Page 53 of Emerald Malice

I don’t know what comes over me. I grab Andrey’s arm possessively and pull him towards my desk. “If anyone’s showing him around the office, Abby, it’ll be me. You can go back to your desk now.”

I can feel his smirk burning the side of my face. “Shut up,” I snap under my breath.

My desk isn’t empty when we approach it, because bad news comes in threes, apparently. Byron is leaning against my cubicle wall with a takeaway cup of coffee from my favorite café down the street.

My God. The whole damn circus is out today.

“Hey, beautiful,” he greets in his usual inappropriate fashion. “I brought your favorite.”

He extends his hand, but before I can grudgingly accept it, Andrey beats me to the punch. “It’s not her favorite anymore,” he says coldly, dropping the entire cup into the wastepaper basket under my desk. “She’s off caffeine.”

I glare at Andrey. “That was unnecessary.”

Even if it wasn’t entirely unwanted. I wish I’d had the guts to do that ages ago.

Andrey is staring at Byron with an intensity that’s causing Byron’s smile to malfunction. The man looks like he’s having a stroke.

“N-no caffeine, huh?” Byron asks, trying desperately to gloss over the awkward moment. “New diet thing, or…?”

There’s something about Andrey’s sudden smile I don’t trust. I trust it even less when he wraps an arm around my waist and pulls me to him.

“Natalia’s pregnant,” he explains. “We’re having a baby.”

19

NATALIA

I’m gawking at Andrey.

Andrey is smirking at Byron.

Byron is bouncing his wide eyes from Andrey to me and back again.

It’s the worst—and, just to be clear, only—threesome I’ve ever had. I would like to get off this ride immediately, please and thank you.

“Pregnant?” Byron stutters. “You’re pregnant, Nat?”

Swallowing hard, I plaster a smile on my face. “Surprise.”

“Jesus,” Byron exhales. “That’s… crazy.”

“For you and me both.” I duck out from under Andrey’s grip, but not before pinching him under the arm. “Excuse me for a second while I walk Andrey out.”

I march straight for the exit without waiting for Andrey to agree. To my surprise, he follows without complaint. The moment we’re away from nosy coworkers and in the lobby, I twist around and stab a finger into Andrey’s chest.

I was hoping this finger was the first point of pain in a devastating series of takedowns both verbal and physical that I was about to unleash on his ass. Unfortunately for me, his chest is so obnoxiously muscled that I hurt my poor finger and wince in pain.

“What the hell were you thinking?” I clear my throat and rephrase. “What happened to keeping my pregnancy under wraps?”

He doesn’t look in the least bit apologetic. “I pivoted.”

“Clearly! My question is, Why?”

“You’re already three months along,” he says sensibly. “You’re going to start showing soon. This was inevitable.”

“So it had nothing to do with the fact that you were trying to mark your territory?”

He checks his watch like I’m wasting his time. “I’d have thought you would understand.”

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