FIE @foreverisntenough - Tumblr Blog

‘Simmer’

Summary: Provence had held them in warmth and anonymity, in a season where love could burn without consequence. Coming home changed that. Paris asked different things; endurance, visibility, a life that continued even when one of them had to leave. What they brought back with them was real. What they hadn’t built yet was a way to live inside it.

Love stayed, but it had to stretch around loss, around absence, around a world that watched too closely and named things it didn’t understand. Your career no longer waited quietly in the background. His didn’t slow. Care became something negotiated. Privacy something rationed.This wasn’t about whether love survived. It was about what love cost when it did. Simmer lived in the low heat of returning; of learning whether what began as a summer fire could endure the pressure of real life, or whether, slowly and inevitably, it would boil over.

[Kylian Mbappé x Reader]

Fashion Index: For all Y/N's looks! No more bad links!

Index:

Warnings: This series is 18+ MDNI [ smut, drinking , mentions of pregnancy, breeding kink (sort of) - not sure what else really atm… if i miss anything please lmk!]

Chapitre 18- 'Nothings’ | 'Simmer'

word count - 17.5k

The apartment didn’t feel closed in until you tried to leave it. Before that, it had held you, softened things, slowed the edges of everything down until it almost felt like choice, like you were staying because you wanted to, because it was easier, because you liked the quiet of it, the way mornings stretched, the way he stayed closer now, the way the world sat just beyond the glass instead of inside your chest. But this afternoon, something in you shifted. Not dramatic. Just… restless. You felt it in your body first, the need to stand, to move, to put your shoes on and feel something other than carpet and polished floors beneath your feet, your hand still resting low without thinking, but your gaze already drifting toward the door.

“I want to go out,” you said. It came out softer than it felt. He was in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, scrolling through something he wasn’t really reading, his attention lifting immediately when you spoke. A pause. Then, carefully:

“Où, bébé?” You shrugged slightly, already moving, already reaching for your things.

“I don’t know. Just… outside. A walk, maybe. Just air.” Normal. You wanted something that felt normal. He watched you cross the room, the way you moved now, slower, more deliberate, the way your body carried itself differently, and something in his expression shifted, not resistance, not quite, just… calculation.

“Ma petite flamme.” He sighed.

“I’m fine,” you cut in gently, not sharp, just preemptive, like you already knew what he was going to say. “I can’t stay in here all day.” That landed. He pushed off the counter slowly, coming toward you, not stopping you, not yet, just… closer.

“I know,” he said quietly. And you believed him. That was the problem. He wasn’t trying to control you. He understood. Which made pushing against it feel worse.

“I just want to walk,” you added, softer now, almost convincing yourself as much as him. A small café. A street you’d walked a hundred times. Nothing dramatic. He nodded once. Slow.

“D’accord.” Relief moved through you faster than you expected, your shoulders easing slightly as you slipped your coat on, your fingers fumbling slightly with the sleeve before finding it, your body already leaning toward the door. He reached for his keys. His phone. A quick message sent without you noticing.

Then he was beside you. Close. Always close now.

—

[2515 - Wasia Project]

The hallway felt normal. The elevator felt normal. For a moment, it almost worked. You stood side by side, your reflection catching briefly in the mirrored walls, your body curved in a way that still startled you when you saw it unexpectedly, his hand resting low at your back, not guiding, just… there. The doors opened. And the world rushed in. Not loud. Not chaotic. Just… waiting. You felt it immediately, before you saw anything clearly, the shift in the air, the subtle tightening of space, the way attention gathered too quickly, too precisely. Then the first voice.

“Kiki…” Not shouted. Recognizing because they’d been waiting for him. Then another. And another. Your name, half certain, half testing. The first camera lifted. Then another. Not a crowd. Not yet. But enough.Enough that your body reacted before your mind caught up, your hand tightening instinctively against his jacket, your steps slowing without you meaning to.

“D’accord,” he said quietly. Not to them. To you. He didn’t want to do this… but for you. His hand moved instantly, more firmly now at your back, shifting your position slightly behind him without making it obvious, his body angling just enough to absorb the space between you and the street.

“Walk, mon cœur.” He said just as quiet. You nodded. Tried. But your breath had already changed, shorter now, tighter, your eyes dropping instinctively, the awareness of being seen settling uncomfortably across your skin. More cameras. More movement. Someone stepped closer than they should have. A question thrown.

“Is it true…” You didn’t hear the rest. Your hand came up automatically, shielding without thinking, your body turning slightly inward, away from it, away from all of it. He felt it immediately. The shift in you. The tension.

“Non,” he said, sharper now, not to you, to the space around you, his arm tightening more decisively around you, pulling you closer into him, his hand pressing low against your back, protective in a way that wasn’t subtle anymore. “On rentre. Not doing this.” You blinked.

“Bébé, mais…”

“Non.” It wasn’t harsh. It was final. You felt it in the way his body moved before you could argue, turning you smoothly, already guiding you back toward the entrance, his hand firm, steady, not rushing but not leaving space for negotiation either. Your chest tightened. Frustration rising too quickly, too sharply.

“It’s a few people,” you said under your breath, your steps forced now, your body resisting even as it followed. “We can just…”

“Bébé.” Your name stopped in his mouth. Your body stilled. He turned to you properly then, inside the doorway, the noise still behind you, the cameras still catching what they could through the glass. His hands came up to your face immediately. Both of them. Grounding.

“You’re shaking,” he said quietly. You hadn’t noticed. But now that he said it, you felt it. Your breath uneven. Your fingers still curled too tightly into his jacket. Your body not as steady as you had told yourself it was.

“I’m fine,” you insisted softly. But it didn’t land. Not even to you. His thumb brushed your cheek once, slower now, his eyes moving over your face, then lower, then back again, checking both of you in one glance without making it obvious.

“I know you want to go out,” he said, voice low, controlled, not dismissing you. “I know.” That made it worse. Because he wasn’t arguing. He was understanding. “But not like this,” he added quietly. The words settled. Heavy. Final. You exhaled slowly, your shoulders dropping just slightly, not because you agreed fully, but because something in your body had already made the decision for you. You leaned into him. Just a little. Your forehead brushing his chest.

“I hate this,” you murmured. His hand moved immediately, smoothing slowly down your back.

“I know.” Another camera flashed outside. Closer now. Even through the glass. He didn’t look. His focus stayed on you.

“Come,” he said softly, guiding you back toward the elevator, his hand never leaving you this time. And as the doors closed again, sealing the outside away, the quiet returned, but something had shifted. Because now you knew, it wasn’t just harder to leave. It was becoming impossible.

—

Provence didn’t feel like an escape. That was the strange part. Anyone looking from the outside would have called it that immediately, the stone house tucked into the hills, lavender paling softly beneath the late summer heat, shutters half-closed against the sun, long slow afternoons dissolving into evenings scented faintly with rosemary and dry earth and olive trees warming beneath light. The kind of place people imagined lovers disappeared to when the world became too loud.

But the world never fully stopped being loud. It simply reached you differently here. Muted. Delayed. Like thunder rolling in from very far away.

At first the plan had still been temporary. Two weeks, maybe three. Long enough for things to calm down in Paris. Long enough for the speculation to lose momentum. Long enough for your appointments to remain quiet, private, manageable. Kylian still spoke about returning like it was inevitable then, schedules rearranged instead of cancelled, meetings pushed remote, flights discussed casually during phone calls while one hand rested low against your thigh like even distracted he needed contact with you somewhere.

But somewhere during the following weeks, things shifted. Not dramatically. Quietly.

A doctor in Marseille began using words like stress and monitoring and rest more often than before. Security concerns became “complicated.” The photographers outside Paris multiplied. Your body changed faster now, exhaustion arriving heavily and absolutely by late afternoon, heat settling inside you in a way that made even standing too long feel punishing some days. And eventually nobody really announced the decision anymore. Provence simply became where you stayed.

Suitcases disappeared upstairs. Your clothes began returning folded beside his in the wardrobe instead of left separately in the guest room you had once pretended still belonged to you. Vitamins appeared beside your tea every morning without you asking. Céline started washing your linen dresses with the household sheets and hanging them in the sun behind the house where they dried smelling faintly of lavender, wind, and july.

And slowly, almost without noticing it happen, you stopped feeling like someone visiting.

By seven months pregnant there was no forgetting your body anymore. Not even briefly.

The baby sat high and heavy beneath your ribs now, your stomach arriving before the rest of you entered rooms, skin stretched tight enough some evenings that you stood in front of the mirror afterward just staring at yourself in quiet disbelief, one hand braced beneath the weight instinctively. The heat collected beneath your breasts by noon. Your ankles swelled by evening if you stayed standing too long. Rolling over in bed required effort now, slow careful movement that woke Kylian almost every single time no matter how deeply asleep he’d been.

And the baby moved constantly. Not the soft fluttering from before. Real movement now. Slow visible drags beneath your skin that still startled you every time they happened. Sometimes you caught Kylian watching it with an expression so nakedly emotional it frightened you a little.

The drive down had felt surreal in a way that made your chest ache if you looked at it too directly, the roads narrowing the further south you traveled, sunlight pouring molten gold over everything outside the windows while cicadas screamed in the heat. You couldn’t even fly. That was the scale of the frenzy back in Paris. Your head rested against the glass most of the journey, sleepy and nauseous and overwhelmed, while Kylian sat beside you taking calls in low clipped fragments about appearances and meetings and arrangements that would now be handled remotely.

You had met him here almost exactly a year ago. That kept catching you unexpectedly. Small flashes of memory layering themselves over what existed now. The first summer heat against your skin. The uncertainty of him then. The impossible unreality of wanting him before you understood he would become something woven entirely through your life.

Now you were carrying his child through the same light. Sometimes the beauty of that undid you so completely you had to look away from it.

The house settled into rhythm around you slowly after that. The way heat settles into stone. You woke later now. Slower. Morning light filtering pale gold through linen curtains while somewhere downstairs you heard Céline already moving quietly through the kitchen, cupboard doors opening softly, coffee brewing, French radio murmuring low beneath the sound of cicadas outside. Some mornings the smell of butter and peaches pulled you downstairs before you were fully awake. Other mornings exhaustion pinned you in bed until nearly noon, your body demanding things from you without negotiation anymore.

Céline never judged it. Her care moved differently than Kylian’s. Older. Quieter. You would wake and find she had already closed certain shutters because she knew direct sunlight worsened your headaches lately. Some afternoons she appeared beside you with sliced peaches chilled from the icebox without asking whether you were hungry first. When your ankles began swelling in the heat she said nothing aloud, only returned a few minutes later carrying a shallow basin of cool water she slid beneath your feet while continuing conversation as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

And sometimes, unexpectedly, she touched you the way mothers do. A hand smoothing lightly over your hair while passing behind your chair. Fingers adjusting the collar of your dress. Her palm resting briefly against your cheek when you looked too tired to hide it properly.

Never pitying. Never intrusive. Just loving you quietly in the way certain women know how.

The kitchen was the center of most days. Windows open wide against the heat, white curtains lifting softly with the movement of air, bowls of tomatoes left ripening on the counter beside basil and garlic and peaches splitting slowly beneath the weight of late summer. You moved differently through the space now, one hand constantly braced low against your stomach without thinking, hips aching faintly by evening from carrying so much weight for so many hours.

And Kylian hovered. Not obviously. That was what made it worse. He never told you not to do things outright, never spoke to you like you were fragile, but glasses of water appeared before you realized you were thirsty, chairs pulled out before you reached them, doors opened before your hand touched the handle. Every time you stood he looked up automatically. You noticed everything.

“Kylian.”

“Quoi,mon cœur?” You stood glaring at him from across the kitchen one afternoon while he quietly removed a heavy grocery bag from your hand for what felt like the third time that week.

“I can carry things.”

“I know.”

“Then stop taking them from me.” He looked at you for a second too long then, something dangerously close to amusement threatening at the corner of his mouth.

“You’re angry because I carried tomatoes?” He smiled fully and it bothered you how beautiful it was.

“I’m… I’m…” you sighed. “I’m angry because you’re hovering.” At that, he exhaled softly through his nose, setting the bag down carefully on the counter before stepping toward you, sunlight cutting warm gold across his skin through the open windows.

“I’m not hovering,” he murmured. You stared at him. He stared back. Then one brow lifted slightly.

“Ah la la,” he admitted softly. “Un peu.” You tried not to smile. Failed immediately. His hands settled automatically at your waist the second you softened, large and warm against the curve of your stomach, thumbs spreading slowly along the sides of you like touch itself calmed him now. His mouth brushed your forehead once, then your temple, slow enough that the irritation dissolved before it could fully root itself.

“Can you blame me?” he murmured quietly against your skin. Sometimes he frightened you with how much he loved this. Not the attention. Not the headlines. This. The domesticity of it. The slowness. The way he looked at you now like the center of his entire life had shifted quietly inside the walls of this house.

You felt it most at night. The house holding warmth deep into the darkness, windows open everywhere to let air move through slowly, carrying lavender and dry earth and distant cigarette smoke from neighboring terraces further down the hill. Sometimes conversations drifted faintly through the open windows in French you couldn’t fully make out, laughter rising and dissolving into the dark while cicadas screamed endlessly somewhere beyond the olive trees.

And beside you his phone kept lighting the room every few minutes.

Paris. Madrid. Sponsors. Managers. Teammates. A world still asking things from him constantly while your own world narrowed more and more toward the shape of your body and the child turning heavily beneath your ribs. He never fully left that world. That mattered.

Sometimes he disappeared downstairs for hours, voices low behind closed doors while you drifted slowly through the house alone, one hand pressed instinctively against your stomach, the baby moving lazily beneath your palm while heat clung softly to your skin. And every single time, you felt it.

Your mother’s voice. Not loudly anymore. Quietly. Threaded into moments that should have been harmless. You never see him.

A missed lunch because a call ran long. The office door downstairs remaining closed late into evening. You waiting half-asleep in bed while a flight back took longer than expected. Not abandonment. Never that. But enough for doubt to breathe for a moment before he returned and dissolved it again simply by looking at you.

Your mother still hadn’t called properly. Once your phone lit up with her name while you sat outside beneath fading evening light, your swollen feet tucked beneath you on the stone bench beneath the olive trees, but it stopped before you answered.

No voicemail. Nothing after. Madeline texted sometimes instead. Small updates disguised carefully as casual conversation.

She asked how you’re feeling. I think she misses you.

You never knew what to do with those messages. So mostly, you said nothing. And outside Provence, the world kept circling. At first the photographs were distant. Blurry. Long-lens images of the two of you crossing terraces, him with one hand low against your back while your body disappeared beneath loose linen dresses that no longer truly hid anything.

Then came the drones. The first time you heard one you thought it was a wasp somewhere near the olive trees until Kylian’s expression changed instantly beside you, his entire body going still before he looked upward. After that security stayed outside more often.

The headlines shifted too. No longer curious about you. Now they were curious about your body.

Is she pregnant? Sources close to the football star refuse to comment.

A hidden summer in Provence sparks speculation.

Every article used the same photographs. Your hand low against your stomach. His hand covering yours. Loose white fabric lifting in the wind. Nothing confirmed. Nothing denied. That was the tension of it. The entire world beginning to understand something life-changing was happening while the two of you still refused to say it aloud publicly. And inside the house your intimacy deepened into something heavier because of it. Not just desire anymore.

Dependency. Tenderness sharpened by pressure. Sometimes you woke in the middle of the night and found him already awake beside you, one hand spread protectively over your stomach in the dark, his eyes fixed somewhere distant.

“Ça va?” you whispered sleepily. He looked at you immediately then. Softened instantly.

“Rien.” But it wasn’t nothing. You both knew that. Because Provence was never truly safety It was simply the last place the two of you still belonged mostly to yourselves before everything changed forever.

By evening the house had gone quiet in that particular Provençal way, the kind of quiet that still carried sound inside it, cicadas vibrating endlessly through the open windows, the air still thick with heat even though the sun had begun lowering itself slowly into gold.

Kylian had wanted someone to come and cook for you. That conversation had started days ago and somehow followed you through the entire week, woven lazily between phone calls and kisses and his hand constantly finding the small of your back every time you stood too quickly.

“You shouldn’t be standing this long,” he’d murmured earlier, watching you move slowly around the kitchen.

“I’m making rice, not building the house.”

“That’s not the point.”

“It is exactly the point.” Céline had laughed softly from the table then, chin resting lightly in her hand while she watched the two of you with unconcealed affection.

“She can cook tonight,” she’d said finally. You’d looked up immediately in victory. Kylian made a quiet sound beneath his breath.

“Céline…”

“She’ll survive one more evening,” she replied lightly. “Women are stronger than you think.”

“I…” He tried to argue further but her eyes had already moved back toward you again, softer now, taking you in carefully the way people had started doing lately, as though your body entered the room before the rest of you did.

“You’re tired today,” she murmured gently. You sighed immediately.

“Please don’t start.”

“You think I don’t see?” she said softly, smiling a little as she rose from her chair. “You carry everything here now.” Her hand settled briefly against the underside of your stomach as she passed you, instinctive, maternal. “And still you insist on standing.” Emotion caught you strangely at that. Small. Sudden. Because nobody had mothered you gently in a long time. Céline noticed immediately of course. Older women like her always did. Her hand moved instead to your cheek, thumb brushing lightly beneath your eye once before she kissed your forehead softly.

“Ma pauvre chérie,” she murmured. “Sit down before he has a heart attack watching you.” Kylian laughed quietly under his breath from across the kitchen. But when you looked at him, something in his face had softened too.

—

And then, the house settled around the two of you again. Just the two of you. The kitchen windows stood open wide now, dusk moving slowly through them in lavender-blue waves, curtains breathing softly each time the evening air shifted. The heat of the day still clung stubbornly to the stone walls, trapped there, making everything feel slower somehow, softer at the edges. Butter warmed lazily in the pan while garlic softened into sweetness, tomatoes splitting slowly beneath your hands on the cutting board, their scent thick and green and sun-heavy in the warm air.

You moved more slowly now without meaning to. Not performatively. Your body simply demanded it. Every turn became deliberate. Every reach considered first. One hand drifted instinctively beneath the underside of your stomach every few minutes as though supporting the weight had become unconscious now, your lower back aching faintly after too much standing, the baby shifting heavily beneath your ribs whenever you stayed upright too long.

The kitchen had learned your rhythm. A folded linen cushion Céline left permanently on one of the chairs because your hips hurt otherwise. A pitcher of cold water already sweating beside the sink before you asked for it. His vitamins mixed accidentally beside your prenatal ones near the coffee machine because somewhere over the weeks your lives had stopped separating cleanly from each other inside the house.

Behind you, nothing. No television. No phone calls downstairs. No movement. Just him.

You could feel it before looking. The stillness of his attention had become physical lately, something warm against your skin before his hands ever reached you. You glanced over your shoulder finally. He was leaning against the doorway. Barefoot. One shoulder resting against the frame, arms folded loosely across his chest, dark t-shirt softened with wear, damp curls atop his head from the shower he’d taken earlier. His bag still sat abandoned near the back door where he’d dropped it, one shoe half-kicked beneath the bench beside it.

He hadn’t moved in several minutes. Just watched you. Not hungrily. Not even romantically in the obvious sense. Something quieter than that. Something that sat lower in him now. You turned back toward the stove slowly, stirring the tomatoes while heat rose against your face in soft waves, but you could still feel his eyes moving over you, the linen dress pulling differently across your body now than it had weeks before, stretched gently over the full curve of your stomach, your ankles bare against the warm stone floor. Your throat tightened unexpectedly. Not from fear. Something softer. You smiled faintly to yourself before glancing back again.

“Oui?” you murmured. His eyes lifted immediately to yours. A pause. You watched his throat move slowly when he swallowed. And suddenly the entire kitchen felt unbearably intimate. Not because anything happened. Because nothing did. Because he kept looking at you like he still couldn’t believe this belonged to him.

Evening light caught softly across his face, gold thinning slowly into blue around the edges now, his gaze dropping once unconsciously toward your stomach before returning to your face again. Something complicated moved through his face then. Wonder. Fear. Happiness. All tangled together.

“Nothing,” he said quietly. But his voice gave him away completely. You looked back toward the stove again, your mouth curving despite yourself while your fingers slipped slowly through basil leaves one at a time, crushing their scent open green and sharp against your skin.

Behind you, he exhaled softly through his nose. Then finally pushed himself away from the doorway. You felt him before he touched you. The warmth of him gathering slowly at your back. The subtle shift in the room when all his attention settled fully onto you. And then finally his hand, sliding around your waist with that unbearable care he carried now, large palm spreading low against the curve beneath your dress like he still couldn’t quite believe the shape of you belonged beneath his hands.

Evening had turned the entire house gold by then, the last sunlight thinning amber through the kitchen windows, catching dust lazily in the air, warming the stone beneath your feet. Tomatoes softened slowly behind you in butter, garlic thickening sweetly into the heat while somewhere outside a dog barked once in the distance and then fell quiet again.

And through all of it, him. The warmth of his chest against your back. His mouth arriving slowly against your shoulder like he had nowhere else left in the world to be. You closed your eyes immediately. Not because it was sudden. Because it wasn’t. Because everything with him had become so slow lately, so unbearably deliberate, every kiss placed like he was lingering inside the moment before it even happened.

Another one followed. Softer. The scrape of his nose against your skin between them made something low in your stomach tighten painfully. You leaned back into him without thinking, your body already making room instinctively for his, your head tipping slightly to the side while his chest settled warm against your spine. Neither of you spoke.

The silence between you had changed too. It felt lived in now. His hand spread wider over you slowly, thumb brushing once beneath the linen of your dress, and you felt the breath leave him quietly against your shoulder, the kind of breath someone lets out when they’ve reached something they wanted too much.

Your fingers loosened from the wooden spoon, abandoning it against the edge of the stove before your hand drifted backward slowly, finding the damp softness of the fade of his hair at the nape of his neck. Immediately, his body softened. Not dramatically. Just enough that you felt it. The smallest touch from you unraveled him lately. Your mouth curved faintly.

“Bébé,” you murmured softly. He kissed your shoulder again. Then the space just beneath it. Then lower. Slow enough that heat spread through your chest like syrup. You turned slowly inside his arms then, instinctively bracing one hand against the counter first because your balance had changed so much lately, because there was suddenly weight everywhere now, low in your hips, beneath your ribs, between the two of you.

Immediately his hands adjusted. One sliding protectively beneath your stomach without thinking, grounding you carefully while you shifted toward him, the movement so practiced now it felt instinctive in both of you.

The stove hissed softly behind you. Neither of you looked at it. Your hands slid slowly up his chest instead, palms flattening there over warm skin beneath thin cotton, and immediately you felt his heart beneath your touch, steady but heavier than usual.

His eyes closed for half a second. You could feel the exhaustion a workout left in him still sitting low in his body, hidden beneath softness now, beneath heat and affection and the quiet relief that always seemed to settle over him fully the second you touched him.

“You’re tired,” you murmured.

“Mm.” His nose brushed yours once.

“So are you.” A small smile tugged faintly at your mouth.

“I’m always tired.” At that, something shifted in his expression. Not sadness. Something quieter. His hands moved lower instinctively, both palms holding you fully now, thumbs drifting slowly over the curve beneath your dress while his eyes followed the movement without meaning to. You watched him watching you. The ache of it. The way this had become the center of him somewhere along the way.

“You know what’s strange?” he murmured softly.

“What?” A small breath left him through his nose, almost a laugh. His eyes lifted back to yours.

“You still do that.” You frowned faintly.

“Do what?” His mouth brushed yours once. Slow.

“When you're pretending not to look at me.” Another kiss. “You still look away first.” Your chest tightened immediately. Because suddenly you were back there. Sun against your shoulders. Provence. One year ago. Trying very hard not to stare at him across terraces and long dinners and finding excuses to look anyway. You laughed softly beneath your breath.

“Kylian…”

“It’s true.” His nose dragged lightly against yours. “You'd look at me…” another small kiss against the corner of your mouth, “then pretend you weren't.” Your eyes dropped immediately on instinct. And of course, he smiled. Not because he won. Because he knew you. Really knew you.

“See?” he murmured quietly. And suddenly you felt shy beneath the weight of it, beneath the terrifying intimacy of being loved by someone who had memorized you in all the smallest places. His thumb brushed your cheek immediately when he noticed.

“Hé.” You looked back at him. And whatever he saw there softened him entirely. “Come here,” he murmured gently, though you were already against him. His forehead rested slowly against yours, your breaths mixing warm between you while outside the evening deepened into lavender-blue shadows, cicadas screaming through the hills. You felt his hands spread wider over you unconsciously, holding both of you there in the warm kitchen, thumbs moving slowly against the curve beneath your dress like touch itself had become the only place left for all this feeling to go.

“I missed you today,” he admitted quietly. You blinked softly.

“You saw me this morning.”

“I know.” Another slow kiss against your mouth. “Still missed you.” Warmth flooded through you so suddenly you had to grip lightly at his shirt just to steady yourself. He felt it immediately. A small breath left him against your mouth, his eyes darkening slightly before softening all over again when his gaze dropped instinctively to your stomach. His gaze always returned there now. Desire. Fear. Love. Hope. You touched his face carefully, fingertips tracing the softness near the corner of his mouth, and watched him lean into your hand without thinking.

“I love this,” he murmured softly, his mouth still resting against yours. “When you're with me.” The words barely existed above a murmur, warm and low and threaded with that sleepy softness that only appeared when he’d been holding you too long already, his body swaying yours gently where you stood in the middle of the kitchen, slow enough it almost felt unconscious, like somewhere inside himself he had already settled permanently into the rhythm of keeping you close.

Outside, evening stretched lazily over Provence, the last heat of the day still clinging softly to your skin, to his skin, to the air between you. You smiled before you meant to. You could feel it happen now whenever he spoke like this. The way affection from him had become physical, something settling low and warm inside your body before your mind even caught up.

“Toute la journée avec maman, hm?” you cooed softly, your nose dragging lightly against his jaw before settling briefly beside his mouth, breathing him in, soap and warmth and sun still lingering faintly from training. His hands tightened almost imperceptibly at your waist. Not controlling. Needing. The kind of touch that said things neither of you did aloud.

“Oui, ma petite maman… mais quoi,” he murmured softly against your lips, “you didn’t miss me?” That smile. Small. Sleep-heavy. So unbearably fond it made your chest ache. You felt your heart falter inside you so suddenly it almost embarrassed you, the way loving him still felt physical sometimes.

“Mm,” you whispered finally, lips brushing his softly between words. “I did, papa.” You felt the breath leave him. Slow. Satisfied. Like he had needed the answer more than he wanted to admit. His forehead rested briefly against yours before he kissed you again, not deeply, just lingering, warm mouths and soft pressure while one hand remained spread low over your stomach beneath the linen of your dress.

Holding both of you there. And suddenly you realized that this was the part undoing him. Not the secrecy. Not even the baby itself sometimes. This. You barefoot in the kitchen with swollen and tomato juice staining your fingertips. Evening air lifting the curtains softly while dinner burned slightly behind you because neither of you had remembered the stove for nearly ten minutes. Ordinary things. The kind of life he had spent years too in motion to imagine properly for himself. And now he looked at it like something holy.

—

[I Can't Let You Go In This Life - Love Spells]

The kitchen had gone quieter without either of you noticing. Somewhere behind you the sauce had been turned down low enough to barely simmer anymore, evening folding itself deeper into the house while the last light slipped gold across the counters and stone floors, softening everything it touched. The windows stayed open to the heat, curtains lifting softly with the movement of air, cicadas loud enough now that they almost became part of the silence itself.

He was still holding you. Not dancing. Nothing that deliberate. Just that slow unconscious sway his body kept finding whenever he stood still with you too long, his chest warm against yours now, your arms loose around his neck while his hands rested low against your back and stomach, holding both of you with that same reverent steadiness that had begun reshaping him completely.

His mouth lingered against your shoulder. Slow kisses. Absent-minded almost, except nothing about him felt absent when he touched you anymore. You could feel his attention in every breath. Every pause. The scrape of his nose against your skin between kisses made warmth spread heavily through your chest, through your stomach, through the strange aching center of you that had only grown more sensitive the closer you got to meeting your baby. Your fingers moved lazily along the sharp clean fade at the back of his head, nails barely grazing the warm skin there. Quietly, almost like you were afraid speaking too loudly might disturb something, you asked,

“You still like the name?” He hummed immediately against your shoulder. No hesitation. The vibration of it moved through your skin before the answer even came.

“Mm.” Another kiss. “C’est parfait.” Your chest tightened softly at the certainty in his voice, but beneath it something flickered anyway, small and sharp and difficult to explain, and you felt him notice the shift in you before you fully understood it yourself. His mouth stilled briefly against your skin.

“What?” he murmured quietly. You swallowed. The room suddenly felt warmer. Not uncomfortable. Just… close. Your gaze drifted somewhere over his shoulder toward the darkening windows while your hand flattened unconsciously against his chest, feeling his heartbeat steady beneath your palm.

“Do we need to…” you started softly, then stopped. He waited. Of course he did. Your throat tightened slightly. “Tell anyone?” The words landed strangely between you. Not because of what they meant. Because of everything underneath them. You felt him go still. Not cold. Just attentive now in a different way. His hands tightened slightly against you.

“What do you mean?” You exhaled slowly through your nose, trying to shape something that suddenly felt much larger than language.

“I don’t know,” you admitted quietly. “I just…” Your eyes burned unexpectedly. You hated that. You shook your head once and tried again. “There’s already so many people around this,” you whispered. “Doctors and teams and…” A small breath left you shakily. “People planning things before they’re even here.” His expression changed slowly while you spoke. The softness in him sharpening into attention. Into understanding. You looked down briefly.

“They know everything already,” you murmured. “My body. My appointments. The gender. What happens after they’re born.” The kitchen blurred faintly for a second. You could still smell tomatoes softening slowly on the stove. Basil crushed beneath your fingertips earlier. Buter browning warmly in the heat. And underneath all of it; memory.

Cold white hospital light. The silence afterward. The feeling of something intimate being turned into medical language too quickly. Your voice softened.

“And this just felt…” Yours. You didn’t say it immediately. You couldn’t. Because suddenly the grief of it sat there too, quiet and awful beneath the warmth of the kitchen. Your throat tightened.

“Are you sure?” you whispered finally. “Because I can’t…” Taken. The word never fully came out. It didn’t need to. His face changed immediately. Completely. One hand left your waist and came up to your face, warm fingers sliding carefully beneath your jaw until you looked at him properly again, his eyes fixed on yours now with an intensity that made your chest ache.

“No one is taking this from you,” he said quietly. Not reactive. Not dismissing the fear. Certain. The fading light caught softly across his face while he looked at you, all the tenderness in him deepening into something steadier now, something protective enough to feel almost immovable. “No one,” he repeated softly. Your eyes burned harder at that. He felt it instantly. His thumb brushed slowly beneath your eye before tears could fully gather there.

“This is my life,” he said quietly. “My family. My bébé. Ma petite flamme.” The words landed low. Heavy. Real. “And nobody comes near it unless we want them to.” You swallowed hard. Because you believed him. That was the frightening part. You looked at him standing there in the dim kitchen light, his body wrapped around yours while outside the world kept circling endlessly, hungry and speculative and loud. And suddenly your chest hurt with how much you needed this from him.

Not promises of forever. Protection. Partnership. You shook your head faintly, emotion catching low in your throat.

“I don’t want to give this away,” you whispered honestly. His face softened immediately.

“You’re not.”

“I mean it,” you said more firmly now, your fingers tightening slightly in the fabric at his chest. “J'adore mon amour, mais....I can’t…” Your voice cracked softly around the edges. “I can’t lose this too.” Something moved visibly through him at the sound of that. Pain. Love. Understanding. All tangled together. He pulled you closer instinctively, one arm wrapping more securely around your back while the other spread protectively over your stomach between you, his forehead resting heavily against yours.

“You’re not going to,” he murmured softly. You closed your eyes briefly.

“They can’t take you from me either,” you whispered. The sentence hung there quietly. Rawer than anything else you’d said. You felt his breath catch against your mouth. And when you opened your eyes again, something in his expression had broken completely open.

“Never,” he said immediately. No hesitation. No performance. Just truth spoken low enough that it felt pulled directly from somewhere vital inside him.

“Promise me,” you whispered. His hands tightened around you instantly.

“I promise.” The words stayed between you long after he said them. Not dramatic. Not loud. Just real. Your eyes still glassy. His thumb still moving softly beneath your cheekbone, catching tears before they could fully fall. And something about the way he was looking at you suddenly made your chest ache so sharply you had to lean closer just to survive it.

Not because he looked powerful. Because he looked terrified of losing this too. That was the part no one else understood about him. The softness inside all that control. Your fingers tightened faintly in the front of his shirt, wrinkling the thin cotton beneath your hands while the cicadas outside screamed louder through the open windows, Provence sinking deeper into evening around the two of you.

He didn’t rush to soothe you. Didn’t rush to fix it. He just stayed there holding your face carefully, forehead against yours, breathing you in slowly like he was trying to calm something inside himself too. The kitchen smelled warm now, basil and butter and tomatoes collapsing slowly somewhere behind you, but it had all drifted into the background beneath him, beneath the heat of his body crowding yours gently against the counter.

“You really scared yourself with that, hm?” he murmured softly. Your mouth trembled faintly. You hated how quickly he could read you now.

“I just…” Your voice caught quietly. “I need something to stay ours.” At that, something shifted visibly through him. Not annoyance. Not even dismissal. Almost grief. His eyes closed briefly before his mouth brushed your forehead slowly, lingering there long enough that warmth spread heavily through your chest.

“It is ours,” he whispered. Another kiss. “Always.” You swallowed hard.

“Everyone already knows everything.” His hands moved instinctively then. One sliding lower over your stomach, protective and warm, the other settling more firmly at your waist before he pulled you fully against him, slowly enough that you felt every inch of it, your body fitting into his with that unbearable familiarity that still made your heart stutter.

“Non,” he murmured quietly against your temple. “They know pieces.” Your eyes closed.

“And they think they own the rest.” At that, his mouth stilled briefly against your skin. You felt the shift in his breathing before he pulled back just enough to look at you properly again, his gaze darker now, steadier.

“They don’t own anything,” he said softly. Not anger. Something colder. More absolute. You watched his jaw tighten faintly before his thumb brushed slowly over your cheek again, gentleness immediately returning the second he touched you.

“Not your body,” he murmured. “Not our bébé.” His hand spread wider instinctively over your stomach. “And definitely not this.” The way he said this made warmth tighten low through your body. Not because it sounded possessive. Because it sounded sacred. You looked at him standing there in the warm kitchen light, summer air moving softly around the two of you while his hands held your body like it had become the center of his entire life. And suddenly you loved him so much it frightened you.

Your fingers slid slowly upward over the clean fade at the side of his head and immediately his eyes closed briefly at the feeling, the tension in his face softening almost helplessly beneath your touch. He loved being touched by you. Not seduced. Held.

You scratched lightly against the warm skin near his temple and watched the breath leave him quietly through parted lips, his forehead dropping back against yours while his hands tightened around your waist. His mouth softened completely at the sound of your laugh. Not the louder ones. Not the teasing ones you gave other people. This one. Quiet and low and still slightly wet around the edges from tears he had just kissed from your face.

You felt him exhale against your mouth, something in his body loosening when you finally relaxed into him again, when the fear left your shoulders little by little beneath his hands. And slowly, the room changed with you. The tension didn’t disappear. It melted. Turned warm. Heavy. Your fingers drifted lazily along the back of his head again, slower now, your nails barely grazing there, and immediately his eyes lowered for half a second, mouth parting softly against yours.

You remembered this. Not just the kitchen. Him. Last summer especially. Late nights in Provence where you’d touched him lightly beneath tables just to watch his breathing change, where you learned embarrassingly quickly how easy it was to pull him entirely out of himself, how this impossible glossy man everyone else received in fragments became devastatingly human the second you put your hands on him.

You had loved that immediately. Maybe too much. And standing here now, warm evening air moving through the kitchen while his body held yours so carefully, you realized it was still there. The world could take everything else from him. Not this. Not the way he unraveled for you. Your mouth brushed the corner of his softly.

“You get so soft with me,” you murmured, quieter this time. Almost thoughtful. A low sound left him immediately. Not disagreement. Recognition. His hands slid slower over your body now, one spanning low beneath your stomach while the other moved up your spine with unbearable patience, fingertips pressing lightly through the thin linen at your back.

“You like that,” he murmured against your mouth. You smiled instantly. There he was. That small flicker of arrogance beneath all the tenderness. You leaned closer deliberately then, dragging your nose slowly against his jaw before your lips brushed the warm skin beneath his ear.

“Mm,” you whispered honestly. You felt the effect immediately. His breathing deepened almost immediately. You felt it against your neck first, warm and heavier now, his mouth lingering beneath your ear while his fingers spread wider at your waist beneath the thin linen of your dress. The kitchen was still holding the entire day’s heat inside its walls, both of your bodies warm from it already, skin slightly damp where you pressed together. And suddenly every place he touched you felt oversensitive.

You kissed beneath his jaw slowly, lingering there long enough to feel the warmth gathered beneath his skin, the faint salt from the heat still clinging there after training, after summer, after standing too close to you for too long already.

He made the quietest sound beneath his breath. And God, you loved him most like this. Warm from the shower. Tired eyes soft beneath your hands. Mouth parting slightly every time you touched him somewhere tender while the rest of the world waited somewhere outside the house for pieces of him he no longer seemed eager to give away.

“You know what I missed?” you murmured softly. His mouth brushed your temple once, lingering there for a second afterward, his lips warm from kissing you too long already.

“Quoi?” You smiled faintly against his skin, fingertips still moving lazily along the side of his head, nails grazing lightly through the warmth there while somewhere behind you the sauce hissed quietly on the stove, forgotten now, olive oil and basil thickening the kitchen air until everything felt slow around the edges, soft and heavy with late summer heat.

“This.” The word sat quietly between you. Your hand slid slowly down his chest, feeling his heartbeat beneath your palm through thin cotton, steady beneath your hand but heavier than before, and his eyes never left your face, still looking at you with that same impossible attention that had begun undoing you all over again these past months. “Just you.” Something softened visibly in him at that, his forehead dropping a little heavier against yours, and suddenly, unexpectedly, you remembered. A quiet giggle escaped you before you could stop it. Immediately his eyes narrowed. Not properly. Just enough.

“Quoi, ma petite flamme?” You bit softly at your smile.

“Rein.”

“Non.” His voice came quieter immediately, suspicious now. “Non, because now you're smiling.” Your laugh slipped out again, softer this time, and you buried your face briefly against his shoulder, warmth spreading through your chest because you could already feel him watching you.

“Non, bébé.”

“Dis moi, bébé.” His hands tightened slightly at your waist, his thumbs moving slowly against your back beneath the linen, absentmindedly, soothingly, like they couldn't quite stay still when they touched you anymore. “What?” You looked back at him and immediately regretted it because he was already staring at you now, eyebrows pulled together faintly, waiting, and there was something unfair about being looked at that closely. You smiled helplessly.

“You used to try very hard.” He blinked slowly.

“To do what?”

“To act normal.” He almost flinched and for a brief moment there was just silence. Then, his lips curled in that way you loved.

“Al la la. You’ve been waiting to say this, hm?” The laugh escaped you immediately, your forehead falling against his shoulder while his arms instinctively tightened around you, pulling you closer against him.

“Only because it was sweet,” you cooed softly, nose dragging lazily along his jaw now, breathing him in, soap and warmth and the last of summer still lingering faintly on his skin. “You'd be talking to me pretending you were relaxed…”

“I was relaxed.”

“Mm.” Your lips brushed the corner of his mouth once.

“Very relaxed.” You mocked. His eyes narrowed immediately.

“You've become very brave suddenly.”

“Non,” you murmured, still smiling now, your fingers moving slowly up into the short warmth at the back of his head again, nails scratching lightly there. “Because you did.” His mouth softened slightly beneath yours.

“You'd be explaining something completely serious…” another small kiss against the corner of his mouth, “…and then I'd move…” Your body shifted against him then. Not much. Barely anything. Just settling. Just settling closer, your hips finding him naturally where you already stood wrapped together in the middle of the kitchen, your stomach pressing softly between you while your hand slid from his chest to his shoulder, your mouth brushing absentmindedly beneath his jaw like you weren't paying attention at all. The sort of movement that should have meant nothing. Except, immediately, you felt it.

Not dramatic. Not enough that anyone else would have noticed. But you noticed. The tiny pause in his breathing. The way his hands adjusted on you a second later than they had before. The way his eyes lowered briefly before lifting back to yours again. Your smile widened slowly against his skin.

“There.” A quiet breath left him through his nose.

“Non.”

“Oui.”

“Non.” You laughed softly, your stomach brushing him where he held you now, his hands adjusting automatically beneath the curve of you, one moving lower without even thinking, supporting you before either of you realized he'd done it.

And suddenly you were back there again. Summer. Open windows. Midnight heat. You standing beside him pretending to listen while secretly watching him instead, watching him trying so hard to stay composed, trying so hard to look cool, trying so hard to look normal, as though anything about him had ever been normal.

“You wanted me to think you were very calm,” you murmured softly. His mouth brushed yours once.

“I am always calm.” You looked at him. Really looked. Sleep-heavy eyes. Warm skin. The way his breathing had deepened just slightly now. And slowly, dangerously, you smiled. Small.

“Oh?” Your nose dragged lightly along his. “Mhm.” Your fingertips drifted down the side of his neck, barely there. “You were nervous.” His eyes lifted immediately.

“Nervous?” You nodded against him, humming softly.

“Mhm.” Your lips brushed his once.

“Because you liked me.” A pause. Long enough that you thought maybe he wouldn't answer. Then his mouth moved against yours, slower this time, a smile hiding somewhere beneath it.

“I still like you.” And god, the warmth that moved through you then had nothing to do with summer. Your little laugh broke quietly against his mouth and his eyes closed at the sound of it immediately, forehead falling against yours with the smallest shake of his head, almost embarrassed by himself now. “Bébé,” he murmured softly, mouth still brushing yours, “you know what was actually hard?” You blinked.

“Quoi, mon amour?” His eyes opened slowly, darker now, warmer too. He looked at you for a long second, something softer moving through his face now.

“You knew I wanted more.” You frowned faintly.

“More?” His mouth brushed yours again.

“More than I was supposed to.” Your stomach tightened instantly. His nose dragged once along yours. “And you knew exactly what you were doing.”

—

The house had gone quiet hours ago. Not silent, never silent, Provence carried sound differently at night, windows still left open against the heat, curtains breathing softly each time the air shifted, cicadas quieter now but still humming somewhere beyond the olive trees while distant laughter drifted from another terrace before dissolving into nothing again. You couldn't sleep. Lately sleep came in pieces, an hour here, twenty minutes there, then suddenly you were awake again staring into darkness while the baby shifted heavily beneath your ribs as though three in the morning had become the perfect time to reorganize themselves entirely. Beside you the sheets had already gone cool. Kylian's side empty. You frowned faintly. For a second you stayed still, listening, then somewhere downstairs, muffled voices. A quiet exhale left you through your nose. Of course. Calls.

Slowly you pushed yourself upright, one hand bracing automatically beneath your stomach now because sitting up had become something requiring thought these days, your body protesting softly while your feet found the cool stone floor. The house felt different at night, softer somehow, moonlight spilling pale blue through the hallway windows while shadows gathered along the walls and the floors still held traces of the day's warmth beneath your bare feet. You moved slowly, one hand trailing absentmindedly along the wall as you passed the kitchen, passed the terrace doors left cracked open for air, and then paused. Light. The office. The door sat slightly open. You smiled faintly to yourself immediately because of course. You could already picture him, head tipped back in the chair, dragging one tired hand over his face while somebody on the other end of the call kept speaking too long. Your hand pushed gently against the door, not enough to enter, just enough…

“...oui, after the birth here…” And your hand stilled. Not inside the room. Inside you. Your forehead pulled faintly. After the birth here. Kylian sat turned partly away from the doorway, elbows resting against the desk, phone on speaker while papers lay spread loosely around him, his laptop throwing soft light across the side of his face. “...security will need confirmation from the clinic before transfer arrangements…” Clinic. “...Fayza already coordinated with Marseille…” Marseille. Your eyes moved downward slowly toward the desk. Folders. Printed emails. Schedules. Dates. You couldn't properly make them out from where you stood. You didn't need to. Because suddenly, suddenly, everything strange from the past few weeks began rearranging itself. The appointments in Marseille. Conversations stopping when you walked into rooms. Fayza asking oddly specific questions. Céline quietly preparing guest rooms. People speaking around you instead of to you. Your chest dropped. Because somewhere awful and quiet inside you, you understood.

This wasn't temporary anymore. Hadn't been temporary for a while. The doctors. The security. The house. The plans. Nobody was discussing possibilities. They were discussing your life. Your future. Your baby. Things already decided. Already moving. Already happening. And suddenly you realized everyone had known. Everyone. Except maybe you. Not logically. Emotionally. Because part of you had still been standing somewhere weeks ago believing eventually you'd go home, eventually things would return, eventually this strange suspended summer would end and somebody would ask what you wanted.

Your hand slipped slowly from the edge of the door. Behind your ribs something began hurting. Not panic. Something quieter than that. Lonelier. Inside the office Kylian laughed softly at something someone said, normal, relaxed, warm light catching along his jaw while his head tipped back slightly in his chair, like the world hadn't just shifted beneath your feet. And for a second, just a second, you stood there looking at him through the doorway and felt very far away from him.

His head tipped back slightly at something somebody said, a quiet laugh leaving him beneath his breath, tired and low and warm in the middle of the dark office, and then his eyes lifted.

Immediately…immediately… he saw you. You watched the smile soften from his face at once, not disappearing, just changing, the way it always did when he looked at you properly, when the rest of the world seemed to fall slightly out of focus around the edges.

“Ah mon bébé,” he murmured softly, concern arriving before thought ever did. “Still awake, hm?” The phone still murmured quietly on the desk between scattered papers and the glow of his laptop, but you barely heard it now, your eyes caught somewhere lower, on folders left half-open, printed schedules, Marseille letterheads, dates highlighted neatly in pale yellow. His eyes moved over you automatically, your face first, then your shoulders, then lower toward your stomach beneath the loose linen dress, checking you the way he always checked you now, constantly, unconsciously, as though his body no longer knew how to look at you without making sure you were alright first.

“You couldn't sleep?” he asked gently, already pushing his chair back, already standing, already reaching for you. Then he stopped. Only slightly. Because you weren't moving toward him. You weren't smiling. And slowly, almost imperceptibly, you watched confusion begin replacing warmth in his expression. His eyes followed yours toward the desk. Toward the paperwork. Toward the life quietly arranging itself there in neat stacks while you slept upstairs believing you were still somewhere temporary.

“Mon coeur?” Your throat tightened painfully. The room suddenly felt too warm. The office still held traces of the day trapped inside its walls, moonlight spilling pale blue through the open terrace doors while somewhere outside cicadas screamed endlessly through the dark Provençal hills, the sound so loud it almost blurred into silence. You looked at him. Then at the papers again. Back at him.

“A clinic in Marseille?” you asked quietly. The voice on speaker continued somewhere behind him.

“…the room preparations should be finalized before…” Kylian didn't even glance downward. His hand moved across the desk immediately, ending the call before the sentence finished. Silence rushed into the room all at once. Just breathing. Just cicadas outside. Just him looking at you now. Concerned. Completely confused.

“What happened?” he asked softly. Not defensive. That would have been easier. You looked back down toward the desk again, toward Marseille, toward transfer schedules and appointments and dates stretching weeks further than your mind had ever let itself travel. Your chest hurt suddenly. Not sharply. Something slower than that. Like realization physically unfolding inside your body in real time.

“These are for me.” Not really a question. Your voice had gone strangely small. You hated it immediately. His forehead pulled faintly.

“Bébé…” Your lip trembled. Just slightly. And the second he saw it something in his face changed completely.

“These are for me,” you repeated more quietly, your eyes still moving slowly over the papers spread across the desk, over plans already becoming real while you stood there only now understanding them. “The clinic. The rooms. Marseille…” Your throat tightened harder. The words barely came out now.

“You're having me stay here.” Silence. Absolute silence. You watched it happen to him then. That moment. Not panic. Not guilt. Something so much worse. Because suddenly, he understood. Not what you were saying. Where you were standing emotionally while you said it.

“Ah, mon coeur…” The words left him softly, almost under his breath, and immediately he was moving toward you, both hands finding your face so gently it nearly undid you on the spot, his palms warm against your cheeks while his forehead lowered against yours instinctively. “Non,” he whispered immediately, thumbs brushing beneath your eyes before tears had even properly fallen. “Non, bébé…” You squeezed your eyes shut because somehow his tenderness made it worse, because he sounded confused, genuinely confused, like this had never once occurred to him as something that could hurt you.

And God, that was the devastation of it. His world moved too quickly. Too efficiently. Security moved. Doctors moved. Plans moved. Lives rearranged themselves quietly around him before conversations had fully happened.

And somewhere inside all of that, you had become something protected, something loved, something everyone accounted for automatically now, your baby, your body, your safety, all folded seamlessly into motion before anyone had stopped to realize part of you was still emotionally standing somewhere weeks ago believing eventually you'd go home.

“I thought…” Your voice cracked softly. You swallowed hard, eyes still closed. “I thought we were going back.” The room went completely still. You felt him go still too. Not because he disagreed. Because of the word. Back. Home.

His forehead pressed harder against yours and for a second he said nothing at all, just breathed against your mouth slowly while his hands tightened almost imperceptibly against your face, like he was physically feeling the shape of your hurt settling between you.

Outside the terrace doors warm night air drifted softly through the office, carrying lavender and dry earth and distant cigarette smoke from somewhere further down the hill, the entire house wrapped in that heavy late-summer stillness that had begun feeling so normal to you you hadn't even realized when it stopped feeling temporary.

“Bébé…” he whispered again, quieter this time, roughened now around the edges. You wouldn't look at him. Your eyes stayed lowered somewhere near his chest, your fingers curling faintly into the fabric of his t-shirt because suddenly you felt strange standing there, emotional in a way that embarrassed you, like maybe you were being unfair even while your chest kept hurting. Your lip trembled again.

Immediately one of his hands slid lower, beneath the curve of your stomach automatically, holding you there while the other stayed against your cheek, thumb moving slowly beneath your eye.

“It's safer here,” he whispered softly. Not controlling. Not decided for you in his mind. Certain. Like safety itself had become the axis his entire life now turned around.

“The same doctors. They know you,” he murmured, his nose brushing yours lightly between words. “The clinic knows everything already, they know the pregnancy, they know what happened before, they know how to take care of you here.” Another small kiss against your forehead.

“You're calm here.” His voice broke slightly around the softness of it. “You sleep here.” And then quieter still, like the realization was unfolding inside him at the same time it was unfolding inside you. “You laugh here.” Your chest tightened so painfully at that your eyes finally lifted to his. Because he wasn't talking about logistics anymore. He was talking about you. About watching you slowly come back to life in this house without either of you fully noticing it happen. And suddenly you saw it too.

The dresses Céline had quietly moved downstairs because climbing the stairs exhausted you now. The prenatal vitamins beside his coffee every morning. Guest rooms slowly becoming nurseries without anyone ever calling them that aloud. Marseille becoming routine. Provence becoming home while Paris drifted further and further away each week without either of you ever sitting down and saying it plainly. Your eyes filled completely then.

Not because you wanted Paris. Because something about realizing your life had already changed without you fully understanding when it happened felt unbearably lonely all at once. And the second Kylian saw that realization land properly in you, you watched something inside him break. Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just the smallest shattered look moving across his face because suddenly he understood exactly what this felt like from your side.

Like something had been taken from you quietly. And he had promised nobody would ever do that again.

—

His face broke a little more the second he realized reassurance wasn't fixing it. You could feel him trying. Feel him searching for the exact shape of comfort that would undo whatever had just happened inside you, his hands still impossibly gentle against your face, thumbs moving slowly beneath your eyes while warm night air drifted through the open terrace doors behind him, lifting the papers on the desk softly at the corners.

But the hurt stayed there. Quiet. Heavy. Your body suddenly felt exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with pregnancy. Kylian saw it immediately. Of course he did.

“Come here,” he murmured softly. One hand slid lower beneath your stomach automatically while the other stayed at your back, guiding you carefully toward the sofa along the far wall of the office, the movement slow because everything with you had become slow now, deliberate, your body heavy and warm and emotional beneath his hands. You sat with a quiet breath, one palm immediately pressing low against your stomach when the baby shifted hard beneath your ribs again.

Kylian crouched in front of you at once. Not beside you. In front of you. Like he needed to keep seeing your face. Moonlight spilled pale silver across the side of his jaw while one arm rested across your knees, his hand still spread protectively beneath your stomach, thumb moving absentmindedly there like he was grounding himself too. For a while neither of you spoke. The cicadas outside screamed endlessly through the dark hills. The office smelled faintly of paper and warm wood and his cologne lingering in the heat. Then quietly, small enough that it almost embarrassed you…

“But... I’m from Paris.” Your lip trembled again immediately after. Because suddenly that was the thing hurting. Not Marseille. Not clinics. Paris. Your city. Your baby. The version of this you had once imagined without ever realizing you were imagining it. Kylian exhaled softly through his nose then, eyes lowering briefly like the sound of your voice had gone somewhere painful inside him.

“I know you're very stubborn, ma petite flamme parisienne” he murmured quietly. The corner of his mouth tried to soften it into something teasing. It almost worked. Almost. You looked away from him toward the open terrace doors instead, toward lavender-dark sky and the soft movement of curtains in the night air.

“I wanted…” Your throat tightened. “I wanted to have my baby there.” The words came out smaller than you'd meant them to. Kylian's hand tightened faintly against your knee. Not enough to interrupt. Just there. Listening.

“I know.” The gentleness of him. You shook your head faintly.

“No, you don't.” Your eyes burned harder. “Everybody talks about it like it's already happening.” A shaky breath left you. “The clinic. The rooms. Security. Your family.” Your fingers curled tighter against the fabric of your dress. “I feel like…” You stopped. Because suddenly saying it aloud felt humiliating. Kylian waited anyway. Completely still now. You swallowed. “Like the baby isn't mine anymore.” Silence.

And instantly, instantly, his entire face changed. Not frustration. Not disbelief. Hurt. Deep enough that you watched him physically absorb it.

“Non,” he said immediately. Quiet. Certain. His hand moved from your knee to your face again so fast it almost startled you, his thumb brushing beneath your eye while his forehead lowered against yours. “Non, mon coeur.” Your eyes squeezed shut.

“Doesn't feel like it.” The words nearly destroyed him. You felt it. Actually felt it happen. His breathing changed. His whole body pulling tighter around the sentence like he'd been struck somewhere vital. Because this was the exact thing he'd promised would never happen again. Someone taking something from you. And somehow, without meaning to, he'd let you stand alone long enough to feel it anyway. His nose brushed shakily against yours.

“Hé,” he whispered softly. One hand slid lower again, beneath your stomach, holding the weight of you so carefully it hurt. “Look at me.” You didn't want to. He waited. Just breathing against your mouth quietly until finally your eyes lifted back to his. The look on his face. Awful. Tender. Like he would have torn the entire world apart with his hands if he understood how to undo this for you.

“Baby is still yours,” he whispered. The words came slowly. Carefully. Like he needed you to hear every single one. “It's your body.” His thumb moved beneath your eye again. “Your pregnancy.” Another soft breath against your skin. “Your baby.” His forehead pressed harder against yours. “Et moi.” Your chest tightened painfully. “You have me too.”

Silence stretched softly between you then, cicadas screaming outside while somewhere downstairs the refrigerator hummed faintly in the quiet house, Provence wrapped around both of you warm and dark and impossibly still. Kylian swallowed.

“I think…” His eyes dropped briefly. “I think I just realized this wasn't going to temporary before you did. That's all, mon cœur” There it was. The real thing. Not control. Not planning. Love. Love moving quietly ahead of language. Your breath caught softly. And suddenly everything rearranged itself. The dresses downstairs. The vitamins beside his coffee. Céline folding baby clothes without calling them baby clothes. His hand reaching for you automatically every night in bed. Your eyes filled instantly.

“When?” you whispered. Kylian looked at you for a long moment. Actually thought about it. And somehow that hurt worse too.

“I don't know,” he admitted softly. His thumb brushed your cheek. “I think…” A small breath left him. “I think I started building a home around you without realizing.” And instead of making it better, you cried. Not dramatically. No raised voice. No anger. No explosion. Just your face folding suddenly beneath his hands, your eyes filling so fast it startled even you, your mouth tightening as though you were trying physically to hold the feeling back and failing anyway.

“Bébé…” You shook your head. No. Because the worst part was you understood why. That was what hurt. You understood the doctors. The clinic. Provence. The safety. The quiet. The way your body had softened here slowly after months of fear and grief and Paris feeling too sharp around the edges to breathe inside properly. You understood all of it. And somehow that made the loneliness worse.

Your hand covered your mouth suddenly as another tear slipped free and immediately Kylian moved closer, kneeling fully between your knees now, both hands finding you at once, one still beneath your stomach instinctively while the other held your wrist gently, trying to pull your hand away so he could see your face.

“Mon coeur,” he whispered softly. "Please..." The devastation in his voice finally matched yours now. You looked at him then.

“I know why,” you whispered shakily. Your lip trembled again immediately after. “I know it's safer.” Kylian nodded quickly, eyes searching your face desperately now, relieved for half a second that maybe you understood, maybe he could fix this.

“The doctors here…”

“But you all just kept moving.” Silence. Absolute silence. And there, there it was. You watched the sentence hit him in real time. Not intellectually. Emotionally. His face changed slowly while he looked at you, confusion giving way to something awful and quiet as he finally understood what this felt like from your side, the speed of his life, the way people solved things around him before conversations fully happened, the way plans solidified silently because everyone around him had learned movement meant safety. And somewhere inside all of that, you had been left behind emotionally. Your eyes squeezed shut.

“Everybody knows where my baby is going to be born except me.” The sound that left him then was barely even audible. Not quite a word. Pain. You watched it physically happen to him, his head lowering immediately, forehead pressing hard against yours while one hand slid shakily up into your hair. Because he understood. Not Provence. Not Paris. Not logistics. You felt alone. And suddenly he looked horrified by it. His hands tightened around you carefully, almost like he was afraid you might disappear if he loosened them for even a second.

“We stop then.” You blinked. Kylian pulled back just enough to look at you properly again, eyes dark and glassy now, his thumb still moving beneath your cheek over and over like he couldn't stop touching you. “If you want Paris, we go back to Paris.” The words came instantly. No hesitation. And somehow that hurt too. Because deep down, somewhere awful and quiet inside both of you, you already knew.

Paris wasn't really an option anymore. Not with the photographers. Not with the doctors here already monitoring everything. Not with the fear still sitting silently beneath both of you after what happened before. Not with how heavily your body carried exhaustion now. Not with how carefully everyone had built safety around you here.

Kylian knew it. You knew it. And still, he offered. Because he'd rather unravel the entire plan than let you feel trapped inside it. Fresh tears slipped down your face.

“I don't know anymore,” you whispered. That nearly broke him completely. His eyes closed briefly, forehead lowering against yours again while his hands held your face so gently it hurt. For a long moment neither of you spoke. Then finally, very quietly, he whispered,

“We have the name, d'accord?” The sentence barely existed.

“Do we?” Your voice shook. Broken. Your hand moved shakily down between you, resting low over your stomach where the baby shifted heavily beneath your palm. Kylian looked at your hand immediately. Then back at your face. And something inside him softened so completely it looked painful.

“Oui,” he whispered at once. His hand covered yours immediately over your stomach, large and warm and trembling slightly now. “Oui, mon coeur.” Your eyes squeezed shut. Another tear slipped free. Because somehow that was the thing making it real. The name. The fact that somewhere inside you there was already a person both of you loved enough to name. Kylian kissed your forehead slowly, lingering there while his thumb moved beneath your hand over the curve of your stomach.

“We have our baby,” he whispered softly. And this time when you cried, he finally understood why.

—

Kylian lifted his head slowly from against you, eyes glassy now, one hand still spread beneath your stomach like he physically couldn't let go of you anymore, like somewhere inside him he was trying to hold together every version of you at once, the girl from Paris, the woman sitting in front of him crying softly in the middle of the night, the mother carrying his child. His thumb moved shakily beneath your eye again.

“Hé,” he whispered softly. You couldn't stop crying now. Not hard. Just tears slipping quietly down your face while he held you there, your palm still pressed against the uneven beat of his heart beneath your hand. His forehead lowered against yours once more. “You know what I think?” he murmured gently. Your eyes stayed closed.

“What?” A tiny breath left him, almost a smile through the grief of it.

“I think no matter where we are. Us three. When they arrive… they're going to look exactly like maman.” Your mouth trembled instantly. And he saw it. Saw the way the words landed somewhere deep enough to hurt. His nose brushed yours softly. “Trop belle.” Another quiet kiss against the corner of your mouth. “Stubborn.” His thumb moved beneath your eye again. “Dramatique.” A broken little laugh escaped you through tears and immediately his expression softened with relief at the sound of it, like hearing you laugh at all right now physically eased something inside him. “And they can never take that, hm?” he whispered softly. “Nobody.” Your face folded harder at that.

Because you could see it. Something small with dark eyes running barefoot through this house in summer light. Céline carrying them around the kitchen. Kylian holding them against his chest half asleep in the middle of the night. A little life already becoming real between the two of you whether you were emotionally ready or not. Fresh tears slipped free.

“I wanted them to look like you,” you whispered shakily and petulent. The look on his face. It almost ruined you completely. His eyes closed briefly, forehead pressing harder against yours while one hand slid shakily upward into your hair, fingers trembling slightly there now.

“I know, bébé,” he whispered softly. Another kiss. “I know.” Your hand curled tighter in his shirt suddenly. Because underneath everything else, underneath Provence and Paris and safety and plans and grief and love, there was still something terrible sitting low inside your chest that hadn't gone away.

Fear. Real fear. The kind that never fully leaves after loss. Your voice came smaller this time. Fragile.

“Kylian?” Immediately his eyes opened again.

“Mm?” You swallowed hard. Your lip trembled violently now.

“Promise you'll be there.” Silence. His forehead pulled faintly against yours.

“For what?” The question barely existed. Because he already knew. Your fingers tightened harder against his chest.

“When it happens.” You hated the way your voice sounded. Young. Scared.

“When the baby comes.” You watched him break completely. Not dramatically. Something quieter than that. Something so deep it physically altered the way he held you. Because there it was. The real fear. You were afraid he'd disappear. Not emotionally. Physically. Football. Travel. Schedules. The scale of his life. The terrible possibility of doing something like that alone. Kylian's entire face collapsed with devastation.

“Bébé,” he whispered immediately. Almost horrified. Both hands found your face again, holding you so carefully now it hurt. His eyes searched yours desperately. “That won't even be an option.” The words came low and certain and immediate. Not performative. Absolute. “I'll be there.” His nose brushed shakily against yours. “I don't care where I am.” His voice roughened slightly. “I don't care what's happening.” Another kiss. Another. “I'll already be there.” Your chest hurt so badly you could barely breathe.

Because you believed him. Completely.

He saw it happen too, saw the moment your body softened slightly beneath his hands, your eyes closing briefly while tears still slipped free anyway. The love on his face then was almost nauseatingly human. Like the idea of missing the birth of your child had physically sickened him the second it entered the room. He pulled you forward suddenly, carefully, your body folding slowly against his chest while his arms wrapped tightly around you and the baby together, his mouth pressing against your hair over and over while he held you there in the middle of the dark office.

“I'm here,” he whispered softly. Again. And again. Until eventually the words stopped sounding like reassurance and started sounding like prayer.

—

The afternoon had gone honey-soft by then, that strange Provençal hour where the heat stopped feeling sharp and began feeling heavy instead, sunlight turning thick and gold across the terrace stones while cicadas screamed endlessly through the olive trees beyond the garden wall, the entire house wrapped in the slow breathing stillness of late summer beginning, quietly, to become autumn.

Football had started again. Not fully yet. But enough. Enough that his phone rang constantly now, enough that conversations had shifted back toward schedules and flights and recovery and appearances, enough that some invisible tension had begun settling itself quietly through the edges of him these past weeks, not away from you, never that, but around you.

Closer. More watchful. Like the nearer you moved toward the birth, the more impossible it became for his body to let yours drift even half a step beyond where he could reach it.

You sat beneath the shade near the kitchen steps with a shallow ceramic bowl balanced against your thighs, stripping thyme slowly from the stems one branch at a time, your fingers moving automatically now, the rhythm old enough to feel inherited rather than learned. You had always liked doing things with your hands. That part of you had not changed.

Bundles of herbs rested beside you in loose piles, lavender tied loosely with twine, basil leaves drying across linen towels while sunlight stretched warm across your bare feet, and every few minutes your hand drifted instinctively beneath your stomach before continuing, supporting the weight of yourself unconsciously now, your body slower these days, fuller, the heaviness of late pregnancy visible in every movement you made.

Inside the house, old music played softly somewhere distant. And across the courtyard, Kylian stood near the open terrace doors speaking quietly into his phone. Even from here, you could feel him paying attention to you. Not watching. Something gentler than that now. Constant.

His gaze lifting automatically every few seconds between sentences spoken in low clipped French, one shoulder resting against the doorway while the other hand held the phone loosely near his mouth, training clothes softened by heat and wear, dark curls shorter now for the season, the beginnings of autumn settling him slowly back into routine even while his entire life remained fixed stubbornly around you. You reached for another stem of thyme.

The bowl shifted slightly against your thighs. Immediately, his eyes lifted. You almost smiled to yourself. There. That.

The unbearable instinct of him now. You adjusted again deliberately, only slightly this time, just enough to watch it happen twice, and sure enough his body straightened faintly before he realized you were fine. A small exhale left him. You looked down quickly to hide your smile.

You loved him.

The call continued quietly behind you while warm air moved lazily across the terrace, your fingers filling slowly with the scent of crushed thyme and lavender oil, the loose cream linen of your dress sticking faintly against the underside of your thighs from the heat. Then the baby shifted suddenly. Hard. A quiet breath left you before you could stop it, one hand immediately pressing lower beneath your stomach while the bowl tilted dangerously in your lap.

And across the courtyard, Kylian stopped speaking mid-sentence. You looked up just in time to catch it. The exact second his entire body changed. Not panic. Instinct. His phone lowered immediately while his eyes moved over you sharply, already checking whether you were uncomfortable, whether you needed help, whether he should come over. You laughed softly before he could move.

“Ça va,” you called quietly. His shoulders loosened. Barely. Not enough.

“Ça va?” The tenderness of it made warmth spread heavily through your chest. You nodded.

“Very dramatic today,” you murmured absently down toward your stomach, your palm moving slowly across the curve beneath your dress. Kylian's entire face softened at once. That look. The one that still startled you sometimes because of how nakedly emotional it was before he caught himself.

You watched his gaze drop toward your stomach instinctively, the corners of his mouth lifting faintly despite the call still waiting somewhere on the other end of the line, and then without even realizing he'd done it, he started crossing the terrace toward you.

Still on the phone. Still listening. But already moving anyway.

The late afternoon light caught warm against his skin as he stepped into the shade beside you, one hand sliding automatically beneath your stomach from behind while the other leaned against the back of your chair, his mouth brushing briefly against your temple in passing.

“Bébé,” he murmured softly near your ear. The baby shifted again beneath his hand almost immediately. His entire expression changed. Actually changed. A quiet disbelieving laugh left him under his breath while his thumb spread wider against you instinctively.

“Ah non,” he murmured softly toward your stomach now. “You're bothering maman again?” You laughed quietly, leaning back automatically into the warmth of him while his hand continued moving absentmindedly over the curve beneath your dress like he couldn't stop touching you once he'd started. The call still murmured quietly from his phone somewhere near his chest. Neither of you paid attention anymore.

“You see?” you murmured softly. “Very dramatic.” Kylian smiled against your hair.

“Comme maman.” You tilted your head back immediately to glare at him and he laughed softly then, properly this time, forehead dropping briefly against the side of your head while warm evening air moved lazily through the courtyard around both of you.

The sound carried farther than either of you realized, drifting across the terrace stones still warm from the day, through the lavender drying near the kitchen window and the olive trees beyond the garden wall where a car had arrived several minutes earlier unnoticed. Not because it had been hidden. Simply because neither of you had been paying attention to anything beyond the small world you'd built around yourselves these past months. Your mother stepped out into the Provençal heat slowly, one hand lingering briefly against the car door after it closed behind her, the journey still sitting heavily in her body. Paris. Marseille. Then roads that seemed to grow quieter with every kilometre. Lavender fields. Vineyards. Stone walls. Entire stretches where there had been nothing except sunlight and cicadas. Nothing that resembled the life she'd spent months imagining for you.

She saw you immediately. Not the house. Not him. You.

Sitting beneath the shade with herbs scattered across your lap, sunlight moving through the leaves overhead in slow shifting patterns that painted gold across your shoulders every time the breeze changed direction, one hand resting absently beneath the curve of your stomach while the other continued stripping thyme from its stems without looking. And for a moment she simply stood there watching because she couldn't reconcile the woman in front of her with the daughter she'd been carrying around inside her head all this time. The daughter she'd argued with. The daughter she'd worried about. The daughter she'd spent months convincing herself she was trying to protect. That girl had always seemed restless somehow. Always reaching for something. Defending something. Fighting for something. This girl looked still. The realization landed with surprising force. Not because you looked older. Not because you looked pregnant. Because you looked settled. As though life had continued in her absence and eventually stopped asking permission to do so.

Then you laughed again and her attention moved instinctively toward him, not because she meant for it to, but because his had already moved toward you. The shift was immediate. Unthinking. The sound reached him and his eyes followed it automatically despite the phone still resting loosely in his hand, despite whatever conversation existed on the other end of the line. You adjusted slightly in your chair, barely moving at all, the bowl shifting against your lap, and still she watched him straighten instinctively before realizing you were fine. The tension left him a second later. Across the courtyard you hid a smile. A private one. The sort that only existed between people who had repeated the same moment enough times to recognize it instantly. And suddenly something painful moved through her chest because nobody had told her about this part. Nobody had told her how ordinary it would look. How domestic. How frighteningly real. Not grand gestures. Not declarations. Just habit. The quiet intimacy of two people who had spent so long orienting themselves around each other that neither seemed aware they were doing it anymore.

The baby moved then. Even from where she stood she saw it. The small interruption of your breath. The hand dropping lower beneath your stomach. The unconscious adjustment of your shoulders. And across the courtyard he stopped speaking mid-sentence. Completely. His phone lowered. His entire body already turning toward you before he'd consciously decided to move. Your mother felt something tighten unexpectedly inside her chest because nobody had told her about that either. No one had told her how he looked at you. No one had told her he watched you the way frightened people watched precious things. No one had told her he crossed entire courtyards because you'd shifted in your chair. She watched him disappear into the shade beside you, watched his hand settle automatically beneath the weight of your stomach, watched your body lean back into his without looking, without hesitation, without checking first whether he was there. Trusting he would be. Trusting he always would be. Months of certainty shifted uneasily inside her. Months of missed calls. Missed lunches. Conversations abandoned before they could become arguments. Months spent imagining your life from a distance while it continued happening without her. And standing there now, watching sunlight catch against the side of your face while herbs rested forgotten in your lap and a man looked at you like you were the centre of every room he'd ever entered, she felt the first real crack appear in something she'd been certain of for a very long time.

Then Kylian looked up.

The change was almost imperceptible, but she saw it. His gaze finding her beyond the olive trees. Recognition flickering briefly across his face before his attention shifted back to you. Something passed through his expression then. Understanding, perhaps. Or simply the knowledge that whatever happened next belonged to neither him nor anyone else. His hand slid slowly from beneath your stomach.

“Mon bébé.” The word was soft. Gentle. You looked up immediately, still smiling from whatever he'd said moments earlier, following his gaze without thinking.

And the world stopped. For a second you genuinely didn't understand what you were looking at. Your mind trying to place her somewhere it made sense. A memory. A thought. A wish. Anything except here. Except real. Except standing at the edge of the garden in the late afternoon sunlight. Then your breath caught so sharply it hurt.

“Maman.” The word left you before you could stop it. Small. Disbelieving.

And suddenly all the months between you seemed to collapse inward at once. The arguments. The silence. The missed phone calls. The stubbornness. The hurt. Everything compressed into the impossible fact that she was standing there. Really standing there. Looking at you. Your mother didn't move immediately. Neither did you. She was staring now. Not at your stomach. Not at the house. At your face. And something inside her expression gave way so quietly most people would have missed it. But you didn't. Because she'd been your mother your entire life. Because you knew that face better than anyone. Because beneath everything else, all the anger and disappointment and distance, you recognized the look that appeared only when she forgot herself long enough to simply love you.

“Ah, ma fille.” And that was what broke you.

—

For a moment nobody moved. The distance between you wasn't large. Twenty metres, maybe less. A stretch of stone terrace. Lavender. Late afternoon sunlight. But it felt strangely impossible all the same.

Your mother's gaze moved over you first, quickly, instinctively, checking for things she would never stop checking for no matter how old you became. Your face. Your shoulders. The hand beneath your stomach. Then beyond you.

The house. The gardens. The long sweep of hills rolling gold beneath the lowering sun. You watched her take it in. Not openly. Not rudely. The way people looked at things when they were trying to understand them. This was where you'd disappeared to. Twice now.

One summer you'd vanished into Provence and returned changed. A summer later you'd done it again. Only this time there was no return date attached. The realization settled heavily between all of you. Kylian's hand remained loosely against your shoulder, his thumb moving once absentmindedly against the fabric of your dress before he let it fall away. Not retreating. Simply understanding. Giving the moment room to belong to someone else.

"Bonjour Madame." His voice was warm. Easy. The same voice he used with everyone he cared about. No performance. No careful charm offensive. Just himself. Your mother's attention shifted toward him. And for a second you saw it again. That hesitation she'd never quite been able to put down. Not dislike. Not anymore. Something more complicated than that. Because he was beautiful. The house was beautiful. The gardens were beautiful. Everything about this place seemed designed to convince people they could stay forever. Your mother looked at him the same way she'd looked at the house. Trying to understand whether something could be both beautiful and dangerous at the same time.

"Bonjour." The reply came a second later. Polite. Measured. French enough that an outsider might have missed the distance entirely. Kylian didn't. You felt it in the way he smiled anyway. The way he stepped forward and kissed both her cheeks as though she'd been arriving for dinner rather than crossing an ocean of stubbornness to get here.

"Bienvenue." Simple. Nothing else. No thank you for coming. No we're happy you're here. No attempt to make the moment larger than it was. Just somewhere for her to stand. You loved him a little for that. Your mother's eyes found you again. The silence stretched. Not hostile. Not comfortable either. Months lived inside it. Months of missed lunches. Half-finished conversations. Things neither of you knew how to begin saying.

"You came." The words left before you'd decided on them. Your voice softer than you'd intended. Your mother's expression shifted almost imperceptibly. Something flickering there. Relief, maybe. Or sadness. Perhaps both.

"I came." And for one strange second neither of you knew what came next. Because she was looking at you and seeing a woman she no longer entirely knew. And you were looking at her and realizing she wasn't the only one who'd spent months wondering whether this life was real. Your gaze drifted briefly toward the house behind you. Toward the open windows. The lavender. The hills. The impossible golden beauty of it all.

Sometimes, in the quietest moments, you'd wondered too. How long summer gardens lasted. How fragile beautiful things could be. Whether lives built inside hidden places remained standing once the world found them. Your mother's eyes followed yours. And somehow, for the first time in months, you thought she might understand exactly what you meant.

—

Dinner happened slowly. The heat lingered long after sunset in Provence, trapped inside the old stone walls and drifting through the open windows while the last of the light disappeared beyond the hills. Candles burned low across the table. Somewhere beyond the terrace, cicadas still sang stubbornly into the dark.

Your mother watched the house almost as much as she watched either of you. Not obviously. She'd always been too careful for that. But you saw it.

The way her eyes lingered on the exposed beams overhead. The worn stone beneath her fingertips. The antique cabinets built into walls older than the country she'd raised you in. It was beautiful. Painfully beautiful. Not ostentatious. Not flashy. The bones of the house were centuries old, softened by time and weather and generations of people passing through it. Then somewhere along the way someone had poured impossible amounts of money into preserving it.

Not changing it. Preserving it. And you could almost see the comparison forming behind her eyes. You, raised among beauty. Him, wealthy enough to buy it. Old money and new money sitting across from each other pretending they belonged in the same sentence. Conversation drifted around the table easily enough. Céline telling a story she'd clearly told before, Kylian correcting parts of it from across the table while she ignored him completely and continued anyway. You laughing. The baby shifting heavily enough beneath your ribs that you stopped mid-sentence and pressed your palm lower instinctively.

Then dinner ended. You stood automatically, gathering your plate before anyone else could. Your mother's brow lifted. There.

The smallest flicker of surprise. As though she'd expected someone else to do it. As though she'd expected you to have forgotten how. You barely made it two steps. Kylian reached for the plate. Not dramatically. Not even looking. One hand finding it the same way someone reached for a light switch in a familiar room.

"You sit." You opened your mouth. His eyebrow lifted. You closed it again. The plate disappeared from your hands. His mouth brushed your temple as he passed, absentminded and familiar, the kind of affection that happened too often now to carry any ceremony with it. Your mother watched him cross toward the kitchen. Watched Céline intercept him immediately.

A rapid exchange of French. A look. The plate removed from his hands before he ever reached the sink. Then, without missing a beat, Céline replaced it with a bowl of cherries and pointed back toward the dining room. Kylian laughed. Actually laughed. And obediently turned around. The entire exchange took less than ten seconds. No one seemed to think anything of it. That unsettled your mother more than if they had. Because nobody appeared to be performing a role.

Not him. Not Céline. Not you.

Everyone simply seemed to know where they belonged inside the rhythm of the house. Kylian dropped back into his chair beside you and set the bowl between you. Your mother's fingers tightened slightly around her wine glass.

"When do you go back to Paris?" The question arrived lightly enough. Almost casually. But all three of you heard what lived underneath it. You paused. Kylian didn't.

"Lundi." Your mother nodded once.

"For training?"

"Mm." He was already sorting through the cherries now, inspecting them with complete seriousness. The silence lingered a second.

"Mais… it's not really back." Your mother's eyes lifted.

"Non?" Kylian shook his head. Still looking at the fruit.

"Non." A faint smile touched the corner of his mouth. "Training is in Paris." He selected a cherry. Held it toward you. "Back is here." The words should have sounded ridiculous. A footballer calling a village in Provence home. A man whose life existed across stadiums and airports and continents. Yet nobody reacted. Not you. Not Céline. Not even him. The statement settled around the table with the weight of something long accepted. You smiled before you'd even taken the cherry.

"Why that one?"

"It looks perfect." A tired giggle escaped you immediately.

"That's not a thing."

"It is."

"It isn't."

"It is." You shook your head, smiling despite yourself, and leaned forward anyway. The cherry disappeared. His fingers lingered briefly against your mouth before withdrawing. The gesture was so small your mother almost missed it. The thing she didn't miss was what happened afterward.

Nothing. No awareness. No self-consciousness. No performance. You simply shifted closer. One arm sliding loosely around his waist beneath the table. His hand finding the back of your neck automatically. Neither of you looking. Neither of you thinking. The movement carrying all the thoughtlessness of habit. A year ago she would have called it naïve. A girl disappearing into a beautiful life. A beautiful man. A beautiful house hidden among summer gardens. But naïveté had always looked like fantasy.

This didn't. This looked lived in. You caught sight of Céline through the kitchen doorway then, already washing dishes despite everyone's protests, and immediately leaned around Kylian's shoulder.

"Merci, Céline." The older woman waved you away without even turning around. You laughed. A small, happy sound. Still smiling. Still tucked against him. And suddenly your mother realized she didn't know how long that exchange had existed. Days. Months. An entire year. Long enough that gratitude had become instinct. Long enough that everyone in the room seemed to understand their place inside the rhythm of the house. Everyone except her.

—

The waiting began quietly. Not officially. Nobody ever said now we wait. But sometime after your mother arrived, after the conversations with Marseille stopped sounding hypothetical and the small overnight bags appeared folded neatly beside the laundry room door and Céline began cooking enough food for an army without explanation, the entire house seemed to exhale into suspension.

As though everybody had unconsciously begun listening for you. For the baby. For the moment everything would change.Summer loosened slowly from Provence after that. Not all at once.

The afternoons still arrived thick with heat, cicadas still screaming endlessly through the olive trees while sunlight burned honey-gold against the stone terraces, but the evenings cooled now, lavender shadows stretching longer across the hills while the air carried the first faint sharpness of autumn after dark.

And football had fully started again. You felt it in pieces. The return of structure. Recovery schedules taped loosely inside the gym near the pool. Protein shakes abandoned beside the sink. Ice baths. Calls. Flight confirmations. His body slowly becoming public property again after months hidden away in Provence beside you.

But instead of pulling him away, it seemed to make him more protective. More unbearable. Like every reminder that the world would eventually ask for him back made him cling harder to what still belonged only to the two of you. He stopped sleeping properly first.

You noticed because every time you woke during the night he was already awake beside you, lying flat on his back staring at the ceiling while one hand rested automatically beneath your stomach over the sheets as though he needed physical proof you were both still there. Sometimes you pretended not to notice. Sometimes you turned toward him quietly in the dark and felt him exhale the second your body touched his.

“You're not sleeping,” you whispered one night. The room sat open to warm midnight air, curtains moving softly while distant cicadas hummed low through the hills outside.

“Mm,” he murmured. A lie. Your fingers drifted slowly through the short warmth of his hair while his eyes stayed fixed somewhere above you.

“You're scared.” Silence. Then finally, a quiet breath.

“Un petit peu, ma petite flamme.” God. The honesty of it. You rolled slowly onto your side despite the heaviness of your body now, one hand sliding beneath his t-shirt until your palm rested against the center of his chest. His heartbeat felt too fast.

“You know what’s keeping me up?” he murmured softly after a long while.

“Quoi, ma vie?” You whispered against his skin. His hand moved slowly over your stomach beneath the sheets.

“I can't do this part for you.” Your chest tightened immediately. Because there it was. The thing sitting beneath all of it. Helplessness. Kylian knew how to fix things. Move things. Protect things. Arrange entire worlds around the people he loved until danger couldn't reach them.

But this, this he could not touch. And it terrified him. You kissed him softly then, your mouth lingering against his because suddenly you understood the strange quietness that had settled through him these past weeks, the way he'd begun watching you constantly again, not because he thought something would happen, but because he was realizing there was a point coming where he would have to hand you over to pain and simply stand beside you through it.

After that he barely left you alone. Not consciously. Instinctively.

Training ended and suddenly he was back at the house before you'd fully realized he'd gone, one hand already reaching for you the second he stepped through the door, touching your face, your stomach, your back, checking without appearing to check. You'd find him standing silently in nursery doorways sometimes too.

Not doing much. Just staring.

The room had come together quietly over weeks without either of you fully acknowledging it, soft cream walls, linen curtains moving gently through open windows, tiny folded clothes Céline kept washing despite the baby not being there yet, your mother adding things silently when nobody watched, a knitted blanket folded over the chair one morning, tiny socks appearing in drawers.

The whole house had begun preparing around you. One evening you found Kylian standing beside the crib with both hands resting against the railing, completely still in the fading gold light.

“What are you thinking about?” you asked softly from the doorway. He looked up immediately.

The look on his face wasn’t fear exactly. It was something younger than that. Wonder mixed with terror.

“They're going to sleep here,” he murmured quietly. Your chest tightened painfully. As though it still shocked him. As though some part of him still couldn't comprehend that eventually there would actually be a baby inside the house instead of only anticipation. Your mother softened after that.

Not abruptly. Slowly. You caught her watching him sometimes when he didn't notice, watching the way he adjusted your pillows automatically before sitting beside you, the way he cut fruit for you absentmindedly while talking, the way his entire body changed anytime you made even the smallest sound of discomfort.

One afternoon she found him asleep beside you on the terrace sofa, one arm wrapped heavily around your waist while his hand rested spread low across your stomach beneath the loose fabric of your dress, his face buried against your shoulder like he'd collapsed there halfway through speaking. You'd both fallen asleep in the heat. The sight of it made something quiet move through her face before she looked away.

Even Céline had become gentler with him now.

“Il est terrifié,” she murmured softly to you one morning while chopping peaches in the kitchen. He's terrified. You looked toward the window automatically where Kylian stood outside speaking to somebody from the club, pacing slowly beneath the olive trees while one hand dragged repeatedly through his hair.

“He doesn't look terrified.” Céline laughed quietly under her breath.

“Men like him never do.” Then softer… “But he watches you breathe when you sleep.” Your chest tightened instantly. Because you'd noticed. Sometimes in the middle of the night you'd wake half enough to feel his fingers against your wrist or the warmth of his hand moving slowly beneath your stomach, checking for movement, checking for life, checking for you.

The closer you moved toward the birth, the stranger time became after that. The days slowed.

Everything waiting. The house waiting. Your body waiting.

Everybody orbiting the arrival of somebody none of you had met yet but already loved enough to rearrange entire lives around. And underneath all of it sat fear. Quiet. Never spoken fully aloud. But there. In the way Kylian's face sometimes emptied briefly when he thought nobody could see him. In the way your mother still touched your cheek absentmindedly whenever she passed you. In the way Céline crossed herself softly every time Marseille called. As though all of you understood something fragile sat at the center of this happiness now. Something none of you entirely trusted yourselves to keep.

•

Thank you so much for reading! I really hope you enjoyed this chapter and look forward to what's ahead! I promise papa Kyks is coming just bear with me! I just love writing them so I apologize.

Be sure to like, comment, or message me what you think, s'il te plaît !!

Next Part - Chapitre 19 | Coming Soon (promise x) ✨

⛓️‍💥🍷 🚬❤️‍🔥🍴🥀🕯️💋🪩

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

FIE