Page 3 of Wicked Refusal

I’m not so sure I’ll get lucky now.

“I haven’t fucked you once since you’ve been here.” He throws that accusation at me like a judge’s death sentence. Like I’m guilty of murder instead of the unforgivable crime of, let’s see… not wanting to share a bed with a drunken lunatic. “I’ve been patient, you know. I thought, hey, she probably just needs some time to come around, yeah? She’ll warm up. She’ll remember what she’s supposed to do. No, better yet, she’ll remember all the things I’ve done for her, and she’ll start doing her part. Her duties, yeah?” He fixes me with a burning stare, hotter than the flames licking up the fireplace behind his back. The light behind him casts his face in pure black silhouette. Only his eyes shine through the shadows. Two pinpricked glows. “Instead, all along, you were incubating Yulian Lozhkin’s runty little bastard.”

Fear creeps up my throat. I crawl with my back against the wall, trying desperately to shield my belly. He isn’t hitting me yet, but I know the look in his eyes. I know what comes after it.

“Brad—”

“Don’t you fucking deny it!” He slams his fist into a bookshelf. “Don’t you fucking dare! I saw the box, that fuckin’ pregnancy test. Did you really think my staff would keep that from me?”

My heart sinks at the revelation. I thought I’d been careful. I thought?—

What? That you could keep your pregnancy a secret forever?

I just thought I’d have more time.

Brad’s knuckles pop like fireworks as he cracks them. One at a time. One hand, then the other. Then his neck, side to side, front and back. Jaw left. Jaw right.

Then he’s ready.

“Please,” I whisper. “Please, I?—”

“No.” He draws closer, tall, looming. His fist in the dark. The toes of his shoes, leather reflecting firelight. Pinprick eyes. “No, it’s time for you to shut the fuck up.”

“Brad,” I blurt, desperate to get through to him. I’ve got nowhere to run, nowhere to hide—my only hope is to make him listen. “The baby is innocent. Please don’t hurt my baby. Not again.”

That seems to give him pause—“Not again.”

For a second, only a second, he stops.

Then rage twists his features. “I should have hit you harder the first time,” he snarls. “I won’t make the same mistake with this one.”

I curl up into a ball. I don’t even bother to cover my face—my arms seal themselves around my belly, a weak shield of flesh and bones and prayers.

I shut my eyes.

I wait.

Then I hear it.

“LEAVE HER ALONE!”

Something throws itself in the way of Brad’s fist. I hear the crash of a small body against the bookcase.

My eyes fly open.

“Eli!” I crawl towards my son, panicked. He’s clutching his shoulder, but a quick exam tells me it’s not dislocated, thank God. “Are you okay, baby? Are you hurt?”

He shakes his head. I can tell it’s a lie. What Brad just did to him will cut deeper than any wound ever could.

For months, my own son hasn’t spoken a word to me. He’s too angry, too confused by the lie that ripped our lives apart.

But tonight, he threw himself at his own biological father to protect me.

I cradle my son in my arms and turn to Brad with fire in my eyes. “Touch either one of my babies again, and I swear to you, I will call the only man worthy of being their father. And he won’t be as kind to you as I have.”

It’s a long shot. I have no reason to trust Yulian. No reason to think Brad will be afraid of him.

But he is.