment closet next door. Lena, stop making every practical decision emotional."

He gestured to the delivery men. They lifted the crib and carried it into the hallway.

One of the wooden rails scraped the doorframe.

The sound made something inside me flinch.

Sienna appeared behind Carter with her crutches tucked beneath her arms. "Please don't get rid of it because of me. Put it in storage."

"We don't need to decide today," Carter said, softening immediately. "I'll have it taken apart and wrapped."

I almost laughed. He could find gentleness after the decision, never before it.

Before the delivery crew left, one man asked where to send the crib. Carter answered "storage" without looking at me. I took the inventory tag from the worker and wrote my own name across the owner line. Whatever happened to this room, the things we bought for a child were not becoming team property simply because Carter had changed its purpose.

"I'll handle my things," I said.

I carried the box to the guest suite and slid it beneath the desk. My tote bag sat on the chair beside it, the positive test buried in the inner pocket where I had hidden it after our anniversary collapsed.

When I returned, Sienna was seated on the nursery window bench while a physical therapist adjusted her brace. Carter stood beside the parallel bars, discussing recovery targets as if the room had always belonged to her.

The silver-and-white wall paint Carter chose for a baby now framed Sienna's skating medals.

"Try ten steps," the therapist instructed.

Sienna gripped the bars and pushed herself upright. She made it three before her injured leg buckled.

Carter caught her around the waist.

"Easy," he said. "I've got you."

I looked away.

After the therapist left, I went downstairs to make dinner. Carter had a team meeting, and Sienna's medication schedule was taped to the refrigerator beside my canceled anniversary reservation.

At eight, she entered the kitchen without her crutches, using the counter for support.

"Naomi wants me to take the anti-inflammatory with food," she said. "Do you know where Carter put the crackers?"

"Second cabinet."

She opened it, then winced when she reached up.

I took the box down and set it beside her.

"Thank you." Her gaze dropped to my left hand. "No ring tonight?"

I looked down. I had removed my wedding band while kneading dough and forgotten to put it back on.

"I'm cooking."

"Of course."

Her tone was harmless. Too harmless.

She reached into the pocket of her robe and pulled out an amber prescription bottle. "Could you open this? The childproof cap is impossible with my wrist like this."

I stared at the bottle.

"Ask Carter."

"He's at the arena." She tried the cap and hissed, letting it slip against the counter. "Never mind. I'll wait."

The responsible answer would have been to walk away.

Instead, I picked it up, pressed down, and twisted.

The cap clicked free.

"There."

I handed it back without touching the pills.

Sienna watched my fingers for half a second too long.

Then she smiled. "You're kinder than you think you are, Lena."

"Don't turn opening a bottle into a personality assessment."

I wiped my hands and returned to the dough.

My phone rang in the guest room. I left the kitchen to answer a call from the university admissions office about the sports nutrition program I had postponed four years earlier. The conversation lasted twelve minutes.

When I came back, Sienna was gone.

So was my tote bag from the chair by the guest-room desk.

I found it ten minutes later on the hallway console, zipped closed.

"Did you move this?" I asked the nearest housekeeper.

The zipper pull sat on the opposite side from where I always left it. My wallet was upside down, and the paper sleeve around the pregnancy test had been crushed. Nothing appeared missing, but someone had searched more than the initials on the outside of the bag.

"Miss Sienna asked me to bring it out because she thought it was hers," the woman said. "I realized the initials were yours and left it there."

I opened the bag. My wallet and keys were inside. I touched the inner pocket and felt the pregnancy test beneath the lining.

Still there.

I told myself I was being paranoid.

At midnight, Carter had not returned from the arena. I woke to a crash upstairs.

Sienna sat on the master-bedroom floor beside the bed, one hand gripping her stomach. The amber bottle lay open near her knee.

"I feel wrong," she whispered.

I grabbed the bottle and checked the label. "How many did you take?"

"Two. The normal dose."

Her skin was clammy.

I called the team clinic while Carter raced home.

By the time the ambulance arrived, Sienna was barely conscious.

A paramedic sealed the prescription bottle in a clear evidence bag. Before he carried it away, he asked who had last opened it.

Sienna's lashes fluttered.

Her eyes found mine.

"Lena did," she whispered.