Page 82 of A Twisted Arrangement

“I’m…on birth control,” I stammer.

“I hate to break it to you, but you’ve never taken birth control a day in your life. It was easy enough to switch them to sugar pills and recently to prenatal.”

“How?” I’m still not firing on all cylinders, asking the wrong questions. “What if I’d had sex with someone?”

He tilts his head, biting his lips against a smile. “Do you really think I’d let that happen? That I’d ever let anyone close to you?”

Rage burns in my stomach, and my heart beats in my ears. He’s the reason I’ve been ghosted countless times? That I was still a virgin at twenty-five!

“Ugh!” I push at his chest, but he just leans in, kissing my stomach again. “We’re not done talking about this.”

“You want a half dozen kids, we need to start now,” he murmurs into my stomach.

I can picture those little faces vividly. They have his eyes, the gold-rimmed centers catching the light as they blink up at me with thick lashes and dimpled smiles.

“Hmmm.” He kisses my stomach again. “You like that idea.”

“You still shouldn’t have done it without asking.”

“I’m not sure if you’ve noticed this yet, but I’m done fucking asking. I did what you wanted for a decade, and now I’m taking what’s mine.”

“And that’s a half dozen kids? Do you even want that?”

“I want it with you.”

There he goes again, melting my insides with his sweet words. “Not fair.”

He tilts his head and raises a brow. “Who said anything about fair?”

“While we’re on the topic of fair, I have a favor to ask you.” There’s a pit forming in my stomach as I wait for his answer. He is so not going to like this.

He runs his thumb over the line forming between my brows until it smooths out. “Anything.”

“Let Oliver come back.” He’s worked with me for years, and I know he did what he did because he truly believed he was helping, and in any other situation, he’d be right. I can’t stand the idea of it turning around on him when he was just trying to protect me.

Matthias jerks, eyes wide in astonishment. “You mean in a body bag?”

“No…I mean as my personal guard, like he’s always been.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t trust him anymore after this. He tried to take you away from me.”

“Well, I trust him more. When I found out he’d been reporting everything I did directly to you, it really pissed me off. He was supposed to be my guard. He earned that trust back when he put what I wanted first, knowing you’d try to kill him.”

Matthias drops his head to my stomach. “Anything but that.”

“I’ll forgive one year of you ignoring me.”

His eyes slide up, and he looks at me through his lashes. “Two.”

“Deal.”

“Tell him if he fucks around again, he’s a dead man.”

I ruffle his hair. “You don’t have to worry about that now because the only thing I want is you.”

He lifts so our foreheads touch. “Now who’s the sweet talker.”

Chapter 39

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