Page 95 of Captive Vows
“Nothing would keep me away,” I promised.
“Well, there are still a few more weeks for that.” She groaned, rubbing her stomach. “I don’t know how I can get any bigger. I’m already a beached whale.”
“Nonsense,” I replied.
“And you still don’t know the gender?” Ivan asked.
She shook her head. “No. I want to be surprised.”
I just shrugged, going with what she wanted.
Emil and Ivan spoke a little more about the meeting I had to attend. It was something to do with a wealthy philanthropist who’d needed a favor—the kind of favor Emil specialized in. Since it was a big deal and an important transaction, it was requested that I attend as well.
“I will try to come to the appointment,” I told Gabriella before I left, hating to be apart from her now that we’d found our way back together.
“Okay. Don’t stress about it. I’ll be safe.”
I arched a brow. “Without me?”
She smirked. “Oh, stop. You know I feel safestwithyou.” And she meant it. I knew she did. I’d killed to protect her.
“But I also know that your guards and everyone will do their jobs to protect me and this little one as well.”
That vote of confidence was something I never thought I’d hear from her lips. She wasn’t bluffing or mocking anything. In this year she’d been here, she really had grown into accepting how my family worked. She didn’t flinch at the concept of having a small army go with her to an appointment. Likewise, I trusted that she’d stick with them and not try to flee.
How could she when her future is with me?
Hours later, I grinned with the satisfaction that my meeting had wrapped up sooner than I expected. With this timing, I could surprise her at the medical facility, arriving right when she would.
Riding in the Rolls Royce,mycar, I sighed and watched the scenery pass by.
Allen was on speaker, hurrying to assist with a project Gabriella hadn’t put any effort into handling.
The nursery.
In the back of my mind, I knew she’d put off talking about the nursery at first because she was adamant that she’d be betteroff on her own to raise our child, away from danger. She’d at last come to realize she would be more securewithme than away from me, and I appreciated that she’d had that epiphany.
“Ask her,” I told him as he debated between furniture ideas. “After the appointment, ask her.” I didn’t care. Whatever she wanted, I’d make it happen.
He scoffed at my unhelpful nonanswer. After we disconnected the call, I mused on how anxious I was to surprise her. It wasn’t just that I was eager to hear the heartbeat and be there to see our child on the ultrasound. This wasn’t my first time with this. I still remembered when I was waiting for Emil to be born. The daughter I was supposed to welcome into the world with Maria had been my second experience of doctor visits and obstetrician offices.
But this was Gabriella’s first time. I hated to have punked out and failed her by not being with her when she had her checkups all along, but I was here now. And I would be there for all other pregnancies she’d be blessed with.
Coming to meet her at her appointment was a sign of deeper commitment. That mattered to me. Now that I’d gotten my head out of my ass and I could see my future complete only with her in it as my partner, not a thing I’d acquired from a rat, I wanted her to know how deeply I was in this thing called life with her.
On the ride, I rehearsed my ideas of how I could soften my dominance where she was concerned. I never wanted to witness her fire and spirit be so diminished again. She would submit to me. I knew that now. It was only a matter of explaining that I loved her so she’d feel powerful alongside me.
Not as something I’d taken.
But after our fight, something I’d earned back.
The car slowed to a stop, braking at the entrance of the parking garage. Before the driver continued on, a couple of vanssped by. They zoomed too fast so erratically that they clipped the bumpers of parked cars. Just like that, they were there.
“What the fuck?—”
I watched, panicking as the vans rocked to a stilted stop at the doors that led to the medical facility where Gabriella was in the waiting room for her appointment.
Men filed out. All armed.
