Chapter Twenty-Five
W hen I awoke the next morning, I wasn’t sure who would be more pissed off—Ekaterina or me.
I was alone, and not the happiest about it, so I supposed I had my answer.
I stretched my long legs across the bed, and when I patted the area closest to me, it was cold to the touch, meaning she had been up for some time.
Granted, we’d only lived together for a short time, but I had come to realize that she was not a morning person.
In fact, she often slept until all hours of the morning while I woke up like clockwork around the same time each day.
A sigh escaped as I placed my hands behind my head and stared up at the ceiling.
If I thought my wife was upset about having to attend Cillian’s birthday party with me, she would likely be just as much, if not more, pissed off that I had scheduled a doctor’s appointment for her.
The sooner I got her pregnant, the sooner this nightmare could be over.
As was customary whenever I thought about her, I rolled over to my side where a single picture sat framed on my nightstand.
It was one of Princeton and me when we were teenagers together.
The irony was that he would still be one— forever—as he was dead, and nothing would bring him back.
No matter what happened to Ekaterina and when, my kid brother would still be gone.
“Forever young,” I muttered under my breath. “I’ll get you the peace you need, though, Prince. Believe that!”
Finally, I scrubbed my hands down my face.
I needed to get up and make sure that she was awake, too.
After rising from the bed, I walked over to the railing and looked down at the lower level.
There, curled up on the couch, was Ekaterina.
She looked so angelic. And she also looked so tiny as the oversized sectional seemed to swallow her whole.
She was definitely not an angel, but I knew who was now, no thanks to her.
I decided to ignore my thoughts before they ended up consuming me altogether.
A half hour later, I was showered and dressed, so I made my way downstairs.
I wasn’t sure if it had been all the noise I had made when getting ready, or if she had actually remembered to set her alarm, but it didn’t matter one way or the other.
She was awake, and after clearing the last step, I looked in her direction and our eyes met.
“Going somewhere?” she asked me.
“Ummm, to the doctor’s office.”
“Are you sick?” she asked. “Do I dare hope?”
Either she had perfected this innocent act, or else she had forgotten about this appointment altogether. “No, it’s an OBGYN visit. Have you forgotten about it?”
“Ugh,” she groaned before tearing her eyes away from me. “Can’t we just reschedule it?”
“No, we cannot,” I said to her as I closed the distance between us. “Go get ready because we need to leave soon.”
“I don’t feel good,” she bemoaned to me. “My head is throbbing. I just want to go back to sleep.” And as if she intended to do just that, she fell back onto the couch and attempted to cover her head until I ripped the blanket away from her.
“Then maybe you shouldn’t have been drinking it up at the party, allowing yourself to be drugged,” I pointed out.
“Of course, it is all my fault,” is what it sounded like she said. I could hardly make it out because her face was buried in her pillow.
“You didn’t listen to me, so I would say that it?—”
She turned suddenly, then tossed the pillow at me. “Go away, Kingston.”
I slapped her outer thigh a bit harder than intended because the sound reverberated in the room, and she cried out.
“You have an appointment for a physical, and to discuss the baby we’re supposed to have.
I’m sure you haven’t forgotten that this thing between us didn’t end with the simple reciting of vows, did you? ”
“Ugh, of course not. I just don’t feel good.”
“Well, I’m sorry, but I have some upcoming business soon to handle in Boston, so I need to have this over and done with, puisín.”
“You’re going out of town?” she said, and I chuckled as those words perked her right up.
“Yes, but don’t think it means you can escape me or this arrangement. Nolan is staying behind, and he’ll be keeping an eye on you while I’m gone.”
“I don’t require a babysitter.”
“He’s a bodyguard, but I’m not so sure that you don’t need a babysitter, too. If I’m so wrong, get up and go get ready like a good girl.”
She flashed me a ‘go to Hell’ look, but little did she know, but she had already sent me there, for months after I watched my brother take his last breath in that dank, cold hospital room.
I’d gone on a spiral afterward, and it’d been my grandfather who reined me back in.
My brother was gone, as were the chances for any children of his own, but the family business continued.
Our lives went on. Things had been great since, until he’d gotten the idiotic idea to force my cousin and me into not only matrimony, but fatherhood as well.
“I’ll get up and go, but just know that I won’t be pleasant about it,” she muttered as she got off the couch and circled around the damn thing so she didn’t have to brush past me.
I gave no fucks. As she went upstairs to shower and get dressed, I walked into the kitchen, then began to brew some coffee.
I had just gotten done making the two of us both a cup and had placed the lids on them when she came back downstairs.
She had brushed her hair into a high ponytail, and she had put on a pair of yoga pants and a long tee.
I waited for her to sit to put on her socks and sneakers, then I handed her a cup, and she looked suspiciously down at it.
“You wouldn’t feel so damn bad this morning if you had been half as discerning last night when picking up drinks at will. I didn’t poison you. I simply thought you might need some coffee after the night we had, just like I did.”
Her eyes narrowed at the mention of last night. At first, I had thought she might’ve been roofied, but her symptoms were more in line with ecstasy. Bringing her to the edge, then leaving her hovering there for hours, had been punishment enough, and quite the buzz killer as she’d found out.
I smirked as I remembered the way she had begged me to finish her off. As if she knew where my thoughts had gone, she rolled her eyes at me, then took a sip of her coffee. I grabbed my cell phone, wallet, and keys while she grabbed her own things, then we headed out the door.
About twenty minutes later, we pulled into the parking garage of the hospital.
Her doctor had an office in the facility, and I truly hoped we’d hear good news.
This was likely something we should’ve done before the wedding, but I had believed that by hastily marrying her, it would’ve called my grandfather’s bluff.
It hadn’t succeeded, and now I was tied down to my brother’s killer and growing more annoyed about that with each day I found myself with her.
“You look more annoyed than I do to be here. It’s not too late to back out,” she said.
“You’re keeping this appointment. Now, get out of the damn car,” I told her once I pulled the keys from the ignition.
“You have no patience,” she murmured before slipping out of the car.
I waited to speak until I got out of the car myself. Once I had, I whirled on her. “When it comes to you, I sure as fuck do not.”
This time, she was the one to grin while I rolled my eyes.
To her credit, she didn’t try to annoy me more or even to push her luck.
Instead, she walked quietly out of the garage and into the hospital with me.
It wasn’t long before we reached the OBGYN’s office.
I had even allowed her to choose her own, and I suspected she might have been even more adverse to this had I not.
As she checked in, I sat down and pulled out my cell phone.
I had a few business texts to take care of, including confirming my flight for tomorrow.
When my grandfather had asked me to go to Boston to shake down a few associates, I hadn’t wanted to do it but agreed anyway.
I’d thought about making Ekaterina go with me, but then decided that Nolan could handle her.
This meant that my trip would not include my right-hand man for the first time ever.
I had others I could, and would, take, but I didn’t have the same faith and trust in them that I had in him.
Ekaterina had proven time and time again that she couldn’t stay out of trouble.
If what I heard about her father was true, the Russian princess didn’t fall far from the tree.
She liked to party. She had become an escort, and that was after she had a lifetime of partying under her garter belt.
If only Princeton hadn’t gone to the one she had, he might’ve still been here.
If he had, this might’ve been his ass in this seat waiting to find out if his wife would have trouble conceiving and not me.
“...can go back now.”
“Huh?” I said as I looked up at Ekaterina.
“Dr. Kane is ready for us,” she said to me.
I got up and followed her and the nurse into the back.
After the standard stop for the patient to get weighed and her height measured, she was then given a pee cup and disappeared into the nearby bathroom while I went inside the patient’s room.
Ekaterina joined me a few minutes later, and the nurse asked her several questions, which she answered. Soon, we were alone once more.