Stolen Beauty (Jackson Family 1)

EMMALINE

Jaxon knocked lightly on the bathroom door. “Emmaline?” he called. There was concern and worry in his voice. My bottom lip trembled as silent tears slid down my cheeks. I resisted the urge to wail. Panic was clawing at my throat. This couldn’t be happening. “You’ve been in there for a while now.”

I stared down at the pregnancy tests on the counter. This couldn’t be fucking real. I was on birth control. It had been effective for me for three fucking years. Why now? Why did I have to get pregnant now?

James didn’t want kids. He’d said so himself.

Oh, God, what was I going to do?!

I felt like screaming. Everything was fucked up. He wasn’t going to want this baby, and he’d said so himself – the only way out of our relationship was death itself.

I stared down at the ring on my hand and bit down hard on my bottom lip to keep myself from sobbing. I had to get rid of this baby before he found out and forced me to do it himself. I had to get rid of it before I got too attached.

Fuck, what if he found out before I could and fucking did something to me? After three years of absolutely zero pregnancies, I knew James would assume that I had planned this somehow.

I quickly hid the pregnancy tests at the very bottom of the stack of towels. I knew Jaxon would be able to tell that I was crying, that I was twisted up inside, but I couldn’t hide how I was feeling; it was impossible.

Everything was falling apart around me.

James would absolutely hate me if he found out I was pregnant, and I wasn’t sure if I could handle that.

I slowly pulled open the bathroom door. Jaxon frowned at me. “Emmaline?” he quietly asked, concern filtering into his voice. My lips trembled, and I bit back a sob. “Do you need me to get James for you?”

I shook my head at him. “I just want to be alone,” I whispered.

He nodded and slipped out of the room. I crawled into bed and curled into a ball on my side.

And I cried.

I cried like the pitiful excuse of a human being that I was – as if I even had a right to cry in the first place.

~*~*~

I flinched when the bedroom door opened. I knew it was James – could sense his power and his dominance before he even fully emerged into the room. I squeezed my eyes shut, a strangled cry falling from my lips before I could stop myself.

“Little one?” James strode forward and knelt in front of me. He frowned. “Baby, why didn’t you call me?” he softly questioned, worry for me etched onto his perfect face.

I just shook my head, afraid that if I spoke, I would explode, and everything that I was holding in would come spilling out of my mouth. I hated keeping anything from James, but I couldn’t tell him this.

He stood up and kicked his shoes off before he slid onto the bed behind me, wrapping me up in his arms. I sobbed, my body shaking as I cried harder. He whispered soothing words in my ear, telling me that everything was going to be okay, that I was going to make it through this.

But I wasn’t going to make it through this. He thought I was just having a common low that submissives got, but I was in a low for an entirely different reason.

I was pregnant, and James refused to be a dad.

“Emmaline, little one, please just talk to me,” James begged. I shook my head. He tightened his arms around me. “I fucking hate seeing you like this. Please, baby, just tell me how you’re feeling so I know how to fix it.”

“It’ll go away on its own,” I whispered. I opened my eyes and rolled over to look at him. He opened his mouth to protest. “Please, James,” I begged him. I sniffled. “Please just hold me and let this work itself out. I can’t talk about it. I’ll spiral out of control if I do,” I admitted.

He clenched his jaw before he forced it to relax again. “Okay.” He sighed. “I’ll hold you together however long you need me to, little one.”

I didn’t know how he planned to do that though, because I had already fallen apart before he had come to our room.

~*~*~

JAMES

I looked up at Adrian with a scowl on my face when he barged into my office without permission and unannounced. “What the fuck?” I growled.

I’d had a rough night. Emmaline hadn’t slept a wink. Once she had finally stopped crying, she was just kind of numb – unresponsive, completely silent, and almost unmoving. Honestly, if she wasn’t breathing, I would have thought she had died.

And she wasn’t much better this morning. But when she had finally broken down, screaming at me to just leave her alone, that everything was my fault, I didn’t know what in the hell to do. She had locked herself in the bathroom, refusing to allow me near her. I had tried for three hours to get into that bathroom with her so I could at least just hold her in my arms, but she was stubborn and refused to let me near her.

It put me in a volatile fucking mood.

“James, I know what’s wrong with Emmaline,” he told me. I instantly gave him my undivided attention. He drew in a deep breath. “She’s pregnant.”

“What?” I whispered. How in the hell was she pregnant?

But suddenly, it all made sense. Now, I understood why she didn’t want me near her. I had told her I never wanted kids.

She was freaking out, and now, she was lashing out at me, unable to handle what she was feeling and the thoughts running through her head.

Fuck!