32. Elena
ELENA
T he following morning had me facing the same predicament I’d woken up to yesterday.
Nausea hit me as soon as I was semi-conscious.
My stomach roiled with the need to be empty, even though I’d barely picked at my dinner last night.
That wasn’t only because I’d been struggling with a low appetite but also because I’d been a guest at their family dinner.
Adrik had asked me to eat with him, his brothers, and his cousins.
While they weren’t strangers, it marked a decidedly different approach to who I was here.
Not just the accountant who was investigating this big matter of a network made by their supposedly dead uncle.
Not just the woman their leader was sleeping with.
But a… guest.
I couldn’t have eaten much because I was talking or listening to them. I wasn’t sure how family dinners were supposed to go. My father and I never were close like that, and it had just been the two of us when I was younger. And these men were from a criminal organization.
Shocked that they’d come together as an ordinary family, I realized that they struggled with separating the business side of their life with the family one. I was the same, I supposed. Because over the course of the night, they had me talking about the investigation almost without a stop.
So, there wasn’t much in my stomach to begin with.
I darted out of the bed and rushed to the bathroom. I gagged, but nothing actually came up.
Moving this quickly reminded me again how sore I was. After Adrik walked me here to the guest house, he’d treated me to hours of sex that had me deliciously raw now.
I exited the bathroom, dreading what it could mean when he wasn’t sleeping.
He was awake, sitting up and fully alert to pay attention to me.
Oh, no.
What can I do now?
I wasn’t ready to mention the possibility of a pregnancy to him, not until I could have a little more guidance about what this would mean.
It was early yet, and I doubted anything could be conventional between a Mafia boss and his lover, but I was letting it get to me that for four nights now, he’d brought me here, to this house off to the side of the estate, rather than merely taking me up to his room.
Because that’s more intimate.
Because that’s his space and I can’t expect to invite myself into it.
He’s still keeping himself out of reach.
I sighed, pausing at the door.
“Feeling okay?” he asked.
Now I was. The nausea had passed—for the moment. “I feel a little sore,” I admitted sheepishly, hoping it would work like a diversion.
“You seem a little pale,” he commented as I walked over to sit on the other side of the bed. I didn’t get back under the covers. There was no point now that he was awake and would likely take off shortly. Perched on the edge, I faced him sideways.
“I don’t feel ill.”
He arched one brow, patient but intrigued. He wasn’t pushy or bossing me around, but I was nervous about this idea, nonetheless.
“You don’t?”
I shook my head.
“You didn’t eat much at dinner last night,” he remarked.
“I didn’t have much of an appetite.” I smiled quickly. “And I was talking quite a bit.”
He gave me a small smile. “According to what the cooks say, you haven’t had much of an appetite lately.”
I shrugged. “It’s nothing to be worried about, is it?”
I felt like this was a test, to see if he’d admit he was worried about me. To verbalize that he cared about me as more than a fuck toy.
“You also seem to have lost your love of coffee,” he said.
Another shrug. He was practically listing all the symptoms that I’d noticed about myself! I refused to panic, not right here in front of him like this.
“Last night, I realized that you were extra responsive when I touched you?—”
“Because it’s always that good,” I rushed to say with a sly smile, feeling embarrassed to praise him like this.
“But when I touched your nipples, it almost seemed like you were in pain.”
“No.” I shook my head. “No, no pain. You never hurt me.”
Except when you break my heart with the possibility that you’ll never want me like I want you.
To matter and belong together.
Not just in bed.
He nodded, tapping his finger on his leg under the cover. “Did you wake up and run to the bathroom just now because you felt nauseous?”
I winced, biting my lip. I never , ever lied to him, and I didn’t want to start now. “I’m sure it was just a fluke thing. Nothing to worry about.”
He sighed. “It seems to me that there’s a chance you could be pregnant, Elena.”
I froze. I couldn’t breathe fully. Staring at him and locking down into an ohmigod sensation of panic, I blinked and watched him watch me.
Oh, God.
Oh, no, no, no.
I couldn’t bear to be under the spotlight like this.
If he could give me a clue, one that might suggest he’d be happy about a potential pregnancy, I could react like I wanted to, jumping with joy as I told him I was thrilled to maybe be carrying his child.
With his wording and that deliberately careful tone, I couldn’t be sure if he was mad, though.
“I… I suppose it could be possible,” I replied. I cleared my throat, feeling so anxious without being able to read him well. “We didn’t use protection, so I think that increases the odds of us, um, starting something permanent between us.”
He nodded, looking too pensive and controlled and calm for a man who could be panicking and reacting to huge news like this.
“Yet you haven’t asked for a pregnancy test,” he pointed out.
“I wasn’t sure if I should. Or who I could ask. I did miss my period, but, you know… sometimes, it can be irregular.” I chewed on my lower lip, a nervous tic that I hated. Under his direct stare, I felt like I would burn up with how warm my cheeks were.
“I insist.”
I blinked quickly. He was the boss. But… “You insist what?”
“I insist that you take a test and know for sure, Elena.” He swept the covers off his legs and stood. After he went to where his clothes were, scattered on the floor from when we’d hurried to strip each other last night, he came to me with a small package.
“I suspected something like this might be going on,” he added.
Something like this? That’s how you can word it?
I nervously accepted the package, dreading that he could be furious with me. He didn’t look mad, per se, but he wasn’t jolly and happy or excited, either.
His wording threw me off, though. Like this baby was another thing he could make plans around.
Like I was a thing when I came here.
“When the doctor was here checking on my father yesterday, I asked for a kit.” He tipped his chin at the carton in my hands. Urging me. Prompting me to react.
I lowered my gaze and nodded. Pink letters labeled the kit with a glossy font. Instructions waited inside the carton. All I had to do was get the courage to go take this and see what my fate would be.
“I insist on having clear results, Elena.” He let out a deep exhale. “To know how to proceed.”
What?
What!
How to proceed?
Are you aware of how… clinical and cold you sound?
My heart raced at the only two ways that this could be interpreted filled my mind. Proceed—as in to keep or not keep this baby?
I gulped hard and tried not to look so overly intimidated.
Was he mad?
Trying not to look happy?
I couldn’t tell, but with this huge question mark and pressure of guessing his mood or reaction, I wasn’t comfortable taking the test right now.
“I… I want to know too,” I said honestly. I was anxious to know if I would be a mother. “But I’m not sure I can take the test yet.” I winced. “I just went, and I’ll need to drink some water and wait a while and…”
He nodded, stepping back to get dressed. “I understand.”
Do you?
You’re acting so boss-like. Aloof, almost.
But that was what he was. He was my boss. Nothing more. He hadn’t outright indicated that I was anything more than the woman he was sleeping with right now. That invitation to dinner last night had seemed like a hint of something more.
Now, I had no clue what to think.
Another wave of nausea came, and I escaped to the bathroom. He called out to me through the closed door, asking if I needed anything.
I need to know if you care! If you’re mad about me having your child. If you want a baby with me. If you want me for something more than sex!
“No. I’m okay, for now.”
All right. That’s a lie. I cringed.
“Please let me know if you decide to take the test before coming to the house.”
I bit my lip, afraid to face him.
If he was mad, would he try to get rid of the baby? Get rid of me? Would it be so bad to have a baby around here?
There were no children on the property, and that didn’t soothe my worries.
“Uh, actually, I might lie back down for a while,” I said. “My stomach is feeling worse.”
“Whatever you need, Elena. Whatever you feel like you need to do.”
I narrowed my eyes, picking apart that . What I felt like I needed to do? What a joke. I didn’t call the shots around here. I had no choices or right to decide things on my own. I was given to him, sold to him, and I was stuck obeying him.
Once it sounded like he’d left, I guzzled as much water as I could without creeping close to throwing it up. My nausea felt worse now, but that was likely due to the increased worry and dread about how he’d reacted. Or might react.
As soon as I could go to the bathroom, I ripped open the test and skimmed the instructions. Then as the urge to go built, I reread them again and again.
“How complex can this be?” I mumbled to myself as I prepared to get the stick out of the wrapper.
My fingers shook as I took the test. I laid the stick on a paper towel on the counter and washed my hands.
Breathe.
You will survive this.
Just breathe.
Calm down and take this one step at a —
“Oh, my God.” I turned just slightly while I washed my hands to see the test.
Pink lines already showed clearly.
Pregnant.
Joy and fear clashed in a dizzying thrill. Or horror.
I was excited. I was so happy to be able to have a family of my own. My very own child! A precious girl or boy to love and protect from this world.
Before I could let myself celebrate, I sat on the closed toilet lid and stared at the test.
How will we proceed now?
That was what he wanted to know, and I was certain it would be his decision to make.
Having his child would force everyone to confront my permanent connection to the Volkov Bratva. That could turn out in different ways.
All I wished to know was if my having his baby would be something that Adrik could… tolerate.
He has to.
I’ll never give this baby up.
I pressed a hand over my stomach and promised him or her right now.
I will never, ever give you up.
I wouldn’t budge. That would be my decision to make. Yet, I wondered if that meant he’d cast me away. If he disliked the idea of having a child so badly that when we didn’t see eye to eye, I’d have to leave.
If it comes to that…
I’d have nowhere to go and no one to trust, and for the first time in my life, it didn’t depress me. It terrified me and angered me.