Page 38 of After-Hours Heir

She wrinkled her nose. “Thank you.”

She didn’t really mean it.

When the doors to the elevator opened, his pristine penthouse was revealed. She had never thought about where he lived. She looked around the space and took in the clean lines, all black and stainless steel everything.

“I always thought that you lived in a cave. I guess this is close enough.”

“Did you think that?”

“Yes. That’s where one imagines the dragon returns home to at the end of the day, isn’t it?”

“A dragon?”

He nearly looked amused by that. And she did her best not to feel something in response to creating that amusement for him.

He was such a difficult man.

“Yes. That was what I thought about you the first time I met you. When I was a teenager.”

He lifted his dark brows. “I don’t remember meeting you then.”

She blinked. “Of course you don’t. Why would you? I was invisible.”

“If you were a child, I can guarantee you I had no reason to notice. I’m not interested in children.”

“I was sixteen.”

“A child to me in many ways. I find you to be a child now.”

“Excuse me?”

“I only mean that you have lived nothing of the kind of life I have.”

“Maybe you want to share what you’ve been through?”

“I don’t. But that is interesting that you thought me something quite so dangerous as a dragon, even then. I suppose that was your self-preservation instincts. Which failed you later on.”

“The man I was texting with wasn’t a dragon.”

He looked up at her, his dark eyes blank. “But he was, silly. All along.”

That made her stomach twist tight. Made her heart feel like it was being squeezed.

She felt like she was gasping for air.

Just then a different set of doors to the penthouse opened, and a medical team entered. Awhole team. There was equipment, being rolled in on great wheels, and she was stunned by the sight.

“We’re going to do a sonogram,” Christos said.

“In your house.”

“Of course. Why would I have my fiancée trek all the way down to a medical facility?”

“You’re picking a strange thing to be chivalrous about. Considering you’re literally strong-arming me into a marriage and are in general not at all courtly in any manner.”

“Do not question it when I decide to show chivalry.”

“I think you aren’t understanding, Christos. I have agreed to this. Because it is the best thing for me. Because you’re right, it is going to make things easier in some ways. Because I believe you when you say that your first offer will be the best one. And I am very aware that you could take me apart piece by piece. But you are a fool if you think I’m going to make this easy for you. If you think that I will suddenly become compliant. I have always known what you were. And you’re right, except for a very brief failure within my instincts to keep me safe, I have always known that I needed to be on guard with you. It’s not going to stop now, not because I’m having your baby. Not because we might get legally married.”