Page 196 of Sexting the Boss

I never thought I’d use that word about my life, let alone while living in a literal mansion with men carrying earpieces and enough security cameras to make Fort Knox blush. But it’s true. I’ve never felt safer than I do right now.

Right here.

With him.

It’s been a whirlwind of a pregnancy. So much has happened. I’m yet to believe that Nina, who I couldn’t distrust more, helped Damien find and save me. Let alone the fact that Ryan is related to her. It took me a while to wrap my head around that fact.

I’m humming to myself when I open the fridge, only to pause when I hear a car engine outside.

I glance at the clock. Damien’s not due back for another hour, and nobody else was supposed to show up today. My baby shower isn’t for a few more days, and Melanie already called this morning to remind me “no peeking at your gifts or I swear to God I’ll wrap them in barbed wire.”

So, who?—?

The front door opens.

And I freeze in the kitchen.

“Sasha?” Damien calls from the foyer. His voice has that faint hum, the one he gets when he’s trying very hard to sound casual and is failing miserably.

I step out, squinting. “You’re home early.”

He smiles. “Had a delivery.”

I frown. “What, like a package?”

And then?—

“Sasha?”

My heart actually stops. I turn around.

My mother is standing in the hallway, looking unsure, holding her purse in both hands. And beside her, taller and lankier than I remember, is my little brother with the same crooked grin he had when he was seven.

I don’t speak.

I just burst into tears.

My mother rushes forward, wrapping her arms around me in that soft but unrelenting mom-hug that somehow smells like comfort and shampoo and the past all at once.

“I—how—what are you doing here?” I finally stammer.

“She’s living here,” Damien says, coming up behind me. “Both of them. If that’s okay with you.”

I whirl on him. “You did this?”

“I made a few calls.”

“You flew them in?”

“And set them up in the west wing.”

“I’m going to cry again.”

“You already are.”

I’m sobbing, hugging my brother now while he awkwardly pats my belly like it’s a basketball he doesn’t know the rules to.

“You’re having a whole human,” he says.

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