Page 42 of Belonging to Them

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Kingston

I’m lying in bed, but not asleep, when my phone buzzes with a text.It’s Ella.

Hey.If you’re awake, I’d love to talk.

I press the screen to call her back immediately.“What’s going on?”

“I miss you,” she says on a sigh.

“I miss you, too.”I think about the necklace nestled in my suitcase.I want to tell her about it so badly.Sebastian and I will need to figure out the best way to do it.I don’t want to just hand it over as soon as we’re both home again.It’s a collar.This isn’t some trinket to be taken lightly.Whatever we do with it should be on par with a proposal.

“Something weird happened.I mean,” she says, “it was really cool, but…weird.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.I met Tommy’s girlfriend.”

“Huh.I didn’t know he had a girlfriend.”

“Yeah, neither did I,” she says.“Her name is Gianna.And it turns out, she’s pregnant.”

It takes me a moment to digest her words.

“Are you still there?”she asks.

“Well,” I finally say, “I guess that’s convenient.”

“What?”Ella’s voice rises in pitch.

“Tommy needs money, and now a pregnant girlfriend shows up out of the woodwork.”

“Are you being serious right now?”Ella asks.“Out of thewoodwork?Like Gianna is some kind of termite?”

“You don’t know for sure that this baby is your brother’s,” I point out.

“I’m not an idiot, Kingston.”

I sigh and rub my forehead, right between my eyebrows, trying to relieve the tension gathering there.“I know you’re not an idiot.”

“Then why are you acting like I’m one?”

I can picture her with her hands on her hips, her stubborn little chin jutting forward.

She could be making a huge mistake, trusting a stranger.This Gianna person could be a total scammer.She might not even be pregnant.And Ella just wants family so desperately, she could be missing the signs.

“Okay,” I say.“Okay, listen.I just want you to be careful, that’s all.Are your guards still going everywhere with you?”

“Yes, they are, because apparently you think I’m a child,” she says.

“No, I don’t think that.”Dammit.This conversation is going completely off-track.“I just want you to be safe.Physically and emotionally.Maybe we could ask Gianna to take a paternity test.”

“We are asking her no such thing.I can’t believe you’d even suggest it.What if I were pregnant?Would you make me take a paternity test to make sure the baby is yours?”

“It could be Bash’s, and that wouldn’t bother me in the slightest,” I say, grinning at the thought.“But for Gianna, it’s not a bad idea.”

“Look, just because your ex-wife baby-trapped you doesn’t mean every pregnant woman is a villain,” Ella says.