Chapter Four
Ashon
By evening, the house is humming with quiet chaos.
Whispers leak through the corridors like smoke. The staff have that overly polite stiffness and hidden smiles and sparkling smiles that signal they know too much. That the gossip mills are stuffed to overbursting.
I barely hear them. My ears are still ringing with Cilla’s words from hours ago.
Pregnant.
Cilla is pregnant. And not just with any child.
Mine.
The second she swept out of the hospital room, head held high in regal hauteur and unbridled acrimony, my knees gave way. I allowed myself a moment of absolute dumbfounded shock. Well. Several moments.
A sliver of guilt at the outrage and…hurt… I spotted in her eyes.
Then I rallied because I was a Biney. Because I had no choice.
And because…a bizarre kind of elation had built inside me then, perched on the side of the bed she’d just vacated in the hospital room.
One that mocked me for that strenuous demand for a DNA test when I didn’t really want one.
Not because as per my instruction a few days ago, my security had come through with the preliminary report on Cilla that detailed her activities mostly since she left my bed that morning.
A report that showed no presence of a boyfriend or lover before or after me.
But because I already felt a primal possessiveness over the child growing in her womb.
A kind I’d experienced for very little in my life, probably save the project close to my heart.
And if for a split second, God help me, I imagined that child with her eyes and my name, entertained the thought of a family I hadn’t planned for but didn’t entirely hate the thought of, I buried it quickly. Buried that dangerous, premature flicker of possibilities.
I had no business wanting a future with a woman I couldn’t trust. A woman whose secrets still made my skin itch. So I filed the feeling away, like I always did.
But I’m not ashamed to admit to myself and no one else, that the sensation had…
alarmed with its rate of growth over the next few hours.
With the fervent need to if not replicate, then at least aspire to the kind of relationship I had with my late father and that I do not have with my grandfather.
A relationship that had been the one guiding light in my life.
One whose loss I feel deeply and keenly even now.
One that—were I inclined to believe the pronouncements of the elders—was being given a chance at reincarnation by the ancestors?
All of that had been enough for me to expend a lot of energy for the entire afternoon in trying to keep my mind—and my grandfather—from imploding.
He’d summoned us the moment the news trickled up through the household, faster than I could control. Probably from one of the drivers or one of the distant cousins with too much time and too little tact. Or even from the staff at the hospital, eager for a boon from the great man himself.
Now, we stand before Nana Biney in his private study, the place where all decrees are made, often without argument. Cilla is still wearing that haughty expression that says, ‘come at me at your peril’. And dear heaven, but why does that spark all sorts of sensations inside me?
Just to test that fire, and apparently because I’m in the mood to toy with my self-preservation, I wrap my hand around her waist, pull her closer to my body. A body I feel a distinct and entirely inappropriate sense of ownership towards now I know it’s carrying my seed.
Surprisingly, disarmingly and, yes, also interestingly, she doesn’t pull away. Which means she’s not inclined to pull the trigger on our little deal.
Because she’s holding back for when it counts most?
Cynicism rises and I only know it has resulted in a firmer hold when she shoots me a warning glance.
I exhale, relax my hold but don’t let her go, because I’m not inclined to.
Gold filigree frames the windows. Ornate swords hang along the walls, a reminder of the bloodline I belong to. That I can’t escape.
He’s seated in his favourite armchair, eyes heavy with judgement.
‘A child,’ he says slowly, each word a stone dropping into still water. ‘Out of wedlock. Under this roof?’
I stiffen. ‘It wasn’t planned. And with respect, paapa, I’m a grown man who no longer lives under your roof.’
Cilla doesn’t say anything, but perhaps it’s my imagination that I sense her surprise and her approval. Her hands are clasped tightly in front of her, head aloft and her gaze now pinned to the bookshelf over Nana’s shoulder.
Nana’s gaze sharpens like a blade. ‘Be that as it may, I’m still the head of this family and some things will be done my way. Forget this months-long engagement business. You’ll marry immediately. Before this scandal undoes everything I’ve built.’
I don’t flinch. I’ve been expecting it.
Still, the words fall from my mouth, cool and controlled, even as something twists hard inside my chest. Something that tells me a reckoning is coming. ‘Fine. We’ll marry immediately.’
Cilla jerks her head towards me, stunned. ‘That’s it? Just like that?’
I meet her gaze. Her expression is blistering—disbelief and censure flickering in her dark eyes. She looks like a woman who could set fire to everything I’ve built with nothing but her silence. And God help me, I still want her.
I force a steady breath. ‘Paapa is right. We were going to do this anyway,’ I say, directing the next words towards my grandfather, who watches us like a hawk tracking a fault line.
‘But this is about doing right by the woman I chose, not saving face or curtailing family scandals. If this is going to be my future, it won’t be delayed or negotiated like a contract. ’
Nana leans back in his chair, golden rings catching the light. He strokes his jaw once, contemplative. ‘So you’ve made your decision, Ashon.’
‘I have.’
‘Good.’ He turns to Cilla. ‘And you, girl? If this is real, if you mean to tie yourself to my grandson, surely you have no objections to doing it swiftly.’
The room feels suddenly airless. My pulse hammers in my ears.
Cilla’s jaw tenses. I feel the fury radiating off her, the helplessness she’s trying not to show.
She doesn’t answer right away.
So I step closer, the weight of performance and something unspoken tightening in my throat.
‘You told me you were in this. All in,’ I murmur.
‘I believed you. Let’s stop pretending you don’t want to be mine as quickly as I want to be yours,’ I drawl, infusing possessive sentiment into my voice that feels not at all performative.
That feels—in this new reality of claiming what’s mine—astonishingly imperative.
She blinks. Her hand curls into a fist at her side. And I know she hears the trap in my voice, the ruthless hunger that wasn’t supposed to be there.
But in this house, beneath Nana’s scrutiny, choices vanish fast. And we’re running out of air.
Let her walk away and it’ll all unravel. Let her stay and we both step into the unknown, but little does she know, the unknown, the daring, is where I thrive. Where the man whose presence I miss and whose memory I intend to carry through my child, taught me to claim. To own.
So I stare her down, curbing the need to bare my teeth, to show her the lion beneath the designer suit.
Your move, Rockson.
Cilla lifts her chin, eyes glittering now. ‘Can I speak to Ashon alone?’
Nana’s eyes narrow at her audacity, but after a beat, he rises and glides out with the weight of royalty and age. The door closes with a soft click.
I brace myself.
Cilla turns on me, arms folded. ‘You arrogant bastard.’
I arch a brow. ‘You claim the child you’re carrying is mine. Given that I’m choosing to believe you, you didn’t think I’d want to make it right?’
‘Make it right?’ she echoes, laughing bitterly. ‘You mean lay claim. Wrap it all up in your tidy, powerful package. Control it.’
I step closer. ‘You think I’ll stand by and let my child be born without my name? Without my protection?’
‘You think this child is some pawn in your inheritance game?’ Her voice cuts, sharp and breathless.
I pause. Because beneath all her fury, I can see it. The hurt and the fear. The resilience holding her together like gold seams in cracked porcelain. Then I shrug. ‘You’ve presented me with a real cherry on top of a fake cake we baked together. I’m doing what needs to be done.’
‘I’ll marry you, Ashon,’ she says, calm and clear. ‘But on my terms.’
My body goes taut and I thoroughly despise the feeling that too much resembles bracing myself for an unfathomable impact. Perhaps even a seismic one. I narrow my eyes. ‘I’m listening.’
‘One. Separate rooms. Make up whatever story you want to, I don’t care. I’m not here to warm your bed.’
‘You weren’t supposed to last time, either.’
She ignores me but her nostrils flare in outrage. ‘Two. After the wedding, we drop the charade. No more touching me whenever you feel like it. And you do whatever is needed to ensure your grandfather gives you what you want.’
‘What’s the hurry?’
She casts a look, defiant with a touch of desperation. ‘Because I don’t want to be here longer than I need to be. I want to return to the States. And I assume you want to as well.’
There’s a beat. Something twists in my chest. Old and stubborn. But I kill it before it can bloom. My mouth curls, brutal and self-protective. ‘Darling, that was always the agreement.’
But we both know that’s not true.
Because once again the chemistry that had crept in and drowned us was circling in. Quiet and dangerous. Reminding us that it’d pulled at us and we’d both revelled in it.
And now something else is growing between us.
More dangerous than secrets.
More permanent than spite or lust.
She’s carrying my child.
And even though I’ve convinced myself this marriage is a solution, not a sentiment…the impending reckoning presses harder. ‘Anything else on this interesting list of yours?’
Then she says the last one, slow and deliberate, after the briefest of hesitations.