“Ehhh…” There’s a sound like he’s scratching his head or quite possibly his balls. “I’ll talk to my guys and take their pulse. If they feel like they’d do better with more boots on the ground, I’ll letcha know. In the meantime, just keep your castle gates shut and keep cameras pointed at the walls. But honestly, I doubt they’re gonna try to sneak into your place. They ain’t that sophisticated, and I know they ain’t prepared to deal with international detainment for nabbing the princess.”
“She isnota princess. She’s—”
“Hey, kid,” he clips. “I don’t give a fuck. I’m just doin’ my job, and my job don’t include giving a rat’s ass about your hoity toity English titles.”
I suck in an exasperated breath. “We are notEng—”
The line disconnects, and I huff again before tossing the phone on the desk. Crossing the study to its sitting area, I pour a stiff scotch and then collapse onto the small sofa before swallowing half the glass.
As the alcohol hits my bloodstream, my gut churns at thought of theotherthing that’s got me tied up in knots with anxiety lately.
If you impregnated me, I will throw myself off my balcony because I would rather die than bear your child.
I wonder if she’d actually do that.
I wonder if she’s actuallypregnant.
If she’snot…
I stare at the half empty glass, turning it in my hand as I turn an idea over in my mind.
Despite the fact that a child would be half Isla and her treacherous, filthy DNA, it would still be halfIsla. The Isla shewas. The one I loved to the very depths of my soul.
I recall with perfect clarity the enchanting, endearing little girl she was. That magical little creature that had stolen my heart even before my earliest memory. And maybeourchild would grow into a person devoid of the duplicitous flaw that ruined Isla and caused her to ruin everything we had. And maybe having a child would bring me a semblance of solace. Maybe a child would fill the void of love I have been suffering without since she destroyed me.
We hadalwayswanted a baby. So many circumstances stole the opportunity to have one from us.
But now, staring into the amber liquid in the glass, I realize I have an opportunity to not only give myself that gift, butalsoexact revenge against Isla that would be truly fitting for the misery she put me through.
MALACHI
Twenty Years Old
ISLA FOUND OUT SHE was pregnant the week her family left for their annual summer excursion to Los Cabos.
On some level, we both knew we were kind of fucked. But we were too excited and happy to care about the consequences of an out-of-wedlock pregnancy while I was still a year from graduation and she was about to start her freshman year.
So what? College could take a backseat for both of us, and then we would be able to finally have what we’d been longing for foryears.
Marriage. To each other. And a baby on the way.
The future beckoned with love and joy, and it was brighter than ever.
Our parents were going to want to kill us both, but we had the whole summer to figure out how to break the news to them, and then they would just have to get over it.
But…
They never had tojust get over it.
And we never had to figure out how to tell them.
Because just shy of one month after the happy little plus sign appeared on a plastic stick, I woke up next to Isla in blood-soaked sheets.
Her typically warm, tawny skin had blanched to an unnatural pallid shade, and she was trembling so violently that I thought she was having a seizure.
“Amor… Malachi… Amor… help… help… help.”
I would have doneanythingto save or protect Isla, up to and including kill a man, or lay down my own life, or both, orworse. But there wasn’t anything I could do to save her—saveus—from this.
