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For how long? Judging from the photos, she had already known before we got married.
I balled my hand into a fist and then slowly released it as logic dawned on me. That first time on the balcony. We hadn’t used protection. I never did with her. I just assumed she was on birth control like all the other women I’d been with.
Her pregnancy changed everything. Everything. She was having my child.
She was bound to me now, more than when we were just husband and wife. She was carrying my child. A child I would give my life for a million times over.
Matteo didn’t understand what he had just done. If he had thought I was a threat before, that I was ruthless and cold, he had no idea what I’d just become.
No one, and I meant no one, would pose a threat to my unborn child or Mya and get away with it.
I knew what I needed to do. She wouldn’t approve, and she would probably end up hating me. My jaw clenched, not wanting to see her look at me like that, but I thought to myself, that it didn’t matter.
My feelings didn’t matter. My emotions had already clouded my judgment.
I had to protect her at all costs, no matter the collateral damage.
I had to let logic guide my hand now, not emotion.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Mya
It wasdark all around me.
I didn’t know where we were. The plane ride had been bumpy, and I’d been frightened.
I didn’t like flying but when Dario had informed me that we had to leave and that our safety was compromised more than ever before, I hadn’t worried about an hour or two in the air.
Then that hour had turned into at least seven hours. And then we got in a car and drove for a while longer. I quickly realized that we were in London as the city rose before us.
For a moment, I had been in awe. Why were we here?
I didn’t have a passport. I didn’t even see a customs agent. It was scary how well-connected Dario was.
It frightened me just how much rules didn’t matter when you were someone like him.
And it also made me sad that in comparison, I was absolutely powerless. This man could move like a ghost all over the world. What did he have to be afraid of?
But he was afraid of something. When he had come back to bed that evening, he’d pulled me into his arms, and placed his hand under my chin, turning my face to his.
I had opened my eyes. I was sleepy but had warmed at his touch, thinking that maybe he had woken me to make love, but instead, he had taken my hand, brought it up to his face, kissed my palm, and placed it against his cheek.
I had looked into his eyes, and I saw gentleness and in the shadows of his gaze, I saw fear. It was there and it was gone a second later as he placed a chaste kiss on my lips and told me to get some sleep. I hadn’t imagined it, it had been love in his eyes.
When we arrived at the house, I found its appearance intimidating. I’d been half afraid that it was haunted.
“Dario?” I called out in the darkness. He’d dropped me off in what I now considered to be my newest gilded cage, a Tudor-style home that looked like something out of a story book or a British murder mystery.
I don’t know when I fell asleep. I had been sitting in the study next to a fireplace, listening to Dario’s voice in the distance. I had yawned, trying not to nod off.
I guess I hadn’t been successful. In the dark, I tried to find my bearings. I knew that would be impossible given that this place, shit, this whole country, was new to me.
When he said that we needed to find someplace safe, I hadn’t expected him to drag me to a whole different continent.
One step at a time, I said to myself as I gingerly made my way through the dark room, hoping that I wouldn’t trip over furniture or one of the plush area rugs that soaked up sound throughout the gigantic home.
I estimated it was at least eleven rooms. Given how long it had taken us to drive up the private driveway before we arrived in front of the majestic fountain that sat on the circular driveway, I would say the property was surrounded by acres of land.