Chapter 34
AMBER
My fears about Roman judging me or seeing me differently faded over the course of the first couple of weeks after I told him about William and what his friend did to me.
It was nerve-racking to share that with him. It was difficult to face all the Orlovs and know that they knew.
But with each passing day, normalcy carried on. The kind of normal I had gotten used to here. The normal that I wanted to so badly see as my future. Fantasizing about always being here with Roman and the twins was my vice, and it helped to allay the pain of bringing up my past.
The allure of this always being my normal was how I got my hopes up high.
Every morning, I would get up according to the twins’ schedule.
We’d go through the routine of bottles and playtime and getting them to nap.
It all seemed the same, but it never was.
This journey of watching the twins grow and change was too much of an adventure to ever feel like it was the same old, over and over again.
Every afternoon or evening, Roman would come back to the penthouse to either work in his office or be with us.
I knew he was busy with handling my situation and also all the other “business” he had to be in charge of for Mikhail.
I didn’t ask for specifics, and Claire was particularly helpful in that regard.
Almost like Sofia had, Claire came to sit with me for a while and shared how she had met Mikhail and then struggled with how she could belong in his life.
In this world of violence and danger. In this system of Mafia politics.
It sounded like she’d been targeted as well, by enemies of the Orlovs, but she had persevered to stick with Mikhail in the end.
“I chose love,” she stated simply.
I had too. I chose Roman. I chose loving him, even if I wasn’t sure how or when to tell him.
I didn’t want to convey that sentiment in any way that would make him think that I was only telling him out of gratitude.
That I was in love with him because of how he protected me when I needed it the most.
I was grateful.
But it was more than that. I started to truly fall for him when I got the glimpses of how gentle and tender he was with Emily and Henry. I began to open my heart up to him when he demonstrated how patient he could be when I was nervous around him.
Anya, too, had told me about her introduction to being here as Mikhail’s estranged daughter at first. Over the course of a couple of days, she shared with me about how her mind had been shaped to hate him, to despise having to be near any of the Orlov men.
She explained how her father had supported her and protected her regardless of her attitude, proving that he could rise above any antagonism and be capable of goodness and love.
Natalie pitched in too, almost like they were campaigning, when she came to talk to me about what happened with her and Maisie after Sergei found her bartending at a dumpy bar.
With all their support, I felt more included. After hearing their stories about getting over their reservations, I realized that it was possible to adjust so severely and try to see myself as one of them. Not an outsider or the hired nanny, but someone who belonged on the inside.
And every night, when Roman would come to bed with me after we got the twins settled in their cribs, he showed me how he meant each word of his promises.
He loved on me. He pleasured me. He gave me the room to explore what I wanted with him.
All those orgasms merged together, not as a marathon of sex but as a montage of proof that I belonged to him.
With him. In the present. It was the catalyst I hadn’t known I needed to leave my past behind me, to dissuade myself from the idea that William could order my return and hand me over to some asshole predator who’d taken what was never his to begin with.
That, too, was a freeing experience. Roman had me sit with a specialist in a control room one afternoon so I could go through a detailed discussion about what—if anything—I could remember about that experience. It happened so long ago, like a distant nightmare. I wasn’t very helpful.
Claire suggested hypnosis, which terrified me. But with Roman’s presence and Claire there to assist the psychologist, I took a chance to risk reliving that horrible event.
They “pulled” me back out before anything happened. And even that tip-toeing approach to that one fateful night left me scared and shattered. Roman held me close after the session was over, and I was relieved that I’d been able to give them a couple of hints.
One, that my rapist had an Irish accent. A thick brogue.
And two, that when William realized too late that the man had come into my room during a party, he’d referred to him as an ambassador, mocking his title.
With those clues, it seemed like the Orlovs would be able to hunt down the man I was supposed to be handed over to at some ambiguous mark in the future.
Knowing he would no longer be a threat was a good thing.
A hopeful goal. And for that reason, I convinced myself that it was worth the heartache and panic attack to endure that hypnosis, getting through it for a greater good.
That night, Roman had coaxed me into healing again.
After the hardship of reliving my past, he provided himself as an anchor in the present.
All night long, we’d made love. Slowly, lazily, and deeply.
The concept of normalcy was compromised too soon, though.
I felt like I was in limbo of waiting for Roman to tell me that my rapist was dead. That William was arrested or killed as well.
But the morning I woke up feeling off, and the moment I did the mental math to realize I was late, nothing felt normal at all.
I can’t be…
I was on the pill. Claire had arranged for me to have several packs at a time. It had been a blessing not to stress about filing through insurance or using my fake ID or any of those technical details when I left William’s mansion.
I’d been taking them as I was supposed to all these months that Roman and I grew closer together and more intimate.
There’s just no way…
Instead of letting anyone get ideas about the possibility that I could be pregnant, I grabbed a pregnancy test when I was over at Mikhail and Claire’s building.
She had a pediatrician come into her clinic, and I brought Emily and Henry over for what would count as their official six-month checkup.
While Anya and Daria were there, I excused myself to run to the bathroom and picked up a kit from the storage area.
Back at the penthouse, I got Emily busy with some teethers while she sat in her bouncy chair. Henry was happiest on the floor as he tested out his stability by sitting up and rocking like he was impatient to crawl. Like he had people to see and things to do.
“You’ll be the one to make me look like a chicken without a head, huh?” I could just see it, Emily more patient and stationary while he would be zooming around on his hands and knees, crawling like it was an Olympic sport.
I headed into the bathroom to do the test, trying to imagine beyond Henry being all over the place and Emily curious about crawling.
What if there’s another baby?
What if I’m chasing after the twins with a baby in my belly, making me waddle and awkward and off-balance like Natalie and Claire are now in that clumsy pregnancy stage?
What if—
I blew out a deep breath and set the test stick on the counter before washing my hands.
“There’s no point in wondering what-ifs,” I scolded myself with a whisper.
In several minutes, I’d have the answer, and it would only make me more nervous if I was obsessed about it now.
But as I turned to leave the bathroom and check on the twins, I couldn’t resist. My gaze lowered, snagging on the plastic stick. Four more minutes were recommended before reading the results, but there was already a dark line where it mattered.
Positive.
“Oh, my God…” I covered my mouth in shock as I lifted the stick by the covering.
Pregnant.
“How?” I whispered.
I was on the pill. Roman had never cared to use a condom, and I never suggested it because I didn’t want to lose the exquisite sensation of his bare dick inside me when he stretched me with it.
It shouldn’t have mattered because I was on the pill!
My pulse sped up as the news sank in.
I was pregnant. With my boss’s baby. With a Mafia man’s child.
“Oh, God…”
Elation swirled within me, but a stubborn sense of nervousness took root too.
As I walked back into the lounge where Emily babbled and Henry grabbed for a toy out of his reach, I felt like I was gliding on a cloud.
In a daze. Suspended in something that wasn’t the normal reality I was getting used to now that my secrets were no longer weighing down on me.
And now I have another secret?
Because it was. This was a huge secret. A big, whopping secret discovery. I was the only one who knew, therefore that defined it as a secret, but when I tried to guess what Roman’s reaction would be, I was conflicted.
He’ll be happy, right?
He was such a great father, a hands-on parent as much as he could be. I saw the pure joy and unbridled love that shone in his eyes when Emily smiled at him and when Henry rested his cheek against him. Roman loved his son and daughter, and that gave me the hope that he would love another child too.
Our child.
But I had to keep myself in check too. He hadn’t planned on Emily or Henry.
From the way Lorne and the others made it sound, Roman hadn’t intended to settle down as a family man at all with his playboy ways.
He was a partier, full of adventure and living it up.
Not changing diapers and getting up for a feeding schedule in the middle of the night.
But he has. He so clearly has been up for it.
There was no doubt that Roman took his role of being a father seriously.
I only had to wonder if he would be as receptive to more of a future with me. That I wouldn’t act like a mother to his children, but that I would actually be a mother of his child soon.
Oh, God… How did this happen?
Why is this happening now?
Emily put her arms up, signaling that she wanted me to pick her up and hold her, so I did.
“Why is this happening now?” I asked her.
She grabbed for my hair and I dodged her little hand.
It was one thing to think about telling Roman I was pregnant with his child as a basic challenge. But to tell him now, when they were all busy and focused on slaying my demons—literally?
It felt like a twisted sense of fate, landing this bombshell on us now.
“Nothing I can do about any timing now,” I muttered to the sweet girl. I kissed the top of her head, holding her closer for my comfort, too. “The only thing I can do is hope for the best.” To hope that Roman would be happy, not upset, about having another child so soon and with me.
And that was what I was good at. Straining to be positive and hoping for the best—even here, among these dangerous men and the chance that Roman could be risking war with a rival over my security.