The morning sun was cutting through the eucalyptus trees behind Bungalow 2, casting long, pale bars of light across the flagstone patio.
Daniel stood by the wooden railing outside the bungalows, holding a ceramic mug of black coffee, watching two studio golf carts cruise down the lane toward the main administration building.
Beside him, leaning his shoulder against a painted white post, was Tom. Tom had an unlit cigar wedged in the corner of his mouth and a thick stack of finalized contracts tucked beneath his arm, his shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows. Elena walked out of the bungalow screen door behind them, holding her iPad in one hand and a thin paper cup of green tea in the other, her tailored grey wool coat draped over her shoulders against the morning chill.
"The Canadian kid's attorney signed the rider forty minutes ago," Tom said, tapping the edge of the contracts against the post. "Thomas King gets his five hundred grand wired to his credit union in Edmonton by three o'clock, and we've got his first-look feature locked down for twenty-four months. No development penalties, no corporate turnaround clauses. He wants to adapt that crane script into a ninety-minute thriller."
"Good," Daniel said, taking a sip of his coffee. "Did we give him the crew package?"
"Gave him everything," Elena said, looking up from her screen. "Full access to our lighting grip packages out of Vancouver, three million dollar production guarantee, and he keeps final cut up to two hours. The London boys on Cold Roast signed theirs yesterday afternoon. The director, Tobi, called his mum from my office landline and was crying so loud the security desk downstairs asked if someone needed an ambulance."
A faint, dry smirk touched Daniel's lips. "Tell Benny to set them up with an editing bay in Bungalow 5 next week. I want them close to the post-production floor so they can see how we mix audio."
Tom looked out across the quiet lawns of the Burbank lot, shaking his head with a low, rumbling chuckle.
"You know who this reminds me of?" Tom asked, shifting the unlit cigar with his tongue. "Jess."
Elena smiled, taking a sip of her tea. "Jessica Ginart. Exactly."
"How's her New Mexico shoot wrapping up?" Daniel asked, leaning back against the wooden rail.
"Wrapped two days ago," Elena answered, tapping her tablet to pull up the production wire. "Four days ahead of schedule, three hundred grand under budget. That's four straight commercial hits for her since you brought her in, Dan. Four. When she sent Static to the studio on that battered external drive years ago, nobody in this town would give a five-minute general meeting to people like her. Now she's got her own dedicated production banner here, the indie community treats her like royalty, and she doesn't take a single call from CAA unless it goes through our desk first."
"That's the whole point of all this," Daniel said, looking at the two young filmmakers walking across the grass toward the commissary in their cheap hoodies. "You give someone with real vision the tools, you pay them what they're worth, and you get the hell out of their way. Jess didn't need us to tell her how to direct; she just needed forty million dollars and a camera that didn't rattle. In five years, Thomas King and Tobi will be doing the exact same thing."
Tom slapped the stack of contracts against his thigh with a sharp thwack.
"Speaking of giving people what they're worth," Tom muttered, his dark eyes cutting toward the digital clock mounted above the stage doors across the road. "It's ten in the morning, Daniel. Marcus has the digital keys loaded on the master delivery pipeline. The trailer is cued up."
Daniel checked his wristwatch.
"Let it fly," Daniel said quietly.
Elena didn't hesitate. She swiped her thumb across the glass screen of her tablet, entering the executive release authorization for the Burbank media servers.
"Uploaded," Elena said, looking up with that sharp, calm confidence that had anchored her career since their days in the rented two-room office. "MovieFlix front carousel, YouTube primary channel, and satellite feeds out to every morning entertainment broadcast in thirty countries."
Daniel drained the last of his black coffee, tossing the paper dregs into a wooden bin.
"Come on," Daniel said, pushing off the porch railing. "Let's go watch the town lose its mind."
---
The trailer did not open like a normal Hollywood studio preview.
There was no roaring lion, no spinning globe, and no high-gloss corporate fanfare. The screen simply faded in from dead black to a wide, punishingly real landscape of snow-dusted spruce forests in the French Alps, shot in freezing, natural winter light that looked cold enough to crack glass.
The wind howled through the sound mix—a deep, tactile groan of mountain pine and iron branches.
Then, cutting through the frost, came the music.
It wasn't a modern, synthetic pop remix or a wall of bombastic trailer drums. It was a single, lonely antique upright piano, recorded with every tiny creak of the wooden pedals and the hammer felt hitting the copper strings, playing the slow, haunting opening notes of Alan Menken's melody:
Tale as old as time…
A sudden, sharp series of cuts hit the screen with the speed of an axe falling:
A cobblestone village square, choked with mud, horse droppings, and blowing sleet.
Hugh Jackman as Gaston, unbuttoned down to his ribs in grease-stained scarlet leather, leaping onto a rough-hewn oak table with an iron tankard in his hand, his eyes wide with a terrifying, magnetic ferocity that looked less like a cartoon hunter and more like a dangerous frontier warlord.
Then, Anne Hathaway as Belle—not walking through a plastic garden in high heels, but trudging through four inches of mountain slush in rough wool stockings and a faded blue provincial dress, carrying a bundle of firewood, her jaw set with a stubborn, fierce defiance that dared the village to look down on her.
The music swelled. The lone piano was joined by the deep, resonant growl of forty live cellos from Abbey Road, dark and operatic.
The ruined West Wing of the castle appeared on screen: decaying tapestries hanging in black rags from fifty-foot limestone pillars, shattered glass reflecting cold moonlight, and the crimson glow of the enchanted rose floating under a glass bell jar.
And then, stepping out from behind a stone pillar with a heavy, concussive *THUD* that shook the subwoofers, came the Beast.
The internet froze.
Because everyone had remembered what happened twenty years ago.
Years ago, Disney had taken a swing at Beauty and the Beast with a cheap, flat, animated 2D disaster that had landed in theaters with a hollow thud. It had been an absolute critical and commercial embarrassment—a rushed, sanitized failure that had lost millions, became the laughingstock of the industry, and caused Disney to lose the underlying trademarks and let the IP slip entirely out of their grasp. For two decades, the title had been treated like a cursed, untouchable property that nobody in Hollywood would touch with a ten-foot pole.
And now, Daniel Miller—the man who had just directed the most gritty superhero action blockbuster in cinema history—wasn't just reviving it.
He was doing a full-blown gothic musical.
Dan Stevens' Beast on the screen looked staggering. He wasn't a smooth, rubbery cartoon creature. Standing nearly seven feet tall on the heavy platform boots, his digitigrade frame carrying the real, muscular weight of the counterbalanced rig, the creature moved with a low, predatory menace. His fur was matted with ice and stone dust, his curved horns scraped the lintel of the doorframe, and his pale, human eyes burned with ten years of isolation and agony.
As Belle stood her ground before him, Dan Stevens leaned forward, his heavy, scarred snout inches from her face, his voice rumbling through the floorboards like an idling diesel engine:
"You came here of your own free will?"
Anne didn't blink. Her chin lifted. "I came for my father."
The trailer erupted into a thirty-second blitz of pure cinematic power:
Seventy live kerosene torches blazing through the village square in a terrifying, claustrophobic lynch mob; Hugh Jackman screaming into the smoke with an iron pitchfork raised high; Ian McKellen and Emma Thompson's voices chiming through the dark corridors; and finally, the breathtaking reveal of the grand ballroom, where twenty-four lead crystal chandeliers flared to life over an ocean of amber light, and the Beast, in tailored midnight blue, reached out a heavy, fur-covered hand toward a woman in yellow silk.
The screen slammed to black on the final, booming strike of a church bell.
Simple gold lettering appeared against the dark:
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
A Daniel Miller Film
Christmas Day.
---
Within ninety seconds of the upload finishing its worldwide cache, the internet completely collapsed.
On YouTube, the view counter broke at 450,000 within four minutes, freezing the metrics while the comment section flooded with eighty thousand comments an hour. Over on Twitter, the platform's trending sidebar became an absolute slaughterhouse:
`#BeautyAndTheBeast` (1.4M posts)
2. `DANIEL MILLER MUSICAL` (890K posts)
3. `HUGH JACKMAN GASTON` (640K posts)
4. `DAN STEVENS` (410K posts)
5. `Disney In Shambles` (320K posts)
The comment sections across Reddit, YouTube, and Twitter turned into a chaotic, hilarious, beautiful cross-section of the internet being completely, unhinged-ly itself:
> @Cinephile_Dave (YouTube):Hold on. Let me get this straight. Daniel Miller directed the darkest, most technically proficient comic book epic of the century, revolutionized independent film distribution with an open tournament, and then decided his next project was going to be... AN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FRENCH OPERATIC MUSICAL WITH LIVE STRINGS?! This man cannot be predicted. You literally cannot guess his next move. He's playing chess against a mirror.
> u/xX_GastonEnjoyer_Xx (Reddit):BRO WHY IS HUGH JACKMAN SO TERRIFYING LMFAOOOO he looks like he drinks raw eggs and punches bears for cardio. That tankard slam on the table literally cracked the oak plank you can see the splinter fly off at 0:42. He is not singing for fun, he is singing because he wants to commit medieval war crimes.
> @marvelfan_09 (Twitter):wait is this real??? i thoght beauty and the beast was that terrible 2d cartoon disney made that bombed in theaters when my older brother was a baby lol. did daniel buy the rights to that???
> @FilmHistoryGuy (Twitter):Replying to @marvelfan_09: Disney's 2D version was a notorious box office catastrophe in the late 2000s because they sanitized the script and cut the budget in half. They lost the core European distribution rights after the lawsuit, and the fairy tale lapsed back into public domain neglect. Daniel Miller took an IP that Hollywood considered absolute radioactive trash and turned it into an Abbey Road orchestral gothic epic. The sheer audacity of this man.
> u/TheaterKid_99 (Reddit):CAN WE TALK ABOUT THE PRACTICAL LIGHTING IN THE BALLROOM??? Look at the chandeliers at 1:44! Those are NOT digital light passes. Look at the lens flare on the camera move—that is real lead crystal refracting practical tungsten bulbs! The reflections on Hathaway's yellow skirt are shifting because the light is actually physically in the room with her! Cinema is so back.
> @skibidi_toilet_fan2 (TikTok):the dog beast guy is kinda hot ngl no cap
> @real_cinema_critic (Twitter):The texture of Dan Stevens' performance here is remarkable. In an era where every 'creature' is a slick CGI blob that lacks physical mass, Stevens' Beast has an agonizing, grounded center of gravity. You can tell the actor was carrying the real weight of a beast in his head. The hesitation in his hands when he reaches for Hathaway's book is heartbreaking. This isn't a kids' movie. This is a tragedy about a man who forgot how to be human.
> @gordon_shumway (Reddit):Disney executives sitting in their glass tower in Burbank right now watching Daniel Miller make two hundred million dollars on the fairy tale they completely ruined twenty years ago: [insert image of Walter White falling into the sand].
> @poptart_lover (YouTube):hugh jackman could break my jaw with a pewter mug and i would literally say thank you sir may i have another
> @boxoffice_insider (Twitter):Early tracking for December 25th just opened. Pre-sales on theatrical screenings are already outstripping standard holiday release averages by 400%. If these numbers hold, Daniel Miller is about to own the winter holiday box office with a movie where Sir Ian McKellen plays a talking brass mantel clock. Unstoppable.
---
While the digital world was tearing itself apart over seventeenth-century French ballgowns and Hugh Jackman's jawline, inside the gates of the Bel Air estate, the world had slowed to an absolute, grinding crawl.
It was two weeks later. Mid-spring in Southern California.
The jacaranda trees along the private stone walls had burst into brilliant, deep purple blossoms, dropping soft petals across the flagstone paths. The air smelled of sea salt blowing over the Santa Monica ridgeline and the damp earth of the newly turned garden beds.
Scarlett was at thirty-eight weeks.
Her pregnancy had ceased to be an abstract medical timeline and had become an all-consuming, physical reality that dictated every single minute of the household.
Her belly was enormous—heavy, round, and dropped so low into her pelvis that walking from the living room to the sunroom was an unhurried, swaying expedition that required flat sheepskin slippers and a supportive arm. Her ankles were swollen, her ribs were bruised from five weeks of an active baby boy testing his kicking radius against her diaphragm, and her face had that soft, flushed, beautiful exhaustion that belongs exclusively to women who have spent nine months building a human skeleton from scratch.
In the sunroom overlooking the infinity pool, the glass sliders were pushed wide open to let the mild, seventy-degree canyon breeze circulate.
Margot sat on the long teak lounge chair with her bare feet tucked under her, wearing a soft cream linen button-down shirt that hung open over a white tank top. She was at twenty-eight weeks now—just entering her seventh month—her neat, round bump clearly visible beneath the cotton. She was lazily cutting cold honeydew melon into neat cubes on a small bamboo cutting board, humming softly to herself.
Beside her, stretched out flat on a wide outdoor sectional with two pillows jammed under her lower back, was Florence.
Florence was at twenty-seven weeks, wearing an oversized pair of Daniel's faded navy sweatpants and a striped rugby shirt that was pulled tight over her stomach. She had an ice pack balanced directly on top of her bump like a paperweight, holding a paperback novel with one hand while the other casually stole melon cubes off Margot's cutting board without looking.
"Flo, if you take the last piece of melon with the lime salt, I am going to throw your book into the swimming pool," Margot said, her Australian accent completely deadpan as she pointed her paring knife at Florence's fingers.
"The baby demanded melon, Margot," Florence groaned into her pillow, not opening her eyes. "She specifically sent a neurological transmission down my spine requesting cold fruit with citrus seasoning. You wouldn't deny your niece her foundational minerals, would you?"
"My niece has had half a honeydew and three salted crackers since breakfast, Flo. She's fine."
Inside the kitchen, visible through the wide archway, Daniel was standing at the wide marble island.
He was wearing a dark grey t-shirt, worn jeans, and no shoes, his dark hair slightly messy. He had just finished grinding fresh coffee beans into an antique French press, the rich, nutty aroma of roasted Ethiopian roast filling the room, blending with the clean scent of the orange slices he had just prepped for the counter.
Leaning against the island on the stool beside him was Scarlett.
She wore an oversized charcoal wool cardigan over a soft, ribbed black jersey maternity dress that clung to the massive, low curve of her belly. Her auburn hair was piled loosely on top of her head, held by a wooden comb, and her hands were wrapped around a wide ceramic mug of warm lemon water.
She took a slow sip, let out a long, heavy breath that sounded like a tire deflating, and looked at Daniel with an expression of pure, unadulterated exasperation.
"Daniel," Scarlett said, her husky voice low, scratchy, and full of that sharp New York grit.
Daniel pushed the plunger of the French press down with a slow, steady motion. "Yeah, Scar?"
"I am officially done," she stated, resting her hand flat on the top curve of her belly. "I have had it. His lease is up. I am serving him an eviction notice this morning."
Daniel chuckled under his breath, stepping around the island. He set his hands gently on her shoulders, leaning down to press a warm, lingering kiss to the side of her neck. Her skin was warm, smelling of lavender and cocoa butter.
"What did he do now?" Daniel asked, his thumbs lightly working the tight muscles along her collarbone.
"He did a somersault at four in the morning, Daniel," Scarlett muttered, tilting her head back to rest against his chest, her eyes closing with a small sigh of relief as his hands worked. "Right on my bladder. A full, athletic somersault. I thought my water broke, but no—he was just practicing his gymnastics. He's nine pounds of elbows and knees and he has nowhere left to go."
"Dr. Rosenkrantz said seven and a half, Scar," Daniel smiled softly, his hand sliding down to rest warm and solid over the center of her stomach.
The roundness was tight, dropped so low that Daniel's palm barely fit between her sternum and her lap. As his fingers settled against the fabric of her dress, a sudden, slow, rhythmic heave rolled beneath his palm—a solid, heavy movement of a small back shifting position.
Daniel's fingers stilled. He felt the sheer, physical reality of the child waiting behind the wall of muscle.
In the sunroom, Florence yelled through the screen door without moving an inch: "Tell him to come out today, Scarlett! The nursery wallpaper arrived on Tuesday and I personally inspected every seam! It smells like clean pine and victory! He has no excuse to stay in there!"
"Florence, shut up," Scarlett called back, though a tired, affectionate smile cracked the corner of her lips.
She turned on her stool, her bare feet touching the cool limestone floor, reaching for a slice of the peeled orange on the cutting board.
"The trailer looked incredible, Daniel," Scarlett said, her tone shifting, softening into that deep, quiet professional respect they shared. "I watched the final cut on the big screen in the screening room yesterday with Margot. The scene where Dan reaches for the book... the silence there is going to make people weep in the theater."
"Benny worked on that transition for three weeks," Daniel said, pouring the dark coffee into his mug. "He took four percent of the gloss off the snout just so Dan wouldn't look like a seal."
Scarlett laughed—a soft, rich sound that rumbled in her chest.
She reached out with her left hand, taking a slice of orange.
She lifted it halfway to her mouth.
Then, she stopped.
Her hand froze in mid-air.
The smile on her lips vanished in a fraction of a second, replaced by a sudden, sharp, intense concentration. Her eyes widened slightly, her gaze fixing on the edge of the marble island.
Daniel, who had been lifting his coffee mug, caught the shift instantly.
He set the mug down on the counter with a quiet click.
"Scar?" Daniel said, his voice dropping into that calm, alert register he used when a stunt cable shifted on stage. "What is it?"
Scarlett didn't answer right away.
Her breath hitched in her throat. Her right hand gripped the edge of the bullnose marble counter with enough force that her knuckles went bone-white. Her back arched slightly, her eyes closing as her teeth clenched together in a tight, sharp, hissing intake of air through her nose.
Hssssssssss.
Beneath her black jersey dress, the low curve of her stomach tightened like a drawn bowstring, the muscle seizing into a hard, rigid, visible mound.
And then, in the absolute quiet of the sunny kitchen, a distinct, heavy splash hit the limestone floorboards between her bare feet.
A clear pool of fluid spread across the stone, soaking the hem of her dark dress.
From the sunroom, the sudden silence inside the house was palpable.
Margot stopped slicing her melon. Florence sat straight up on the outdoor sectional, the ice pack sliding off her stomach onto the deck with a dull thud.
Scarlett stood frozen by the island for three long seconds, her chest heaving as the contraction slowly released its iron grip on her pelvis.
She looked down at the floor between her feet.
Then, slowly, she lifted her head, looking at Daniel.
A breathless, slightly dazed, completely unhinged grin broke across her flushed face.
"Well, Dan," Scarlett whispered, her voice trembling with an electric mix of shock and pure adrenaline. "The lease just expired."
---
There was no unhinged screaming. There was no chaotic flailing, no knocking over chairs, and no hysterical crying.
In less than three seconds, the household shifted with the silent, terrifying efficiency of a naval submarine going to battle stations.
Daniel stepped into her space immediately, wrapping one strong arm securely around her waist, supporting her weight while his other hand came up to cup the side of her face. "You alright, Scar? Did that one hurt?"
"Felt like a metal band tightening around my lower spine," Scarlett panted, resting her forehead against his chest for three seconds, her breath hot through his t-shirt. "Not unmanageable yet. But it still hurts. That was a big wave."
"I've got you," Daniel said, his voice completely level, solid as granite, grounding her in the center of the room. "Lean on me. Take your time."
From the sunroom archway, Margot appeared like a phantom, already barefoot, her hair tied back, her blue eyes wide, sharp, and entirely focused.
"Water broke?" Margot asked, her voice calm and brisk.
"Broke clean," Daniel nodded, keeping his arm around Scarlett's hips. "Margot, call Dr. Rosenkrantz's private direct line at Cedars. Tell them Scarlett's membranes ruptured at ten-fourteen, contractions are initiating, and we are rolling in the SUV within ten minutes."
"On it," Margot said, turning on her heel and grabbing the kitchen landline receiver off the wall, dialing the seven-digit direct line from memory without looking at the pad.
"FLORENCE!" Daniel barked, not loud, but carrying that absolute executive authority that cut straight through the house.
Florence was already sprinting down the long limestone hallway toward the master suite in her bare feet, her navy sweatpants rustling. "I'M ON THE BAGS! I HAVE THE LEATHER TOTE AND THE FLEECE ROBE! DO NOT LEAVE WITHOUT ME!"
Scarlett let out a breathless, half-choked laugh against Daniel's chest, her fingers gripping his forearm. "Look at them. You'd think we were staging an invasion of Normandy."
"We are staging an invasion, Scar," Daniel murmured, pressing a firm, warm kiss to her temple. "Let's get you into some dry clothes."
He walked her slowly, deliberately, down the hallway toward the master bathroom. He didn't rush her stride; he matched her pace step for step, letting her stop when a second, smaller ache rolled through her hips.
In the bedroom, Florence arrived like a small blond tornado, dropping a heavy canvas weekender bag onto the luggage bench by the door. She had a pair of clean, thick grey sweatpants in one hand, a pair of warm shearling slip-on boots in the other, and an oversized black fleece zip-up hoodie over her arm.
"Sit on the bench, Scarlett," Florence commanded, her green eyes blazing with focused, protective British fury. "Daniel, take her wet dress off. Don't pull it over her head, you'll get it in her hair. Cut the tags if you have to."
"I know how to undress my wife, Flo," Daniel said with a dry, quiet smirk, helping Scarlett slip the wet black jersey down over her hips, wrapping a thick, dry Turkish towel around her waist.
Margot walked into the bedroom, holding the landline receiver against her shoulder. "Annika is already scrubbed in at the private maternity wing on the third floor. The basement garage security bay is cleared for the studio truck. No press, no public lobby. Dr. Rosenkrantz said drive the speed limit, don't use sirens, and bring the prenatal records folder from the desk."
"Folder is in the bag," Florence said, zipping the canvas tote with a sharp, violent zzzzzip. "I packed it three days ago along with eighteen pairs of warm socks and the wooden comb from London."
Scarlett was dressed in thirty seconds: clean grey sweatpants, warm shearling boots, and the soft black fleece zipped over her massive belly.
A second contraction hit right as Daniel pulled the zipper to her throat.
Scarlett grabbed Daniel's leather jacket collar, her head bowing, her eyes squeezing shut as her jaw clenched into iron. She let out a low, guttural groan through her teeth—deep and raw—her fingers digging into the denim over his shoulders with astonishing, bone-crushing strength.
Daniel didn't flinch. He wrapped both arms around her back, pulling her tight against his chest, absorbing the force of the contraction into his own body.
"Breathe into it, Scar," Daniel whispered into her hair, his voice low, steady, rhythmic. "Down into your heels. Four seconds in. Four seconds out. That's it. Let the wave roll."
Scarlett's breath hitched, shuddered, and then followed his count: In. Out. In. Out.
The wave peaked. The tension drained from her shoulders.
She opened her hazel eyes, looking up into his face. They were dilated, dark, and filled with a fierce, primal fire that took Daniel's breath away.
"Three minutes apart," Scarlett whispered, wiping a bead of sweat from her upper lip with the back of her sleeve. "He's in a hurry, Daniel. He wants to see the world."
"Then let's go get him," Daniel said.
He swung the heavy canvas duffel over his shoulder with his left hand, wrapped his right arm firmly around Scarlett's waist, and guided her toward the rear terrace door that led straight into the enclosed garage.
Margot and Florence flanked them like two seasoned bodyguards—Margot holding Scarlett's leather jacket and a bottle of electrolyte water, Florence carrying a blanket and a bag of cold ice chips, both of their rounded bumps swaying beneath their shirts as they moved in lockstep.
The heavy motorized garage doors rumbled open, revealing the black studio SUV sitting in the shaded concrete bay.
Joe, the private driver, was already sitting in the front seat with the engine idling, the air conditioning running at a crisp sixty-eight degrees, his eyes watching the rearview mirror with calm, professional focus.
Daniel helped Scarlett into the wide, leather passenger seat in the back, reclining the seat two notches, tucking a soft cashmere throw blanket over her lap.
Margot climbed into the far rear seat, while Florence slid in right beside Scarlett, immediately taking her left hand and pressing it between both of her warm palms.
Daniel shut the rear passenger door with a solid, airtight thunk, jogged around the hood, and climbed into the front passenger seat beside Joe.
"Cedars-Sinai," Daniel said, his voice calm, clear, and quiet. "Basement intake bay off San Vicente. The gate is cleared."
"Got it, Dan," Joe nodded, dropping the transmission into drive.
The heavy tires rolled across the concrete, down the cobblestone driveway of the Bel Air estate.
Ahead of them, the massive black wrought-iron security gates swung open into the bright, late-morning California sunshine.
Down in the canyon below, the city of Los Angeles was humming with its normal, noisy, frantic rhythm. Billboards for Beauty and the Beast were going up along the boulevards; sixty million people were watching trailer clips of Dan Stevens and Hugh Jackman; hundreds of journalists were still writing think-pieces about who fathered the baby in the Brentwood photographs.
Daniel looked in the side mirror as the truck cleared the gates.
Behind him, in the back seat, Scarlett let out another deep, ragged breath as a contraction began to build, her knuckles whitening as Florence squeezed her hand, while Margot leaned over the headrest, gently smoothing the stray red hairs back from Scarlett's damp forehead.
Daniel turned in his seat, reaching his hand through the gap between the leather buckets.
Scarlett's fingers found his instantly, gripping his knuckles with that fierce, unbreakable, beautiful strength that had anchored his entire world.
Daniel looked into her eyes, felt the heavy, rhythmic throb of the road beneath their wheels, and smiled.
-----
A/N: Read ahead on Patreon: patreon.com/AmaanS