Page 41 of Ivory Oath

“I will if we keep at it like this.” He chuckles and smooths a hand over my stomach. His fingers dip dangerously low, somehow stoking desire in my limp, sated body. “I came so fucking hard and I already want you again, Viviana. I want to see you pregnant with my child. I want everyone to know that you’re mine.”

I’m his. He’s mine.

Thank God.

I’m so relieved I can barely keep the words in. The confession pours out of me. “We can do this as many times as you want and nothing will change… because I’m already carrying your baby. I’m pregnant, Mikhail.”

The smile is frozen on his face for a few seconds… before it begins to slip.

Mikhail pushes back so he’s kneeling between my spread thighs, outright frowning down at me.

So much for post-orgasmic bliss. It feels like he just dumped ice water over me. “Mikhail?” I start to ask. “You’re scaring?—”

“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”

17

MIKHAIL

Viviana looks almost silver in the moonlight. There’s a sheen of sweat across her skin and she’s breathing heavily. Her lips are swollen from my mouth. I can see the marks my hands left, bruises darkening where I gripped her hips and pumped into her.

I was inside her without a single clue that she was pregnant with my baby.

“You should have told me,” I snarl.

She grabs the flannel shirt I gave her and pulls it over her body like a blanket. “I am telling you. That’s what I’m doing right now.”

“You should have told me immediately.” Before I sent you away. Before I let you get kidnapped.

She gestures around wildly. “What do you want from me, Mikhail? You know where I’ve been.”

She’s been with Trofim for days. Chained. Dehydrated. Terrified.

None of that can be good for the baby.

“Exactly. I know where you’ve been. There aren’t a lot of pregnancy tests in captivity. I doubt my brother ran out for a test and some folic fucking acid.”

Her indignation dims slightly and I know I’m right.

“You knew before you left the mansion that night,” I accuse. “You knew you were pregnant when you got in my car and drove away from me.”

“I didn’t know anything,” she argues. “I felt nauseous, but I wasn’t sure.”

“You should have told me,” I repeat yet again.

“Told you what?” she fires back. “I would have sounded desperate! Like I was just trying to convince you to let me stay. You wouldn’t have believed me.”

She’s right. We both know it. And still…

“Also, considering I’d been held at gunpoint, drugged and kidnapped by your father, and then rescued by you, only to find out you wanted nothing to do with me…” She lets that hang in the air, the accusation landing like a punch to the sternum. “It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that I was just stressed.”

“Okay, fine. So you didn’t know you were pregnant. But when did you suspect, Viviana? When did you take a test?”

She chews on her lower lip. Her cheeks flush and, for the first time, she doesn’t have a ready answer.

“When did you take a test?” I growl again. “You were only out on your own for a couple hours before Trofim found you, right? And I know you left here and went straight to a pharmacy.”

“Why are you asking if you already know the answer?” she snaps. “What do you want me to say?”

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