He stops. Something crosses his face that I haven't seen before. Not anger. Something quieter.
"I'm not your father, Theo. I would never harm you. Never harm our child and I would kill anyone who tried."
The air goes out of me. He's never mentioned the scars but I know he saw them because I felt him avoiding them, his hands careful on my back, steering around the raised tissue.
"You don't know anything about my mother's alpha." I am never calling that bastard my father. He doesn’t deserve it. He gave me nothing and I want nothing from him.
"I know I'm not him."
"You're an alpha who locked me in a building and put a tracker on my ankle and told me I belong to you. You can say pretty things. You can tell me you don't kill people and you're running a legitimate business. But I am standing in your kitchen wearing your monitor and I couldn't walk out that door if I tried. That's not words, Novikov. That's facts."
He's quiet. The muscle at the hinge of his jaw works.
"If I take the monitor off, you run."
"Maybe."
“And then the Castellanos take you.”
“Maybe,” I say. “Maybe I’ll take my chances.”
"Not maybe. Definitely. You run and you disappear and I never find you. That's what you've been planning since the day you got here."
"And now I'm pregnant. So the plan doesn't work. I can't run with a baby. I can't run pregnant. I can't run broke with no ID and the Castellanos knowing my name." I spread my hands. "You win. I'm stuck. Congratulations."
He exhales, slow, controlled. He turns away from me and walks to the window. The gray light catches the muscles of his back, the broad slope of his shoulders. He braces one hand on the glass and stands there looking at the city for a long moment.
"What do you want?" he says without turning around. “What will persuade you to stay? I know you know it’s safer with me. At least for now.”
"I want my own suite."
He turns. "What?"
"A suite. My own space. With a door that closes and locks and you’re not allowed in. I'm pregnant, Novikov. I'm not sleeping on your sofa for the next eight months."
"You're welcome in the bed. You've always been welcome in the bed."
"I want to stay where I can lock my door at night and sleep in my own bed."
He looks at me for a long time. His eyes are dark and his face is unreadable. His scent is rolling off him, thick and strong. I can taste it on my tongue.
“Not a separate suite,” he says finally. “I need you close, but I’ll have the office in here cleared out. I'll get another bed brought up."
"And a lock."
"Theo."
"A lock. On the door. That works from the inside."
He breathes in through his nose, out through his mouth. "Fine."
He picks up his phone from the sofa and walks to the hallway and I hear him making a call, his voice low, giving instructions.
The words are clipped and precise and I can tell he’s frustrated. Perhaps he thought the pregnancy would make me give in and turn into the soft little obedient omega that he wants me to be.
I don't feel sorry for him.
I pick up the pregnancy test from the counter and look at it one more time. Then I drop it in the trashcan under the sink and go to the bathroom and turn on the shower. Through the wall I can hear his voice on the phone, still running his world from the hallway.
