The tears fall faster now. “Are you… are you offering to be my baby daddy?” she sniffs. A small amount of terror runs through me at the thought, but… actually, I don’t mind the idea.
I open my mouth, and she snorts out a tearful laugh. Catching the twinkle in her eye, I growl lightly.
“Luc was right. Youarea brat.”
“I’m sorry. I just… I can’t cope with much more right now.”
Snark is her coping mechanism. We have that in common.
Giving her hands a final squeeze, I sit back.
“You know what I think you need?”
“Psychiatric help?”
“No shame in it if you do.” She looks away from me, and I touch my fingers, very softly, to the side of her face.
“You haven’t given yourself any time to rest.” I pick up my point from earlier. She rolls her eyes at me, but I stand firm. “You need to take a little time just for you. Push the world out for a few days, Ava. There’s time for that.”
“I don’t know…,” her voice wavers.
“Thereis. We’ll make time. Do whatever you want to do during those days. You want to sleep? Sleep. You want to cry? I’ll bring you tissues. Just take a little bit of time for yourself. Everything else will be waiting when you’re ready.”
She wipes her hands over her eyes. “A little bit of time sounds good,” she admits shakily.
I lean back in my chair. “Then that’s what you’ll get.”
ChapterTwenty-Eight
Lucien
I’ve had enough.
“This is insane,” I snarl, stalking into the kitchen. Max, Bastien and Nik look up at me where they’ve had their heads together.
Max leans back in his chair. “What is?” he asks, tension in his voice.
I wave my hand in the general direction of Ava’s room. “It’s been seven days! She can’t stay in there forever!”
My brother leans forward. “She can stay there as long as she needs to,” he says quietly.
I whirl on him, pointing at his face. “Don’t even talk to me. This is your damned fault. I can’t believe you all think that this is okay. Max, you haven’t even checked her to see if the pregnancy is progressing as it should be!”
Max sighs. “I know. But she needs this time, Luc. And Leah has been in and out, checking on her.”
I snort. “She was doing well,” I point out. “She was coming out of her shell, and now she’s right back at square one.”
Nikolai stands up. “She was not doing well,” he says quietly. “She was breaking on the inside.”
I throw my hands up. “How do you know that?” I demand.
He takes a step toward me. “Because I have been there, and I can see it in her eyes. She wasnotokay.”
I step back, blowing out a frustrated breath. I thought we’d made progress the day we took the tracker out. But then she disappeared. I find out that Bastien encouraged her to lock herself away in her room, and now she won’t speak to any of us.
How is this fucking progress?
“If she hasn’t come out by tomorrow,” I snarl, “I’m going to—”
