Total pages in book: 32
Estimated words: 29423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 147(@200wpm)___ 118(@250wpm)___ 98(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 29423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 147(@200wpm)___ 118(@250wpm)___ 98(@300wpm)
He sighed. “Fine. Lucky for you, I handle all of Justice’s security. I’ll give you access to a few cameras we use to protect Dani. Not all, but enough to keep you from going insane.”
“Merci, Jonah. I owe you.”
“Yes, you do.”
He gave me a few more details, then we hung up, and I sighed in relief.
An hour later, I had an encrypted email containing Dani’s records, including the doctor’s notes from her OB-GYN.
Pregnant.
Dani was pregnant. I was going to be a dad. Putain de merde. I wanted to leave and go to her, but when we found the solution for the line of succession, I had to be there to sign the paperwork, and if I missed my sister’s coronation, she would skewer me with a hot poker, and I’d never meet my kid.
I didn’t know what to do. Dani came first, but in order to have a future with her…
“Son?” Startled, I whirled around when I heard my dad’s voice. He stood with my mom in the entrance to the library, both watching me with looks of concern. “Tell us what has you tied up in knots.”
Tired of bearing the burden alone and completely lost as to what to do next, the entire story spilled out of me. With the exception of intimate details, of course.
“What the hell do I do?”
“Is she safe?” my mom asked.
I nodded. “Even more so than I thought before, now that I know Jonah is the one who handles her security.”
“Do you think she may fall out of love with you?”
I reared back in horror at their suggestion. “Absolutely not.” I knew Dani’s heart. No matter what was happening to make her pull away lately, I knew without a doubt that she loved me.
My mother nodded. “Then you need to focus on what will give you two a future. And for heaven’s sake, let her tell you about the baby. If she knows you’ve been spying on her…good grief, Tristan. What were you thinking?”
I glanced at my dad, and he pressed his lips together as if trying to hold back a laugh. My parents' love story was notorious. When my father saw my mother the first time, he acquired a copy of her schedule and started showing up everywhere she went. After two months, she finally approached him, livid that he was basically stalking her. He’d kissed the fury right out of her, and they were engaged a week later.
I kept my expression serious when I nodded at my mom, not wanting to offend her. But when I walked away, I couldn’t help smiling. Like father, like son.
It took Jonah a little over a day to call me back. He’d hooked me up with the feed to her security cameras outside her apartment and the campus security so that I could find her just about anywhere when she was at school. I’d hoped there was a camera in her bedroom, but I was happy to be able to watch the one in her living room, at the very least. And grateful that we’d spent all of our time together at my place, where her dad’s team hadn’t been watching us.
The guards reported on her regularly, so it was rare that I didn’t know where she was, what she was doing, and who she was with. I stayed up late most nights to watch her go about her evening—doing coursework, watching a movie, reading a book, or having a girls’ night with her sisters.
I ached to hold her, and when I finally gave in to sleep, I dreamed of being with her. Not just fucking her, though I often woke up in need of a cold shower from those frequent dreams. But my favorite were the ones where we were together with our family. Our little ones running around, playing with their cousins, or all of us cuddling on the couch, watching movies. The longing I felt when I woke up was heavy on my heart.
Around two weeks after I found out she was pregnant, I pulled up the camera outside her place, since I knew she’d be leaving for class. I swore as I watched Dani trudge out of her apartment with her backpack slung over one shoulder. My brow furrowed as I took in her slumped posture and tired eyes. She looked a little green, and I wanted so badly to call her and demand that she go back inside and go to bed. I hated that I wasn’t there to take care of her. It was eating at my soul.
Not to mention the fact that she still hadn’t told me she was pregnant. I knew she wasn’t the type of person to keep it a secret from me forever, but it was driving me insane that she was waiting, and all the while, I had to pretend that I didn’t know.