A week after Sloane told me that she was pregnant, I rubbed my temples and groaned at the headache growing too quickly for me to be able to tame it. Every fucking day, they came, and I knew why.
Sleeping in one of the guest rooms on my father’s floor sucked. I couldn’t get comfortable no matter which bed or room I chose. I slept like shit and dreamed of her. I had nightmares of losing her to a masked gunman. Then after those passed and pissed me off, I had more bad dreams of someone shooting the baby swelling her stomach.
Each time I woke up with a start, I fought the urge to return to the apartment and see that she was all right. Just to see. But I resisted.
I couldn’t cave.
I’d caved way too much as it was, wanting her and starting to wish I could trust her and not my instinct that she was hiding something.
Because she had been. My gut was never wrong. Ever since I’d suspected she could be keeping a secret from me, I hadn’t been able to convince myself that she was the woman who’d prove me wrong. That I could trust her.
Maintaining my distance from her was the only way I could keep control of this anger.
Anger at myself for wanting to trust her and commit to her forever.
Anger at her for not being able to trust me about our child.
Of course, I would keep her after the baby was born. It was such a ludicrous statement for her to say that. But every day and night that I stayed away from her, I began to see how little reason I’d given her to trust me.
All my life, I’d grown up not to trust women. They’d only ever been good enough to last for one night, one fuck.
I’d never considered that I could give a woman little reason to trust me.
It was all fucked up. I fucked up. And I had no clue how to move past it.
Moving past this dilemma of Sloane not telling me she was pregnant was complicated because of everything else, too. We were still looking for a target to hit back at for poisoning our father. Saul got into a turf war too. Nik was acting more and more secretive, to the point I worried about what was going on in his mind.
I was torn up inside, wanting to stay away from Sloane as a punishment for lying by omission. I was ripped apart, wishing I could apologize and get us to a point where we wouldn’t have any trust issues.
More than anything, I was desperate for all the details about this baby.
And still, I had to manage the worry about my father’s slow recovery. I had to linger in power and do my best at taking over.
Knocks sounded on the office door, and I looked up. Seeing the maid I put in charge of delivering Sloane’s food, I was worried immediately. “What happened?”
She shook her head, almost sympathetically. “Nothing, Maxim. Nothing that I can tell. It’s just that…” She shrugged and held her hands in front of her. “It’s just that she’s not eating well.”
I furrowed my brow. “Is it morning sickness?”
She shrugged, then shook her head. “No. I suspect that would’ve started earlier, and she’s shown no sign of it so far.”
I nodded. “That’s true.” I considered the older woman, wishing she’d give me advice. “She’ll go to the doctor tomorrow.”
“That is good.” She winced. “If I can be so forward as to make a suggestion?”
“Please.” I sat up, gesturing with my hand for her to speak. I was desperate for help with this situation.
“Perhaps you could go speak with her?” She cringed as soon as she said it, and I realized I hadn’t masked my instant scowl at that idea. “I don’t mean to intrude between you and Miss Black, but when I gather the tray, I see her, and…” She shrugged again.
“And what?”
“She looks heartbroken.” She shook her head again. “Forgive me. It’s not my place to— Oh.” She turned as Grandmother entered the room. She curtseyed and smiled, backing up. “Sorry, Anastasia.”
“No worries.” With a single wave, Grandmother dismissed her.
I stared at her impassively, not in the mood for any judgment from her now. Hearing a report about Sloane being heartbroken fucked me up in a way I’d never been before.
Because that would mean acknowledging that I broke her heart.
That I’d had it at all.
Despite my kidnapping her and forcing her to stay with me, she’d gotten to the point that she wanted to give me her heart and hold me in that kind of a connection.
Fuck. What have I done?
“Heartbroken?” Grandmother asked coolly as she stood at the door.
I looked away.
After a long moment, she sighed. “I didn’t realize that it was more serious than your trying to do your duty.”
I glared at her then. “What difference does it make? You wanted me to have an heir, so I have one.” I’d told her that news a week ago, but it wasn’t until now that she came to speak to me about it. It was the only reason I’d been grateful to be too busy to discuss it with her.
“True.”
“You’ve made it no secret that you don’t approve of her.”
“She’s not from our world.”
I huffed. “She is now. She’s been part of our world since I brought her here to give me a child.”
“As your mistress?” She arched one brow.
“Don’t ask me to label what she is.”
“I imagine she has to be much more than a mistress if she can be heartbroken about your avoiding her.”
“She lied to me.” I slammed my hand on the desk. “She could’ve told me from the beginning that she was pregnant, and she didn’t.”
Cool and calm as ever, she didn’t react. “Would you have changed your plan with her if you had known all along?”
I scowled, hating that she was putting me on the spot to answer that. I’d wondered that myself over the last week, and I realized that I wouldn’t have. I still would’ve desired her with an unholy intensity. I still would’ve embraced the gradual progress of acclimating to her being with me.
Because I had committed to her.
We’d become something more.
“You have always struggled with trusting a woman,” she said matter-of-factly, “and with Beatrice in our past, I can’t fault you for that.”
I exhaled a long breath, waiting for her to say her piece and leave me be. I was punishing myself to stay away from Sloane. And I didn’t want my grandmother to harp on me further.
“But you’ve never experienced the struggle with loving a woman,” she added. “And with Sloane…” She shrugged. “I will fault you with ruining the beginning of a solid and lasting love if you can’t get over yourself to realize trust and love go both ways, Maxim.”
She didn’t say another word, leaving as quietly as she’d appeared.
I took my grandmother’s words to heart, mulling over them all evening and throughout the night when I struggled to choose how to proceed. Like a festering hole that grew bigger and deeper, I struggled to breathe through the…
Dammit, this hurts.
Being away from Sloane made my chest ache.
If Grandmother wanted me to admit that I loved Sloane…
Fuck. I stared at the ceiling as I lay in the guest bed. “I do,” I whispered out loud.
I did love her. While I couldn’t tell when it started, how, or precisely why, I just knew that I did. Kidnapping her wasn’t the ideal foundation for a loving relationship, but we’d managed to eke out a companionable happiness as I commanded her to submit and she willingly sought out more of my control.
I couldn’t get rid of the memory of how boldly she’d put me on the spot to ask me if I cared about her, Sloane, the gorgeous, strong woman. Not the woman I wanted to knock up. I hadn’t taken long enough to stop and consider that it was always her. It was her beauty and strength, her willingness to care and to want to stand by me and my staff and family.
She wasn’t just a vessel to bear me an heir.
She wasn’t only a thing to use and get rid of.
It took her asking me like that, so bluntly and with her heart on the line, for me to realize I’d failed to make her truly happy and secure without that being understood or conveyed between us.
As I gave up on sleep, I got carried away with thinking back to all those times that she’d tried to ask me. Little hints here and there. She’d tried to ease into the topic of what would happen after she was pregnant, and I’d shut down all of those attempts at conversation.
Part of my reluctance to answer her was because I didn’t know what to say. I had been struggling for a while with how to view her as something more than the woman I’d knock up because she felt like more. That fear of commitment held me back, but now as I owned up to it, I was cautiously eager to fix it.
She didn’t have to fear my taking our child from her.
If we could continue to mutually work on trusting each other, she would always be here with our son or daughter.
Always be here with me.
I got up to look at the ring again, knowing that no matter how much I tried to resist the idea of forever, I already had her in mind for it.
Satisfied that I had a plan to move forward with, I set the ring back in the box, dreaming of what it’d look like on her finger. Stowing the case in my pocket again, I trudged back to bed and resolved that this would be the last night that I would torment both of us with this distance.
She had her first appointment tomorrow, and I couldn’t wait for a chance to learn about my son or daughter.
And then I’d find a way to explain to Sloane that I wanted to learn everything about her for the rest of my life.
