Page 160 of Pregnant By A Rich Demon 3

“Set it good, then,” she yelled back, already swimming toward Saroya.

Truth settled into the reclining chair, and I lowered myself behind her, letting her fit between my legs the way she always did, her back against my chest, my arms wrapping loose around her middle. The music moved through the deck low and steady. Her sisters’ laughter carried across the water, unguarded, easy.

I let myself feel grateful for it—for Honor’s bluntness, for Saroya’s laugh, for whatever quiet thing was happening between Raven and Priest in the dark corner of the yard. They’d given Truth something tonight that I couldn’t have given her alone: a few hours where the fear from Mimosa Ct didn’t have room to breathe.

Because it was still there. Somewhere in the back of my mind, behind the music and the lights and the sound of Truth breathing steadily against me, I kept turning the package over—the finger, the ear, the words scrawled across that paper like a promise. I hadn’t stopped thinking about it since it arrived. I wouldn’t stop until whoever sent it was dead.

But not tonight.

Tonight, I pushed it down, deliberate, the same way I pushed down everything that threatened to take up space I didn’t want it to have. Tonight was for watching Truth’s sisters splash each other under blue light, for feeling her weight settle into me like she trusted the ground to hold, for being a man capable of building something soft in the middle of a war I hadn’t finished fighting.

I tightened my arms around her, just slightly, and she made a small contented sound and let her head fall back against my shoulder.

Beyond the gate, out past the hedges and the cameras and the men I had posted at every entrance, the threat was still waiting. It would still be waiting tomorrow.

Tonight, I held her and let tomorrow worry about itself.

Chapter 17

TRUTH

Iwoke up to the sound of birds arguing in a tree somewhere close, the smell of chlorine still clinging to my skin, and Amai’s arm heavy and warm across my stomach like it had been there all night, which it probably had.

I didn’t remember falling asleep.

I remembered the music, the blue lights, Honor’s cannonball splash soaking the edge of the deck, Amai’s chest rising and falling steadily behind me. I remembered being warm and full and safe in a way that made my eyes want to close. I did not remember making the decision to actually close them.

“I fell asleep,” I said, more to myself than to him, my voice cracked with sleep.

“You did.” Amai’s voice rumbled low against the back of my neck, still thick with his own sleep. “Face first. Mid-sentence, too. You were telling me something about Honor’s feet.”

“I don’t even remember having an opinion about Honor’s feet.”

“You had several.”

I turned over to look at him, and the morning light coming through the tall windows made him look softer than I was used to seeing him, hair a little wild, eyes still adjusting. I hadn’t realized how tired I actually was until my body just gave out on me like that, like it had been waiting for permission to stop holding everything up.

“My sisters,” I said, sitting up too fast, panic climbing my throat before my brain fully caught up to my mouth. “Did they get home? Did somebody drive them? Did⁠—”

“They’re here.” Amai caught my wrist gently, grounding me before I could spiral all the way. “Different guest rooms. All three of them.”

I stared at him.

“All three?”

“All three.”

“Honor?” I said it like her name was proof of something. “Honor stayed?”

Because Honor didn’t do sleepovers. Honor barely did dinner parties. Honor had three kids and a husband and a whole schedule mapped out in her head at all times. She loved Terrance messy and loud, but she loved her own bed more, and she’d told me more than once that she wasn’t the type of woman who “played around” when it came to getting back to her house at a decent hour, chaos or not.

“Honor,” Amai confirmed, clearly enjoying my shock a little too much. “In the room at the end of the hall. Snoring like she ain’t had a good night’s sleep in years.”

“She probably hasn’t.”

“She snores loudly. I heard it from downstairs.”

I fell back against the pillow, laughing despite myself, picturing my sister passed out in one of Amai’s guest rooms with her mouth probably open, no kids climbing on her, no Terrance asking where the remote was. “Lord. What happened after I fell asleep?”