Chapter 8 Good Girl
GOOD GIRL
* * *
I was fucking restless. Darren wasn’t playing by our well-established rules of engagement anymore. He’d completely flipped the game on its axis, and now I had no idea how to play.
It usually took little effort to taunt him out of the shadows, the barrier between him and my desires easily broken by his volatile emotions. And through those cracks of his carefully constructed veneer, I could extract just enough to satisfy my needs.
It was a costly tactic, but an effective one. Or at least, it had been.
Suddenly, our usual currency exchange was no longer applicable to him. And for once, he was right. I officially had nothing else to bargain with. And it was killing me.
My anxiety of not knowing what was going on with Jason or Kayla, other than the fact that Darren still hadn’t yet caught them, drove me insane.
And being chained to the bed for four days with nothing to do but overthink everything while erratic hormones ran rampant through my system was a hell I was now ill-equipped to endure.
My fortitude for mental torture had taken a hit thanks to this pregnancy, and I found myself struggling to hold back tears at the thought of what my future might hold.
My usual stoic demeanor was shot as everything around me seemed to crumble. I could feel this war was coming to an end, the final storm brewing just over the horizon. I could smell it in the air with the shift of the wind. I just had no idea who the ultimate victor was going to be.
Even after Darren had released me from the bed a week ago, it did nothing to dispel my secret desire for Jason to somehow see me, even if it was just a glimpse.
So every morning, after swallowing back my prenatals with a large glass of dumb bitch juice, I’d head outside to spend as much time under the sun as I could.
Unfortunately, I had been banned from the beach, so I had to settle for the gardens. I suspected it was because the only time Darren would actually allow Jason to catch any sight of me was when he was fucking me. Then he was only too happy to rub that in Jason’s face all night.
On a particularly sunny day, I laid out on a blanket under the shade and played fetch with Camaro for a while. My one hand rested against my belly, the dread of my pregnancy still very much present as it bloomed under my palm.
As much as I tried to ignore the parasite growing inside me, my anxiety of the future made it difficult. I was going to have a child, but it still didn’t quite feel real yet.
Maybe it was because I didn’t want it to, but it was getting harder and harder to ignore the pregnancy symptoms that just kept on coming. The back pain, the sore boobs, the nausea, and the hormonal fluctuations were exhausting.
I wanted to keep them all to myself as much as possible, not wanting to give Darren the satisfaction from his efforts to trick me into carrying his child.
Unless, of course, hormonal homicide was a reasonable symptom.
Now that was the kind of pregnancy behavior I could exhibit for him any time he wanted.
From my peripherals, one of Darren’s kitchen staff came into view and brought me the afternoon snack I was now supposed to have throughout the day. She gently set a large bowl of raspberries, blueberries, and sliced pineapple on the blanket, smiled at me briefly, then turned to walk away.
Most of the staff kept their words to themselves around me, not wanting to say or do anything that might provoke their dangerous employer. Still, at least they acknowledged my existence with their kind eyes.
Snatching a few of the raspberries, I popped them into my mouth, but as I chewed and noticed the colors of the fruit, I suddenly had the strangest craving for something I hadn’t had in fucking years—Superman ice cream.
The flavor was native to Michigan, and the blue, red, and yellow colors represented the same colors as the superhero’s costume. It was a mixture of Blue Moon, Redpop Strawberry, and lemon-flavored ice cream, which made it difficult to describe the taste together, but fuck, was it amazing.
You could really only find it in the midwestern states, but since I wasn’t allowed to explore much of California, I had no idea if it existed out here.
And for some reason, that was suddenly devastating to me.
What instantly made it even worse was that I couldn’t even ask Darren to find it for me because it would just remind me of my old life in Michigan, and he wouldn’t allow me anything that sparked a trip down memory lane.
If I did ask for it, I would have to explain what it was and why it might be difficult to find, and then he’d find some way to lash out or punish me for daring to request something as stupid as ice cream from my home state.
The last time I did that, Darren fucked me mercilessly in the hidden corner of an outdoor restaurant, where anyone could walk by or just as easily hear me.
The rage that radiated from his body then was not really something I was looking to trigger again over goddamn ice cream, not in this pitifully fragile state I was currently in.
But dammit, I was fucking craving this shit like a damn meth addict, and I hated how quickly my heart started to race at the idea of Darren’s reaction to a dumb fucking ice cream craving!
What the hell was wrong with me?
And just like that, the tears started rolling. Uncontrollably.
Noticing my abrupt change in demeanor, Sloane moved from her hiding spot and headed over to me. “What’s the matter?” she asked. “Is something wrong with your food?”
I shook my head and rubbed the annoying tears from my eyes.
“No, I just have this really stupid pregnancy craving that I don’t have the guts to ask for.
And for some reason, that really upsets me,” I answered, attempting to chuckle the crying fit away and failing miserably.
Because now I was upset by the fact that pregnancy hormones were making me cry over fucking ice cream!
“What are you craving?” Sloane asked, sympathetic as she crouched down, her eyes glancing upward. “I’m sure your husband will be happy to indulge you.”
I shook my head and wiped my eyes, mourning the ice cream I would likely never taste again. And that thought just blew the floodgates wide open, my shoulders shaking as I hid my shame in my hands. Camaro whined at me as she sniffed the air around me, searching for the source of my distress.
“What the fuck,” I groaned under my breath, frantically swiping at the tears running down my face.
I could see Sloane start to panic in my peripherals. “Jaden, there’s no need to be upset. It’s okay. Just tell me what it is, and we can get it for you,” she offered, her Russian accent thickening as she spoke faster.
I shook my head again, sniffing back the tears and huffing out a deep breath.
“No. Darren wouldn’t like it, and I don’t need the backlash,” I grumbled, wiping my eyes for the fiftieth time.
“What exactly wouldn’t I like?”
Jolting back in a gasped surprise, I turned around and looked up to find Darren standing behind me, a hard look of what could easily be mistaken for concern on his face. Sloane immediately stood, nodding at him as she took a few steps back.
Goddammit! Why is he so good at sneaking up on me?!
His eyes grew dark as he stared down at me. “Why are you crying?”
I turned around to hide my embarrassment, groaning dramatically over the fact that he had overheard something that would naturally draw his attention and now his overbearing concern. But I needed to answer him so he would hopefully go away without prodding, though I doubted it would be that easy.
“It’s nothing. Just a dumb pregnancy craving not worth your time,” I griped, wiping at my eyes again, but the damn tears just would not stop.
Hot mortification surged through me when Darren’s giant form crouched down beside me in his perfect dark gray suit and took my puffy face in both of his hands, turning my eyes to him.
But where I expected to find something harsh and cold in his gaze, I was surprised to see something much softer looking back at me.
“Tell me what’s wrong,” he said, his voice gentle but firm. I tried blinking away more tears, but when they fell, his thumbs instinctively swiped them away like he’d done hundreds of times before, never disturbed or repelled by them.
“It’s stupid and not worth pissing you off,” I replied, shaking my head as I sniffled.
“Tell me anyway.”
I sighed heavily, my eyes sinking to the ground in my pitiful state. “Only if you promise not to get mad at me,” I replied, hoping to mediate away his potential temper.
“I won’t get mad. Now, for the third time, tell me what’s wrong,” he practically ordered, clearly growing impatient. I knew he didn’t like repeating himself.
I sucked in a deep breath and voiced my humiliation.
“I’m craving Superman ice cream, and I didn’t want to ask for it because it’s a Michigan thing, and I didn’t want to upset you like I did last time, so I guess my hormones told me to just cry about it instead.
” I looked away from him, one final tear slipping down my face, his thumb catching it on cue.
My humiliation was intensified by his sudden soft chuckling.
“You’re right,” he murmured gently. “That is stupid.” I scoffed in frustration as I glanced at Camaro, catching her big brown eyes moving back and forth between the two of us.
Here I thought he’d be furious with me, and he was just fucking laughing instead.
Asshole. “But that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, princess,” he continued.
“You’re just pregnant. And while you might be embarrassed by your reaction, I happen to find it fucking adorable. ”
I cocked a brow at him in irritated confusion. He found my irrationality adorable?
“How could you find this,” I asked, gesturing to myself sharply, “adorable when I’m being entirely ridiculous?”