Chapter Fifty-one
Brynn
The apartment is beautiful, but then I never doubted it would be.
The building is right by a nice Italian restaurant, so Killian takes me there for dinner after he shows me the place.
When we leave, he takes me to pick out new furniture.
He wants my cage to be pretty so I won’t want to leave it.
If I don’t try to leave, then I never have to find out I’m not allowed to.
He doesn’t say any of that, of course. But he doesn’t have to.
I pick out a nice pink area rug that feels like walking on clouds, a comfy white couch for the living room, and a brand-new white desk and bookshelf so I can set up a little study area for myself. He buys me a nice, big TV so we can host Addison and Ryan for Double Ryan night, and we pick out a dining table and chairs where we can have dinner when he comes over.
He buys me a new bed—king-sized, in case I wondered if he was planning to stay over—and he even buys Toast a new bed to set up in the living room.
It’s impossible to ignore the fact that he’s setting the place up to my aesthetic tastes, but as if he’s going to be living there with me.
He gets me set up with my own key card to get in the building and into my apartment, and of course, he sets up a key card for himself.
The first night we spend at the apartment, most of the furniture hasn’t been delivered, but the bed has, so we put the new sheets and bedding on it, then we crawl under the warm, fresh blankets.
Naked, of course.
Killian locks his arms around me and pulls me close, then he leans in and kisses me until I forget how wrong it all feels.
Not being there with him, but the double life I feel like we’re living.
Because even when he’s lying in my bed, if I feel like torturing myself, I can pull up Sloane’s social media and flip through pictures of Killian’s handsome face, an easy smile tugging at the lips that were just all over my body as he talks to her father like they’re already family.
I can flip through pictures of them, too. Her showing off her cute new outfit and Killian right beside her, looking like he belongs there.
She shows off a diamond tennis bracelet with him in the background and an implication that he bought it for her as an early Christmas present.
It all makes me want to puke.
Literally.
I put my phone down on the bedside table without even bothering to close the app, then I push back my new blankets and hurry to the bathroom as quickly as I can.
My insides feel shaky, the way they do sometimes right before you throw up. And my stomach definitely feels queasy.
I have got to stop looking at her social media.
I know what I’ll find there.
I know what my role is, no matter how much Killian denies it.
I have to stop torturing myself.
And I desperately need to throw up.
I barely get myself over the bowl before I empty the contents of my stomach into it.
When I’m finished, I draw a shaky breath and ease back down on the floor beside the toilet.
I’m startled when I look up to see Killian standing in the doorway in his sweats.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
He walks over and crouches down next to me so he can rub my back. “Are you okay?”
I nod. “Just a lot on my mind. Probably stress. I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?”
I nod again more forcefully. “Yes. I’m sure.”
But I’m a crummy liar, so I don’t stay in the well-lit bathroom for long.
“I’m tired,” I tell him, forcing a little smile as I stand. “Let’s go back to bed.”
___
I don’t call the student health center; I decide to just show up.
Killian bought me a new phone, and despite myself, I couldn’t help thinking about what Stacie said about him possibly monitoring it. There was nothing wrong with my old phone, he just insisted on getting me the newer model with the better camera.
“Think of all the cute pictures you can take of Toast,” he said, and well, it worked.
But since the moment we transferred over all my old info to my new phone, I can’t help thinking there’s a chance he’s monitoring it somehow.
So if I make an appointment on that phone, I can’t help thinking he’ll know.
Thankfully, the student health center is still open during winter break.
I tell the girl at the desk I had an appointment to get on birth control a while back, but they had to cancel my appointment, and I never got around to rescheduling it.
“At the time, I didn’t think I needed it anymore, but… well, I do.”
“My notes say you canceled,” she tells me, looking at her computer. “But we can get you set up with a new appointment, no problem.”
I frown. “I didn’t cancel the appointment. Someone called me. Michelle, I think?”
She shakes her head. “No Michelle works here, hon.” Her gaze finally leaves her computer and she looks at me with concern. “Do you have the phone number in your call log? If someone called you from our office, I can check the schedule and see who it was.”
Slowly, I shake my head. “No, it’s okay. I… I must be remembering wrong.”
“I can get you in for a check-up Friday,” she says, tapping keys on her keyboard and shifting her gaze back to her computer screen. “Is afternoon okay for you?”
My stomach rocks and that queasy feeling hits me again. I grip the edge of the counter and take a breath, trying to will the nausea away.
“Miss Blakely?”
I open my eyes and look at her, but I still feel ill.
More ill, in fact, because I know what I have to ask next.
“Do you by chance have any pregnancy tests?”
___
I don’t want to take it.
I know how reckless we’ve been, and I’m not an idiot, so I knew the risks.
But I can’t face them.
It’s perfectly reasonable that maybe I’m just queasy all the time because Killian made my life so messy.
That has to be the reason, because I can’t be…
I can’t be pregnant.
It would ruin my life, and he has already ruined my life so much, but this…
No.
I can’t be.
I refuse to be.
If I never take the test, then I’ll never know.
I glare at the little wrapped stick on my bathroom counter, but then I realize living in denial is the thing I’m not supposed to do. All my choices are supposed to be the opposite of hers, and that means…
I need to take the test.
It could be negative.
It’s totally feasible.
I have a lot of reasons to be stressed out, and you can miss periods because you’re stressed out.
You can definitely experience bouts of nausea because you’re kind of dating Killian Walsh. I mean, there haven’t been conclusive studies done, but I’d put good money on it.
Just take the damn test.
Deciding to get it over with, I do a quick read-through of the directions I’ve already read three times, then I rip open the packet and do the thing.
I nod, feeling good as I put the stick down on the counter.
Definitely not gonna be pregnant, I can feel it.
I’ll hit Killian with a frying pan before I let him inside me without a condom again over the next few days, and then come Friday I’ll see the doctor and get emergency birth control. The fastest acting stuff they have so I never experience a scare like this again.
I don’t look at the stick until my phone timer goes off because I don’t want to risk inaccurate results, and when the time comes, I grab the stick and…
Fuck.
“Oh, no.”
I frown at the stick, then back down at the directions. Maybe I’m remembering the results backward…
Oh, dear.
I’m not.
I drop back down on the closed toilet lid and my head swims.
This can’t be happening.
My phone vibrates on the counter like Killian can sense my emotional disturbance from wherever the fuck he is, but I’m only dimly processing the text as I read it.
“I’ve got a surprise for you.”
“Oh, I’ve got one for you, too,” I tell him.
“We should go out for dinner tonight.”
“I want to stay in,” I tell him.
“Works for me. Then I don’t have to drive home to get dessert,” he says with a wink.
I don’t know if you’re going to like this surprise.
I don’t say that.
I don’t even like this surprise, because this surprise is…
It’s shackles.
It’s a life sentence.
It’s locking me into this arrangement I never wanted to begin with for the next twenty years of my life, because if Killian wanted to trap me…
Well, this was it. This was the way. I’ll never date a man if I’m a single parent because I won’t risk bringing a creep into their life the way my mother did, and since the father of my baby is marrying someone else…
I grab my phone, my lungs closing in, and text Addison. “I think your room might be cursed.”
“Why?” she texts back a moment later.
“Because I am now pulling a Rory Gilmore. I’m freaking out. I don’t know what to do.”
“What’s going on?” she asks.
“I’ve made a mistake. A lot of mistakes.”
A couple of seconds pass, then she asks, “Did you sleep with Killian again? You have to stop that. Put a rubber band on your wrist and snap it every time he swings those big blue eyes your way.”
“It’s so much worse than that,” I tell her.
“Did you kill him?” she asks. “I’ll understand if you did, but maybe don’t text me about it. I can come over later. You have that old rug you didn’t like, right? I’ll help you move it out of the apartment and into my trunk. And we can go on a road trip! To the Florida everglades, for unrelated reasons. We’ll buy some ham and rope. In case we get hungry. We’ll get rid of the rug down there. Then we should hit up Disney on the way home. I’ll buy you a churro to cheer you up.”
“I didn’t kill him.”
“That’s good. My texts about feeding his corpse to gators may not have been vague enough and we’re too pretty to go to prison.”
“I might kill him, I just haven’t yet.”
“Can you do it after Double Ryan night? We can’t cancel that again.”
I appreciate the momentary distraction, but then a swell of nausea brings me right back to reality.
And it’s a reality I simply cannot deal with, so I decide to give myself a breather.
I leave the test on the sink and walk in to my bedroom. My brain feels foggy and my body is exhausted, so I crawl beneath the covers and pull the blankets up around me to make a cocoon of safety.
In this cocoon, I do not have to think about the mess I’ve made of my life.
I don’t have to think at all.
I close my eyes and let my mind fog over, and I refuse to think about anything at all.
___
I’m woken up by a pair of strong arms wrapped around my waist.
Killian tenderly kissing the side of my face, then making his way down my neck.
He slides his hand under my shirt to squeeze my breast, and it feels a little tender, but it still feels nice when he teases my nipple.
His perfect mouth touches my shoulder, and he slides a hand down between my legs.
I sigh, and he catches it on his lips.
I’m too sleepy to resist when his finger presses into me. I let him finger fuck me because I desperately need the release.
And once I get it, I curl up in his arms and curl a leg around his body. I nuzzle close to kiss his neck, his jawline, his mouth.
I slide my fingers through his hair and bring him closer, and I rest my head on his muscular chest like in his arms is where I belong.
It should be.
This should be good news.
If he were mine, maybe it would be.
Sooner than I wanted it, yes, but still… good news.
He made jokes about this in Paris, but I’m also afraid of his response now that it’s a reality. I don’t know what his arrangement with Sloane looks like anymore because we don’t talk about her, but I have to imagine news like this could jeopardize everything for him.
And it will crush me to have proof that he cares about it.
He tells me he doesn’t, but I know it’s a generous lie. It’s his way of letting me know he loves me, that I mean a lot to him, but there’s no way it’s the truth.
His life with Sloane… I can’t offer him anything that compares to that.
I’m just his side dish.
His stupid, pregnant side dish.
“What’s wrong?”
I look up at Killian, not realizing I’m making a sad face until he scowls down at me.
“Everything,” I mutter.
He slides his hand along my jawline, then sinks his fingers into my hair. “Anything specific, or just general malaise?”
I look up at him. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
“No, that’s what’s wrong. I fell in love with you and let you make all these stupid decisions for us, and now we’re going to have to live with them forever and you’re going to hate me.”
He frowns. “What?”
“Killian… I’m pregnant.”
He stares at me for a split second, unable to process what I’m saying.
I swallow, my heart in my throat and my stomach rocking with nerves.
Then the crazy man grins. “Are you serious?”
“Yes! And it’s your fault.”
“Well, obviously,” he says.
I scowl since I’m not getting the reaction I want. “You canceled my appointment at the student health center when I was supposed to get on birth control.”
“I may have done that.”
“And I didn’t reschedule it because we were broken up, so I thought I didn’t need it anymore.”
“A logical conclusion,” he states, still smiling.
“Why are you smiling?” I ask, confused and a little mad.
“Why wouldn’t I be? You’re not fucking with me, are you? Just trying to teach me a lesson about being an overbearing asshole?”
“I wish,” I say, my confusion growing when he slides his hand across my tummy and splays his fingers possessively. The gesture makes my heart ache with longing, but I don’t understand. “Why are you… happy?”
He sighs, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me against him. “Because it’s a great fucking day, Brynn. That’s why.”
Well, this is not the reaction I was expecting.
Holding me a little tighter, he murmurs, “You’re going to have my baby.”
My heart flutters hearing those words from his mouth.
It sounds silly, but I hadn’t thought of it that way yet.
My brain was looking at the chaos factor, at all the ways this is going to derail the life I had planned, but… I guess there’s an upside, too.
It’s just a small upside by comparison.
I swallow, hating to bring it up, but also needing to bring him back to reality. “I don’t think the other people in your life are going to be very happy about this development.”
Killian pulls me back and looks down at me. Then he reaches over for something on his nightstand. “This wasn’t how I planned to do this, but…”
I frown, watching him grab a little box and put it between us on the bed. It looks like a jewelry box, but it feels mean to give me jewelry when I explicitly told him all that was missing from my stupid mistress package was—
He opens the box, and I gasp at the sight of a gorgeous platinum band set with little diamonds all the way around it. In the center is a large round diamond surrounded by tiny sapphires, then an outer halo of small diamonds angled to look almost like a flower.
“Oh, Killian. It’s beautiful.”
“You like it?” He takes the ring out of the box, grabbing my left hand and gently sliding the band on my ring finger.
My heart squeezes. “Maybe we shouldn’t put it on that finger.”
“Why? That’s where an engagement ring’s supposed to go.”
His words are like a punch to the gut. I start to take the ring off. “You can’t be engaged to two people at once,” I state.
He grabs my hand, stopping me.
Then he tips my chin up and makes me look at him. “I’m not. I told you I was going to take care of the shit with Sloane. I know you doubted me,” he says, his blue eyes twinkling as he leans in to kiss the corner of my mouth. “But you shouldn’t have. I got it done. The arrangement with Sloane is off. Aiden’s gonna take my place—marrying her, and at her dad’s company. So my commitment to the Whitleys… it’s over. I’m not tied to them anymore, and that means I can marry whoever I want to marry. And the only one I want to marry is you.”
I can feel my jaw hanging open, and my eyes feel dry from being wide and unblinking, but I can’t process what he’s saying to me.
“You broke your engagement with Sloane.”
“Correct.”
“And your commitment to her dad.”
“Technically, I didn’t break that, I just facilitated a replacement he deemed acceptable.”
“Aiden.”
“Yes.”
“He’s not a Blue Blood,” I say.
“Well… he wasn’t.”
My eyes widen even more. “You let him in?”
“Had to. It was the only way. I still don’t like the guy, but… someone had to marry Sloane, and it wasn’t going to be me.”
“You willingly gave up a multi-billion-dollar empire just so you could have… me.”
He smirks, leaning in to kiss the corner of my mouth. “We’ll build our own empire.”
I’m too stunned to speak.
When I finally manage words, I still can’t process the facts. “But you… you could have had everything…”
He shakes his head firmly, then sinks his fingers into my hair. And the way he looks at me…
“Nah. You’re everything, Brynn Blakely. None of it was worth anything if it didn’t come with you.”
He’s made my heart crack in half before, but this time the ache is because it’s just so… full.
Emotion wells up as the reality starts hitting me.
He really did this.
He really got out of the opportunity of a lifetime to be with me instead.
He picked me over everything else.
He wasn’t playing to me or lying to me or…
I shake my head. “I’m so sorry.”
He shakes his head disapprovingly. “Nothing to be sorry for.”
“I didn’t believe you,” I say, still astounded. “My own mother wouldn’t pick me over garbage, and you picked me over…”
Everything.
He turned down a life nobody would turn down…
Because I’m everything to him.
I feel myself tearing up, and Killian laughs softly when he sees the shine in my eyes. “Don’t cry,” he says, but he says it tenderly, kissing my forehead. “I’ve made you cry enough.”
“They’re happy tears,” I say, sniffling, then looking down at the beautiful ring he put on my finger. “You really wanna marry me?”
He nods. “I do. But I think I should warn you, it’s a forever deal with me. I’ve told you before, but once my ring is on your finger, it doesn’t come back off. Once I make you my wife, the idea of you leaving me is unacceptable. I am demanding and sometimes completely fucking unreasonable. I have an insatiable appetite for you, and sometimes it makes me crazy. I also adore every fucking thing about you, and what I want most is to fall asleep with these curls spread across my pillow every night of my life. So, knowing what you’re signing up for and that there’s absolutely no way out… Brynn Blakely, will you—?”
“Yes,” I interrupt, leaning in to kiss him.
“Marry me?” he murmurs against my lips, smiling.
“Yes. Yes, I will.” I grin against his mouth, then I lock my arms around his neck and pull him close.
“Are you sure? You don’t seem sure,” he teases.
I can’t stop smiling, but I can’t resist teasing him back. “Well, you already knocked me up, so I guess I should go ahead and marry you.”
“See? I knew that was a good idea.”
“It wasn’t,” I say, lightly pushing against his chest. “I don’t know how I’m going to juggle all this.”
“How we’re going to juggle all this.”
“Next semester won’t be a problem, but what about junior and senior year?”
Killian kisses my jaw. “Sync up your schedule with Sophie’s. Silvan’s hiring a nanny for them so she can finish school, and you guys should be due around the same time. We live in the same building. I think it’d be pretty easy to share a nanny if we wanted to.”
I gasp. “They could be baby friends. Oh my god, that would be so cute.”
He smirks. “We’ll get ’em little matching sapphire rattles.”
“Our baby is not going to be a Blue Blood,” I tell him firmly.
“We’ll see.”
“Our baby will not be a murderer.”
“Not before he can drive, at least.”
I slide him an unamused look, but I’m too happy to hold it for long. “Maybe we’ll have a girl,” I suggest.
“Maybe we will.”
“She won’t be allowed to marry a Blue Blood, either.”
“Hey, now. I’m starting to get offended.”
I grin as he pushes me back on the bed, moving half on top of me. I thread my fingers through his dark hair and gaze lovingly into his eyes. “I’m just teasing you,” I tell him softly, even though I know he isn’t really offended. “You know I love you for everything that you are, Blue Blood bullshit and all.”
“And you always will.”
“And I always will,” I agree with a nod.
“And if you change your mind, you know you’re marrying a man who has no moral qualms about kidnapping you, so…”
I laugh. “I know what I’m signing up for.”
He smirks. “Good.”