Chapter Seven #2
“I don’t have to ask if you’ve thought about what happens if you’re pregnant.”
She shook her head. Tabitha’s confession was barely a blip on her radar now she knew Boudreaux had been inadvertently apprised of the situation. “It’s too early to confirm yes or no. I’m too far over the limit to use emergency contraception, so it comes down to whether I’m pregnant or I’m not.”
“There’s always…”
Violet laughed softly, bitterly, and wiped an errant tear away before it escaped down her cheek.
“No, there isn’t. How can I possibly contemplate an abortion when Sierra and other women like her are fighting to conceive?
The system is clogged with unwanted kids stuck in foster care, waiting to be adopted.
Termination and abandonment are not on the cards, Evander.
If I’m pregnant, the baby will be loved and raised by me. ”
“And Reaux?”
“I don’t know,” she said honestly.
He nodded, evidently satisfied with that for now.
“If things don’t go to plan, you are always welcome to stay here, or come back if needs be.
Your family will support you however you need us to.
I’m going to go downstairs and hogtie Reaux before he starts ripping the plasterboard off the walls.
” He paused, setting his hands on his thighs.
“Will you meet him in the restaurant for breakfast?”
Instinct told her to say no, but she could only hide for so long.
The issue was in the open now, and talking was the only way to find a way through it.
A small sliver of her was already feeling guilty about withholding the secret from him.
Truth be told, she just wanted the whole mess to be over and done.
“Give me an hour.”
“All right. Do you need me to fetch anything up—clean clothes, toothbrush, girly shit?” He smiled as he stood, looming over her in the shadows.
“No, I’ll manage. Oh, Evander?”
“Yeah?”
“How the hell did you find me?”
“Security system. This room always comes up as green because hardly anyone uses it, so the door isn’t locked. Dead giveaway when it turns to red. Thought I’d check it out, used my master key to get in, and found Sleeping Beauty hidden away.”
“Thanks for not sending Reaux in.”
He laughed, shaking his head. “I like the guy, Violet. We figured you’d talk to me without the threat of violence; we couldn’t guarantee Reaux’s safety. We want a happy ever after, not a funeral.”
“You know me too well.”
“So does he. Give him a chance.”
When the interfering giant made his exit, Violet relaxed into the mattress and closed her eyes. The conversation revolved in her head, around and around, snippets coming back to haunt her.
It was clear Boudreaux had achieved part of what he’d set out to do—gaining support from the resident Masters was easy when one was a charming asshole used to seducing whomever necessary to accomplish a goal. However, she couldn’t refute that some of what Evander said was true.
She wanted to go home.
She loved it here, adored the people who were her family in every way except blood, but she missed Louisiana. The community, the Southern pace of life, the camaraderie. The architecture, music, history that made her roots so special.
It was the sensible choice. An emotional one, too—if she was with child, she wanted that baby to grow up the way she had. It deserved to know where it came from, the history and passion running in its blood.
The only question remaining was, would she return alone?
Boudreaux
By all accounts, he was a wreck.
The long, sleepless night of worry and searching did a good job of etching lines around his eyes, not to mention the dark circles forming by the minute.
He gave a passable impression of surviving electrocution—his hair was stuck up on end, at all angles, thanks to the repeated motion of his hands running through and tugging on the short locks.
For hours, he’d hunted Violet like a man possessed. Checking empty cabins, unoccupied rooms, even scouring the various scene areas from top to bottom in an effort to find her.
All the while, his emotions ran the gamut from elation to terror, excitement to disbelief, covering every single one thoroughly until he was physically and mentally exhausted.
Even now when the frantic search was over, his hand shook as he poured himself yet another cup of coffee. Fatigue ate at his bones, gnawing at him until he was tempted to rest his head on the table and simply sleep where he sat.
A heaped plate of breakfast dirty rice—spicy breakfast sausage, crumbled bacon, eggs, and rice tossed together with onion, garlic, green bell pepper, celery, and seasoning—was slowly going cold, which pissed him off because it was one of his favorite meals, and he hated wasting food.
It seemed, like many other things, his appetite had abandoned him.
Impatiently, Reaux checked his watch. In three minutes, Violet would be officially late.
Evander’s text was brief and to the point: Restaurant. One hour.
He still didn’t know what he was going to say. Several different conversations had already run through his head like mental text threads, the tone of each one varying, always ending in failure.
Failure to achieve his ultimate goal.
Failure to secure his—and his family’s—future.
Failure to keep his child safe.
Reaux squeezed his eyes shut in frustration and tapped his fist rhythmically on the table in time with his increasing heartbeat. Stress was a killer, he reminded himself. He might be in his prime, but stress was silent and deadly.
“You look like shit.”
God, he loved her voice, even when she used it to slap him with insults like a glove across the face.
Opening his eyes slowly, he looked at his watch nonchalantly as though he hadn’t spent the last hour doing so, then glanced in her direction.
“Thirty seconds to spare, Bennie. No one likes tardiness.”
“Especially me.” She gestured to the chair opposite him. “May I sit?”
That was remarkably polite, he thought suspiciously.
Wary of a trap even as his heart leaped like a welcoming puppy at the sight of her, he nodded.
The night away from him had refreshed her, which was galling.
She looked rested, calm, and he hated how it occurred to him now that his presence in her life made her otherwise.
“Did you sleep well?” he asked politely.
“Better than you. Did you sleep at all?”
His laugh was cold, edgy. “Didn’t really have time, what with chasing your ghost around the club. Fear does strange things to a man, Bennie.”
“What were so you afraid of?” For once since his return, Violet seemed interested in engaging with him.
The lack of makeup told him she wasn’t here to intentionally battle things out, and she’d chosen to wear casual clothes instead of her Domme armor—the cream sweater and black yoga pants resulted in a softer, gentler image than he was used to when it came to the love of his life.
“What do you think? You’ve spent the past ten days running from me, Violet.
All I could think about was you tearing off into the night, disappearing into the city, beyond.
Doing something… drastic and irreversible to…
” His voice choked as his throat tightened with the enormity of what he was suggesting.
“Boudreaux, look at me.” She waited for him to meet her gaze, and when he did, it was direct and honest. “I’m sorry you found out about a certain situation the way you did.
That was unfair; I shouldn’t have added undue pressure on Tabitha, and you did have a right to be made aware of things before anyone else. ”
“So why did you?”
She sighed. “Her confession was frustrating and infuriating, to be honest. Lately, I haven’t been emotionally stable, especially when it comes to my temper.
I suppose I wanted to make her aware of the consequences of her actions without traumatizing her—she’s had enough fear, pain, and negativity hammered into her than she deserves. ”
“So you threw a potential pregnancy in her face.”
“Sometimes we all make choices without considering how the outcome will affect others.”
Yeah, that was some good aim she had there, he thought ruefully.
It gave him the opportunity to open the door to his decision two years ago, but he didn’t take it.
Instead, he acknowledged her with a nod, and bided his time to swing back to it—he wanted this pregnancy mess spread out in front of them so they could deal with it first. “Do you know if… if there’s a baby? ”
“No. Not yet. I’ll have to wait a couple weeks before I can take a test.”
A couple weeks. A simple, relatively short period of time in the grand scheme, yet an interminable wait.
Wondering every day if his child was growing inside her, how much bigger it was than the day before, all the little details he’d never thought about before…
he might be obsessed by the time she took that damn test.
He nodded, apprehensive about his next question, hating that he needed to ask it. “And if there is?”
At first, Violet didn’t respond. She lifted her hand as the waiter walked past their table and requested that the food be taken back to the kitchen and warmed up. When the guy eagerly picked up the untouched plate and hurried away, she finally met Reaux’s eyes. “I don’t know.”
“It was the dream once,” he reminded her quietly.
“Yes,” she agreed slowly. “Once. Now I’m approaching my forties instead of diving into my thirties.
I’m single, I’m a long way from everything I love and am familiar with.
The father is a man I’ve resented for two damn years; my heart still hasn’t recovered from that particular betrayal, and I don’t know if bringing a child into this world when I’m not sure I can love it the way I should is the best idea. ”
A fist squeezed his heart, threatening to rip it from his chest.