What was I going to do? I’d always wanted children. As soon as I realized what a lousy excuse for a father I had, I knew I wanted a family of my own. I wanted a family I could get right. But I’d never given much thought to who the mother of my children would be. I’d never even been in a serious relationship before, so the idea of children was still very far off in my mind. But suddenly, here it was. I could be seconds away from finding out I was going to be a father. How would I explain that to the children?
Your mother was my sex slave because your uncle owed me money. It was a business arrangement.
Before I could work myself into a panic, the bathroom door opened and Samantha stepped into the bedroom, the test cradled in her hands.
“Did you see the results?” Dr. Johnson asked.
Samantha nodded without looking up at either of us. Instead, she handed the test to me with trembling fingers. Before I even touched it, I knew what it would say. She wouldn’t have been acting this way if it was negative. She would have walked out with an embarrassed smile, feeling bad for bringing Dr. Johnson all this way for nothing. But now she was nervous, nearly comatose with shock.
I grabbed the test and tilted it towards the light. The test screen showed a small blue plus sign.
Pregnant.
Chapter Eleven
Samantha
Gavril led the doctor, whose name I couldn’t remember, out of the house, and I just collapsed back onto the bed. I’d thought I had a stomach bug. I thought I had a twenty-four-hour flu or a virus. Instead, I had a baby.
A human baby.
The realization didn’t get any easier to swallow the more I thought about it. In fact, it became harder to believe. I was on the pill. I’d been on the pill since I was fifteen years old. I had never had a pregnancy scare in my life. And now, I was pregnant. With Gavril Stepanov’s baby. My child had been fathered by a mob boss. This couldn’t be real life.
And then I thought of Gavril. He had never been the warm, compassionate type. He was distant and emotionally closed off. Did he even want children? What would he do to me now that I was pregnant? What did this mean for our deal? Would he ever want to touch me again? Would my brother be killed?
A future in which my brother was murdered, and I was left to care for my ailing mother and an infant flashed before my eyes. It was harrowing. I couldn’t do this on my own. Physically, financially, emotionally. I couldn’t do it. I needed help. And if Gavril couldn’t help, I’d have to take care of the pregnancy another way.
I heard Gavril walking up the stairs, and I sat up straighter, sucking in my stomach as if that would somehow make me un-pregnant. He opened the door and paused in the doorway before crossing the room and sitting next to me. We were quiet for a few seconds.
“What happens now?” I asked.
He took a deep breath. “I’m not sure.”
I nodded. I needed a plan. We needed a plan. “What are we going to do with the child?”
Suddenly, Gavril was standing up, towering over me, in fact. I shrunk away from him, terrified. What was he going to do with me? Would it be easier to just kill me? Two birds, one stone, as they say.
“What do you mean?” he asked with a bark.
I opened and closed my mouth several times, unsure what to say. I wanted to tell him whatever he wanted to hear, whatever would keep him from hurting me, but I didn’t know what that was.
“Do you think there is a possibility that I would allow my first-born child to be terminated or given away?” he asked. “Do you think I am not going to take care of you?”
The harsh tone of his voice didn’t match his words. Gavril was telling me he’d take care of me, that he wanted his child. Yet, he sounded angry. I blinked, trying to rectify the juxtaposition in my mind.
“We are going to take care of this child,” he said. “That’s what we are going to do. Do you understand me?”
“You’re… excited?” I asked hesitantly.
Gavril inhaled deeply, his broad chest broadening further, and then crossed his arms. Finally, he nodded. “Yes. I am.”
Relief flooded through me. Tension I hadn’t realized I was holding in my neck and across my shoulders abated. I settled down onto the bed and began to breathe for what felt like the first time in hours.
“It’s unexpected,” he continued. “Obviously. But I don’t see any reason why we can’t make this work.”
I wanted to ask what he meant by that – did he mean we could make a relationship work between us, or just the baby? Either way, the idea seemed too big to comprehend in the moment. I was already trying to process too much, I didn’t want to add to it unnecessarily. So, I said nothing.