Page 48 of His Captor

“I have been nesting,” I argued, though my face heated with embarrassment. I gestured to the pile of boxes Mace had broken down completely and moved closer to the apartment door. “You know how many birds and animals build their nests out of random junk they find lying around the forest floor?”

Mace laughed as he bent over to pick up a few snack wrappers that had fallen to the floor, but that I hadn’t had the energy or shape to pick up. “Has your apartment always been like this or have things gotten worse since….” He gestured to my belly with an empty soda bottle.

I looked down at Junior, as if I was shocked to find him there. Then I rested both hands on my stomach and let out a defeated sigh.

“This is my first apartment on my own,” I confessed, raising my eyes sheepishly to him. “I’ve only been here for a few months.”

Mace was halfway across the room, heading for the trash can with handfuls of junk, but he stopped and stared at me. “Really? Your first place? How old are you again?”

I made face and answered, “Twenty-one. I’ll be twenty-two in August.”

“And you’ve never had your own place?” Mace asked, continuing on.

“How old were you when you got your first apartment?” I asked him aggressively, hoping to use his answer to justify my own uselessness.

“Younger than you,” Mace said, dumping the trash into the can, then grabbing a rag to wipe down the kitchen counter. “I stayed in a dorm for my first year of college, but after that, some buddies and I rented an apartment together, including my friend Alex, who was my second for our, you know. In grad school, Colin and I had a place together.” He frowned as he said that.

“You’ve known Colin that long?” I asked, seeing an opportunity to deflect the conversation from my uselessness and taking it. Although I did head to the couch to sit down and fold my laundry as I did.

“We were part of the same program,” Mace answered with the sort of frown that came with bittersweet memories. “We conceived of the idea of a company to develop and market our ideas back then. Once we made it a reality, though, it became more about me doing all the work while he sucked up all the profits.”

“Did you two, you know,” I said, really hoping the answer was no.

“No,” Mace laughed, immediately putting me at ease. “God, no. Colin is a beta, and he’s always preferred other betas. He was married for seven years and has three kids, but thankfully, she left him and took the kids last year after putting up with his shit for longer than she should have.”

“Good for Mrs. Colin, I guess,” I said. Talking about divorce and kids kind of put a dent in my mood, though. I wanted to believe in the concept of a happy family, but I suspected it was a fairy tale, just like fated mates. Although Ari and Samson gave me hope.

“You never really answered my question,” Mace said as he continued to clean the kitchen. “Why have you only just moved out on your own?”

I threw a pair of socks I’d just balled together over to the other side of the couch with a little more force than I should have.

“I’ve been living at home, with my parents,” I said. There didn’t seem to be any point in hiding the truth from Mace. I was what I was, and it did no one any good for me to pretend otherwise. “They’re wealthy, and as rotten of a person as it makes me, it’s been easier to trespass on their generosity all these years than to do the hard work of launching myself.”

Mace glanced up from putting boxes of cereal and snacks back in the cupboard. He didn’t have to say anything. I recognized the disapproval in his look.

“They kicked me out when I told them I was pregnant,” I said.

“You said that before,” Mace said with a frown. “I don’t like it.”

Mace seemed far too angry at my parents without ever having met them, so I winced and said, “My brother, Simon, who you met, says they didn’t kick me out, they prompted me to get my act together and start a life independent of them. They were teaching me responsibility. And it’s not as if I don’t want to be a responsible adult,” I rushed to add, since it looked like Mace was going to say something. “I just don’t know what I’m going to do now that?—”

I stopped, a little too aware that my hand had instinctively moved to rest on my belly.

I didn’t want to dump all my troubles on Mace’s shoulders. Yes, he’d offered to take care of me, but I didn’t want to go from mooching off my parents to mooching off my baby-daddy. As paradoxical as it felt at times, my parents had been right to shove me out on my own. I really had been coasting too much and relying on them, and them putting their feet down really had instilled me with the determination to stand on my own that they’d been trying for.

The trouble was, I was shit at standing on my own. At least, I had been so far. I had, at most, a month left to pull myself together before Junior showed up.

That was so much scarier than nebulous mafia guys and ex business partners messing up a penthouse apartment.

“Hayden?”

I blinked and glanced up from my gloom to find Mace studying me. He looked so strong and commanding in the light of the kitchen, while I was slumped on the couch in a sea of half-folded laundry, a pair of enormous pregnancy underwear spread across my lap.

“It’s going to be alright, okay?” Mace went on, coming out from around the kitchen counter. “You don’t have to do any of this alone.”

“Except I think I do,” I said, trying to fold the undies and set them aside before Mace reached the couch.

Not only did I fail at that, Mace crouched in front of me, took them out of my hands, folded them like a pro, and set them aside. He then took my hands and held them, staring intently into my eyes.

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