Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 106541 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 533(@200wpm)___ 426(@250wpm)___ 355(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106541 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 533(@200wpm)___ 426(@250wpm)___ 355(@300wpm)
I could let him stew, but I’ve never been one to pause on the dramatics. “I—”
“Don’t,” he interrupts, his Russian accent the deepest I’ve heard. “Because I am this fucking close…” He holds his index finger and thumb out an inch to show how close he is from losing his cool. “To doing something I am sure you will not like.”
“Like learning you’re engaged isn’t bad enough.”
I realize I said my last comment out loud when he mutters under his breath, “You’d be praying that was the worst of it.”
We’re interrupted by a knock on the door. Ghost only cracks it open far enough for a pregnancy test to be pushed through by a heavily veined hand before he denies Alek’s request to calm down by slamming the door in his face.
After ripping open the test and pulling out the tiny plastic cup inside, he tosses it to me. “Pee.”
“I don’t—”
“Pee!” He looks seconds from emptying my bladder with a knife until I walk to the toilet, drop the lid, then lower my panties down my legs.
“I’ve not had a period since I went to the mansion.”
He scoffs but remains quiet.
Regretfully, I can’t do the same. “You missed that one insemination.”
“You’re blaming this on me?” He doesn’t give me the chance to answer him. “There were no traces of HCG in your urine the night Kirill…” He stumbles over his next two words. “Bathed you.”
Bathed? Ha!
“Yet now, you turn up a month later, looking swollen with child.” He looks downright murderous when he mutters, “But I haven’t fucking touched you in over a month.”
“Because you were too busy screwing your new fiancée.”
He acts as if I never spoke. “So if this test comes back positive, I’ll know you’ve been stepping out on me.”
Stepping out? Are we in high school? “You did the scan. You know this baby is from the insemination you missed. Maybe they just stuffed up the test last month.”
“It was the fucking demo video that comes with every machine!” Ghost glares at me like he has no clue who I am. “Do you really think I’m not one step ahead of that prick? That he wouldn’t want confirmation of the blood test Dr. Marc forged.”
I freeze. Mercifully, I finish peeing before his shocking revelation is absorbed by my blurry head. “I’m not pregnant?”
While snatching the plastic cup full of urine out of my hand, uncaring that some topples out, he mutters, “I guess we’re about to find out.” He rips open the pregnancy test with his teeth as I’d imagine he would a condom if he ever used one, pulls off the cap, then dips the end into the urine.
I won’t lie. I feel as if I am kneeling on tacks again. I’ve been sick almost every morning this month, and my breasts went up a cup size. I’m not anticipating a good result, and I am not exactly sure how to process that.
Ghost angles the test so I can’t see the result screen, but I don’t need to see it to seal my fate. His deep huff tells me everything I need to know.
“I didn’t step out on you. I swear to God.”
“God?” He huffs out a chuckle. “Good choice of words.” With his anger so hot to send a bead of sweat rolling down my back, he throws his fist into the vanity mirror, smashing it to smithereens.
It barely brings his anger down to a manageable level. For several long seconds, he sucks in ragged breaths while clenching and unclenching his fists, then with nothing but a degrading tsk, he once again leaves me to pick up the pieces.
45
GHOST
Alek’s eyes lift to mine when I enter my office at the speed of light. He grins at me hopeful a bit of banter will have me failing to notice that he moved the bulky wooden chair from under my desk to the middle of the room.
It’s too fucking bad for him that I know the reason for his sudden wish to redecorate.
The brick of snow I haven’t touched in three months is in the safe in the floor, under the very spot Alek positioned my office chair.
“Move.”
“Gh—”
I cut him off with a vicious glare.
I am ropeable.
Fucking unhinged.
Now is not the time to mess with me.
“Move!”
He curses under his breath in Russian before he steps back with his hands held in the air. He doesn’t remove the chair or the thick Persian rug hiding my once most-valued possessions from the world, so I have to dump Katie’s positive pregnancy test onto my desk and the whore I found wandering the corridors onto the couch to do it myself.
“Fuck…” Alek breathes out slowly, his hands in his hair when he spots the positive result. “You know—”
I cut him off for the second time. Now is not the time for words, sympathies, or fucking limp-dick excuses.