“Okay,” I whisper. “Might as well jump in feet first.” I walk up to the stick and pick it up. The little window has a single word reflecting back at me.
Pregnant.
I cover my mouth to stifle whatever sound is about to come out, then I turn and show Marla. She looks at it and her eyes widen. “What are you going to do? If your father?—”
“He won’t know. Whatever happens next, he doesn’t get to know about this. Not now, not ever.”
She nods in understanding. “And… Viktor?”
His reputation suddenly comes to mind. I’ve heard some of my father’s men talk through the thin walls of this house almost all my life about him and what some have called him. “The Dark Cloud”. I’ve heard people say that he’s the last thing that anyone who ever crosses my father sees. And if all that wasn’t enough, I got to see a glimpse of that the night he defended my honor.
I’m a little ashamed that it turned me on so much. Hell, I’m a lot ashamed. The way he came in and beat that guy nearly to death without question, and all for protecting me… I don’t know what about it got to me. Maybe it was the idea that he was willing to protect me in a way that I haven’t experienced since Nicki died.
I have wondered since that night if my father would have bothered. It’s crazy to say, but there’s a big part of me that believes that he would have just stood by and let me be raped.That’s what you get for being a slut.
Could Viktor be a father to this baby? Is it in him to protect us both? To… love us both?
“I don’t know,” I say aloud. “I don’t… I don’t think so. For now, no one can know, Marla.”
She frowns deeply with disapproval. “You should at least tell Viktor?—”
“Nobodycan know,” I say, enunciating every word. “I’m so serious right now. This stays between us.”
She rolls her eyes and says, “Okay, but you know you can’t hide this kind of thing forever.”
“I know. Hopefully, by the time I’m showing, I’ll have come up with a plan to leave or… something. I don’t know.”
“So, you are going to keep it, then?”
I have to pause as I realize that it’s not once occurred to me since the moment I found out for sure that I had the option of abortion. I touch my stomach self-consciously. It’s hard to believe there’s even a baby in there at all.
But there is. And God help me, I want to keep it.
“Yeah,” I say. “I guess so.”
