Page 153 of Pregnant By A Rich Demon 4

Her hands came down on my shoulders. They were cool, firm, and surprisingly strong. Her thumbs dug into the knots at the base of my neck, working through the tight, aching cords of muscle with a steady rhythm that made the pounding behind my temples ease just a fraction.

“He’s not an idiot,” Odette murmured, her voice soft near my ear. “He’s just out of his depth. Modern medicine likes things with neat names. When the body decides it’s time to break down, doctors don’t like admitting they don’t have a pill for the end of the road.”

“I ain’t at the end of no road,” I said, though the words lacked their usual fire.

“Of course you aren’t, baby,” she said gently, her fingers moving up to massage the tense line of my jaw. “You’re Winston Landry. You’ll bury us all.”

She moved around to the front of the desk, pulling up the straight-backed mahogany chair and sitting directly across from me. She picked up the teacup, blew softly across the dark, fragrant surface, and held it out toward me.

The steam carried a heavy, rich aroma—roasted chicory, steeped blackberry leaves, and the sweet, thick smell of clover honey she bought from the market off St. Claude. Beneath the sweetness, there was that familiar earthy tang, sharp and lingering.

I reached for the cup. My right hand betrayed me again, a sudden spasmodic jerk rattling the porcelain against the saucer.

Odette didn’t laugh. She didn’t roll her eyes or scold me.

She simply reached out with both hands, wrapped her cool fingers over mine, and steadied the cup, guiding it gently to my lips.

“Drink,” she whispered, her dark eyes looking right into mine with a tenderness I hadn’t seen in this house in thirty years. “It’ll settle the bile in your throat. It’s got the honey you like.”

I drank.

The tea was scalding hot, thick and sweet, burning away the copper taste on my tongue as it went down. It hit my stomach like a warm stone. For the first time all afternoon, the sour nausea that had been clawing at my ribs seemed to loosen its grip.

“Better?” she asked, lowering the cup back to the saucer.

“Better,” I grunted, letting my head fall back against the cushion.

I looked at her through the half-light. For years, this house had been an armed camp. We had slept in separate wings since the twins died. We had traded insults over breakfast, weaponized lawyers over dinner, and looked at each other like two predators sharing a cage that had gotten too small for both of us.

When I shot Amai in the leg at the start of this mess, she had cursed me out on the floor.

But over the past four months—as my weight plummeted, as my steps grew shorter, as the war with Rahsaan ended and Kaisen disappeared with Amai’s woman—something in Odette had shifted.

She had moved her things into the sitting room next to my master suite. She made sure my linen was changed daily when the night sweats soaked through the mattress. She personally vetted every meal the kitchen prepared, carrying the trays up herself so the servants wouldn’t see me struggling to hold a fork.

She’s remembering, I thought, a strange, unearned warmth spreading through my chest. At the end of it all, when the boys are tearing each other apart, and the empire is crumbling at the edges, a woman remembers who built the roof over her head.

“You shouldn’t be carrying trays up those stairs, Odette,” I said, my voice gravelly. “Your lupus has been acting up in the damp weather. Let the girl from the kitchen do it.”

“The girl from the kitchen doesn’t know how to steep your herbs,” Odette said smoothly, taking a linen napkin from the tray and dabbing at a drop of tea that had run down my chin. Her touch was feather-light, almost reverent. “She’d leave it too weak or burn the honey. You need things done right, Winston. You’ve always been particular.”

“I have,” I agreed, closing my eyes as her cool fingers rested against my cheek.

“And you need your strength,” she added, her thumb tracing the hollow beneath my cheekbone. “With everything happening… with Amai running through the swamps like a wild dog and Kaisen hiding out wherever he went… you need to be clear-headed.”

“My head is clear,” I said, though as soon as I spoke the words, a thick, heavy fog rolled behind my eyes, making the edges of the bookshelves blur into long, dark shadows.

“I know it is, sweetheart,” Odette murmured, picking up the small silver spoon and stirring the broth. “Now, take a few bites of this. Just for me.”

I opened my mouth, and like a child, I let my wife feed me from a silver spoon.

The rain started around nine, tapping a steady, dreary cadence against the tall French windows of the study.

The broth hadn’t stayed down. An hour after Odette fed me, my stomach had revolted with violent, wrenching spasms that left me gripping the edge of the porcelain basin in the private bath, coughing up stringy bile while cold sweat poured down my neck.

Odette had cleaned me up without a single word of complaint. She had wiped my face with a lavender-scented washcloth, changed my undershirt, and helped me shuffle back to the leather armchair, tucking a heavy cashmere throw over my knees to stop the shivering that rattled my ribs every time the wind hit the glass.

Now, she was sitting on the velvet settee near the fireplace, a small pair of silver scissors in her lap, methodically clipping the dried ends off a bundle of dark roots and herbs she had spread over a linen towel.