“What?” I ran my hand through my hair, holding it back so I’d physically keep my fingers away from her. The temptation to hold her, to touch her, overpowered me.
“They fired me.”
I blinked once, not seeing that coming.
“I don’t have an agency to report to. I don’t have anything.”
“I’m not following.” I lifted my hand to set it on her hip but thought twice. “Why… What?—”
“I was fired. They made up a lie that I had turned traitor and sold intel to the Cartel operating near Cozumel.”
I reared back, confused.What the hell?I was with her at that time. I saw her the whole time and she wasn’t talking to anyone but me when she was in Mexico.
“Because after I asked a housekeeper to cut me free from a bed some asshole tied me up to in Grand Cayman, I came home and walked into a mess that was orchestrated to ruin me. I couldn’t tell anyone that I was shacking up with you”—she jabbed her finger at my chest—“because you thought it’d be fun to kidnap and play with me until you got bored of me.” Another jab. “I had to make up a lie that I was kidnapped by the Cartel for those two weeks.”
When she lifted her hand to jab her finger at me again, I took hold of it. Struggling to follow along, I frowned and pieced this news together, all while fearing the odds that one of my father’s guards could find us in this closet.
She tried to pull her hand back, but I didn’t release her. In the slight struggle, her unzipped sweatshirt fell further open.
Revealing the rest of her.
Like the swell of her huge tits hidden behind a plain white T-shirt.
And the?—
I stopped short.
Squeezing my fingers on her wrist as I held her hand over her head, I held my breath and stared.
My pulse roared in my ears at what else she was showing up with.
Her reappearance in my life was surprising enough. Then her news about being fired was more of a curiosity to puzzle out.
But the small bump just about the low waistband of her dark jeans was what literally paralyzed me.
I blinked, wondering for a fleeting moment if this was a hallucination. A twisted dream. Maybe I’d fallen when I was drunk and I hit my head.
Because the idea that this woman I’d missed and tried not to love was carrying my child…
Jerking my head up, I tore my gaze from her baby bump. I stared her down, searching her face for an answer about how, why, what…
She sighed, pressing her lips together. Looking way too calm about this, she watched me and licked her lips.
“When that same asshole decided to tie me up and leave me behind as he pleased, it seemed that he’d left something else behind too,” she stated wryly.
My mouth hung open. Beating wildly in my chest, my heart kicked up faster yet. I sucked in a deep breath but couldn’t follow through with exhaling steadily.
“You’re—” I swallowed hard, overwhelmed with too many emotions at once. Worry, confusion, elation, anger. “This is…” I lowered my hand to gently place it on her stomach.
She lowered her gaze, looking at my hand there. When she placed her hand over mine, keeping it there, she looked up and nodded.
“My…” I opened my eyes wide.
“Okay, look, you can’t seriously be this surprised when we didn’t even use a condom or anything.”
“I know. But…” I swallowed again, my throat thick with emotion at the fact that I would be a father. I would have a family. I would never be alone again. Never lost and untethered.
Of course, I knew the risks of knocking someone up. It only took once. Besides her, I never fucked a woman bareback. Never. Because I didn’t want bastards running around when they’d be targets as a Dubinin without protection. Only with her did I not bother with a condom. It wasn’t intentional. I just didn’t haveany on me. In the chaos of kidnapping her, I hadn’t really even thought about whether I could impregnate her.
