Page 127 of The Billionaire's Baby

I am not going to lie to her, not after everything we’ve been through. If I have a chance in hell of winning back her trust, I need to be up front with her. She needs to accept me, faults and all, as I want her in my life. Completely unvarnished, without any masks. That’s how I want us to be able to see each other. I square my shoulders, "I am in the apartment down the hallway, actually—"

"What the hell?" Her cheeks redden, but it’s anger, not embarrassment. "All this time, I have been crying over you and you’ve been watching me and enjoying yourself at my expense."

"No, no, no. It’s not like that." My throat closes. Shit. This isn’t going how I’d imagined it would. "I had to make sure you were okay."

"I was fine, until I met you."

"I promised your family that I’d look out for you."

"Oh, yeah?" She tips up her chin. Her gaze narrows, "If this is what you mean by 'looking out'" she makes air quotes with her finger, "then I am sorry, but clearly, you and I have a different definition of what that means."

She clutches her stomach again, and something hot stabs at my chest.

"You’re in pain. You shouldn’t be exerting yourself emotionally, physically—"

"It’s only my period, you blundering neanderthal," she yells. "It’s not like I am pregnant." Her face crumples again, but she takes a few deep breaths and composes herself. "Shit, I am not pregnant. Not pregnant." She holds herself and begins to rock.

A ball of emotion lodges in my chest.

I take a step forward, and she snarls, "Don't you dare come near me."

"But—"

"Are you happy now? Clearly, you didn’t want me to be pregnant. Your plan worked."

"What do you mean?" I frown. "You know I wanted you to have my child."

"Did you?" Her gaze narrows. "The number of times you could have come inside me and you didn't. You pulled out, you came on me, you fucked me in the ass, but you held off coming inside me until—"

"Until I was sure you were ready to submit to me."

She stares at me, "So you admit it? You admit that you were playing with me, even though we had an agreement?"

"I kept up my part of the deal," I insist.

"You were supposed to get me pregnant. Instead, you were too busy playing your mind games. You were more concerned with holding onto your power. You wanted me to give in to you, you wanted me to beg, before you delivered on your part of the bargain."

Her jaw firms.

"If you hadn't been so hung up on the powerplay, if you hadn't been so obsessed with dominating... If you had been less selfish, you'd have focused on our deal. You wouldn't have held back on me. You'd have tried to get me pregnant every opportunity you had. In fact," her chin wobbles, "if you had, for one second, thought about anyone else but yourself, I'd probably have conceived by now."

My heart begins to race and the band around my chest tightens. I move toward her and she holds up her hand. "Please," her voice wavers then she draws in a sharp breath, "please don’t come near me. In fact, it’s best you stay away from me from now on."

"Let me help." I close my fingers into fists. What can I do? How can I help her? Is everything she said true? Had I been so engrossed with staying in control, had I been so wrapped up in my own emotions, so preoccupied with what I wanted from her, that I had forgotten about why I had entered into the agreement with her in the first place?

My throat closes; a bead of sweat runs down my spine.

Damnit! I have faced down the Bratva, sat across from the sharpest of investors in Silicon Valley, but none of it has prepared me for the absolute helplessness I feel as I watch her grapple with her pain, her anguish.

"Let me at least hold you," I plead.

"No." She wipes the tears off her face. "You lost that right with how you’ve treated me."

"I treated you like you are my—"

"Like your possession," she spits out. "Like you…you could manipulate my life to suit your needs. Like you could arrange the trajectory of events to your convenience. Well, I have news for you Arpad f’ing Beauchamp. I am Karina motherfucking Solenik, and I am going to make you sorry for the moment you set eyes on me."

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