Page 21 of Nine Months to Love

The Egyptian cotton is soft against my skin, expensive and luxurious even as I soak it with snot and tears. I’m a pathetic mess. When I finally run dry, I force myself upright—only to behit immediately with a violent surge of nausea that has nothing to do with emotional turmoil and everything to do with the tiny life growing inside me.

I barely make it to the bathroom before my stomach empties itself.Welcome back to the manor,I think bitterly, gripping the toilet rim like it’s the only solid thing left in my universe.

The cool porcelain against my palms grounds me as another wave crashes through. Morning sickness at four in the afternoon. Just what the doctor ordered.

Though technically, I am the doctor, and I definitely didn’t order this particular prescription of misery.

When my stomach finally has mercy on me and stops trying to turn itself inside out, I struggle up to my feet. I rinse my mouth and splash cold water on my face. My reflection in the gilt-edged mirror looks hollow—red-rimmed eyes that seem too large for my face, pale skin with a greenish undertone, hair tangled beyond salvation.

I look like someone who’s been through a war. Which, I suppose, I have. A war between mother and son, with me as the battlefield, the collateral damage, whatever you wanna call it.

I reach instinctively for my phone, but I panic for a second when I realize my pockets are empty.

Right. Natalia claimed it was “damaged” during her so-called rescue. Therefore, I have no connection to the outside world. No way to call Camille, who’s probably losing her mind with worry by now. I can’t even call my mom, though her condescending lecture is the last thing I want to hear right now.

No, it’s just me, trapped in this dark fortress with a man I can’t decide whether to trust or run from. I’m Rapunzel in a designer prison, but there’s no happy ending in sight. No prince climbing up my hair to save the day.

Just a devil who owns the tower and holds all the keys.

Stefan had stripped away the illusion of Natalia’s kindness during the car ride—or at least, sown enough doubt to throw it all into question. But he hadn’t exactly made a great case for why I should trust him instead.

After all, didn’t he claim to learn everything he knows from her? The student surpassing the master, but still using the same playbook.

And yet.

And yet, and yet, and yet.

Against all logic, all reason, all self-preservation instincts that should be screaming at me to run—I still ache for him. It’s a physical, illogical thing, like an organ that got transplanted into me, one I never asked for and never wanted.

Seeing him burst through those woods like some avenging angel—or demon, more accurately—with his silver eyes wild with fear, dark hair windblown and disheveled in a way I’d never seen before—it felt like sunlight breaking through after years in darkness.

Like breathing after nearly drowning underwater.

Like coming home to a place I’d never actually been.

It doesn’t matter how many times I remind myself of his long list of sins.He schemed against you. Used you and abused you,lied to you, kept you in the dark at his leisure simply because it suited him.

Because when those hands touched my skin and he asked if I was hurt, none of that seemed to matter anymore.

I sink onto the bed and press my palms against my eyes until I see stars. I’m hoping it’s the hormones driving me slowly insane. Pregnancy does strange things to the brain, floods you with chemicals that make you irrational, make you crave pickles and ice cream and—apparently—Russian crime lords.

But deep down, in that honest place we all try to avoid, I know I was feeling this way long before I knew I was pregnant.

Before that first night in his office when he made me feel things I’d only read about in the romance novels Camille leaves lying around. Maybe even from that moment at the gala when Stefan crushed Frederick Carson’s hand and called me “little fox” in that voice that made something low in my belly go absolutely bonkers.

A knock at the door makes me jump.

“Olivia.” Stefan’s voice, muffled through wood. “Can we talk?”

“No.”

Silence. Then: “You need to eat something.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“The baby needs?—”

“Don’t you dare use this baby to manipulate me,” I lash out.