Page 58 of Viktor at Sea

“I need to speak to Astrid,” I stated, my teary eyes not once wavering from hers. “Alone.”

“What is it, pirate?” Astrid asked in a small voice, the smile slowly slipping off her face as the dark, gloomy cloud over my head duplicated, and the second moved to hover over hers. “What’s wrong?”

“It’ll be better if I tell you this in private,” I insisted, suppressing the urge to blurt out the truth right this second.

“We’re already short on time, and we still need to fasten the dress,” Katarina told me. “You’ll have to pretend we’re not here while you talk to Astrid.”

It wasn’t the most ideal situation, and I wished I could have told Astrid in a different setting, but I was short on time.

Exhaling deeply, I knew it was now or never. If I didn’t say anything now, then Daewon would soon knock down the door and tell her everything before I could. Everything would be so much worse then.

I released a long breath before I spoke the words that had the power to shatter my heart and entire existence if Astrid chose to have nothing to do with me after this.

If she did, I would never blame her for it.

“Chara is pregnant,” I said in a small voice, quickly ripping off the band-aid.

“Oh, that’s terrible news,” Sallie gasped, a horror-stricken look on her face as she covered her mouth with her hand. “I always knew that girl would end up pregnant out of wedlock.”

“I really wished you hadn’t told us that this morning,” Katarina frowned, a disturbed look on her face. “I’m going to be thinking about her all day now.”

“Do we know who the father is?” Freja asked.

I didn’t say anything, but the look of horror on her face worsened the longer she stared at me. She knew what I was struggling to say.

“That is, indeed, terrible news, but what has Chara getting herself pregnant outside of wedlock got anything to do with us?” Astrid asked in a deathly quiet tone, and the hardened glint I caught in her eyes told me that she knew more than she was letting on. Even though Astrid and I spent most of our time arguing and teasing each other, she knew me better than most people.

She knew me better than to know that I would drop by unannounced like this to share newly acquired gossip with her.

She knew there had to be a reason I was telling her this on the morning of our wedding.

“Chara is pregnant,” I repeated, struggling to force the words out of my mouth. “And she…she says the baby is mine.”

“How is that possible?” Sallie gasped.

Katarina let her hands drop from where she had been doing up Astrid’s corset and dropped herself into a sitting position, visibly going through all sorts of emotions as she tried to process the news. Freja sat with her hands resting on her stomach, looking both enraged and like she felt sorry for me.

And then there was Astrid, my bride, who seemed eerily calm for a woman who had just found out her future husband was having a baby with another woman.

“Astrid?” I called out in a cautious tone, not wanting to set her off. “Astrid, please, say something,” I begged. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“I’m thinking that you’re having a baby with Chara,” she whispered, staring back at me, her eyes wide and unblinking. “When did you find out?”

“Just now,” I answered in a small voice. “I found out and came here to tell you.”

“How far along is she?”

“I don’t know.”

“She didn’t say?” Astrid asked, her face so neutral that she almost looked like a pristine doll made only for looking at and not playing with.

“I’m not sure.” I shook my head. “I stopped listening after she told me…” my voice trailed off, and I gulped painfully. “After she told me the news.”

“I don’t trust Chara. There’s something about all of this that feels off to me,” Freja said, her voice determined as she slowly rose to her feet. “Excuse my bluntness, Viktor, but how many times have you had sex with Chara?”

“Just the once,” I struggled to swallow the words, my eyes still set on Astrid’s blank face.

“I guess that doesn’t mean much since women can get pregnant after just one time,” Freja mused aloud. “Did you finish inside her?”

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