Page 99 of Vicious Little Princess

“It won’t be like this by the time the baby is born. You’re only a few weeks along right now, in the very early stages. We have a lot of time to end this and make things safe and far less complicated and nightmarish.”

“That’s true.”

I stepped up to her and slid my hands down to her hips, holding her to me. “As for you worrying about not being mother material, there’s not really any such thing. Every mother is different. Every mother-child relationship is different. In a world where you learned the harsh way not to trust anyone, not to lead with your emotions or even to allow yourself to feel them most of the time, you managed to trustus, you opened yourself up to the three of us, and you’ve cared for us and protected us like we have with you.” I smiled. “You’ve loved us. That’s what a child needs. To feel loved and safe, for their parents to do what’s in their best interests. The rest will come with time and experience. You can’t learn everything all at once where that’s concerned.”

She threw her arms around me and held me tightly to her.

Burying her face in my chest, she murmured, “Thank you.Thankyou.”

“Of course,” I said, nuzzling against her.

After a few moments, she lifted her head to gaze up at me. “You knew exactly what I needed to hear, huh?”

“Well, I’ve become as attuned to you as I’ve learned to be with Nico and Milo. And I know that you spent so long on your own being a survivor, cut off from everyone. But now you’ve managed to become a part of a team. You’re thriving in a relationship with all three of us and you have a great deal of love and care to go around. You can do this. And if that’s what you want, if you want this baby, we’ll all be there with you every step of the way. We’ll raise this child together, the way we do everything, Cat. As a family.”

I hadn’t wanted to put any pressure on her, especially not at this dicey stage, but I couldn’t think of anything more perfect than bringing a child into our foursome, of expanding our family like this.

I’d never had a family I could count on, or one that had deserved the title in the first place. Beyond that awfulness and trauma of my father, there’d also been my mother. She’d stood by him every step of the way, no matter what he’d done to me. He’d never touched her. No, he’d reserved all of that for me. And she’d allowed it to play out, never doing a thing to stop it. She’d been too concerned with maintaining her quality of life as his socialite wife. Nothing had trumped that for her. Hell, she’d barely even raised me. She’d employed nannies for that. That life had ended for her, though, once that investigation into my father’s fucked-up business practices and decisions had concluded shortly after hisuntimely death,and she’d lost everything. Her standing and most of her money, too. She’d used what had been left to disappear and retire to a remote location hundreds of miles away. That was the way that she’d stay as far as I was concerned. She was nothing to me. Nothing but a distasteful memory.

But through all of that, I’d found that familial unit with Milo and Nico. Cat had come along, and now there was the possibility of this baby. For me, it really was the bright spark through all the rest.

“As a family,” she murmured. Her face lit up as she looked at me. “I can picture that.”

“And?”

“And it’s a really beautiful picture.”

“I feel the same,” I admitted.

She eased from me and sucked in a steadying breath. “I’ll tell them once Nico and I meet with Carlo and the Price/Angelo operation is completed. Not while we’re in the thick of it.”

“If you don’t,I’llhave to, Cat,” I warned her. “If not, this becomes a full-blown secret, and a heavy one at that. There’s a difference between giving you time to process, versus keeping it quiet over a longer term.”

“I know,” she agreed. “I’m sorry I put you in this position.”

“It’s okay, I get it. You needed to get it off your chest.”

She smiled and took my hand. “Let’s get some sleep.”

“Good idea.”

As I let her lead me out of the gym and down the corridor, she observed, “You seem to be doing well moving along without your cane.”

“Yeah, definitely getting there.”

I had to. I had to keep pushing it as much as I could.

As we reached the living room that they’d all decked out specially for me, I found myself pulling up short at the doorway.

“What’s wrong?” Cat asked me right away.

“I just… I’ve been having a little trouble falling asleep.”

“I’ll read you a bedtime story.”

“What?”

She lifted a shoulder. “It’ll be good practice.”

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