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“But you always have a plan.”
“Yeah, well, I also ‘always’ manage to not knock up total strangers.” I shuffle the papers on my desk just to have something to keep my hands busy. “This is new. All of this is fucking new. I sure as fuck wasn’t planning on becoming a father any time soon. Or ever. So no, I don’t have a plan—because nothing is going as planned.”
They exchange a look. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear these two were twins with the way they always sync their thoughts.
“You know what’s not new?” Sofi leans against the back of the couch. “You. You’re the pakhan. You told her that, right?”
I side-eye her, suspicious of where she’s going with this. “Yes.”
“So then act like the pakhan. You call the shots. You give the orders. You say the word, and it happens. You want Daphne closer? Make it happen.”
I glance at Mak, who shrugs. “Sofi’s right,” he agrees. “Besides, Daphne probably doesn’t know what it means to be the mother of your child. Yeah, you could tell her. But why not show her instead?”
They both have solid points. Against my better instincts, I set out at the dinner to deliver the news of Daphne’s new reality as gently as possible.
But she also needs to know I’m not a pushover.
And I’m definitely not someone who accepts empty promises.
Daphne is about to learn that lesson the hard way.
12
PASHA
“Sir? Sir! You can’t just go back there!”
“Room Five, right?” At the nurse’s widened eyes, I know I’ve guessed the right one. “Thanks.”
Not my fault they left the computer unattended.
I’m even less impressed with the condition of the hallway as I charge towards the examination room. This place hasn’t been updated in, what, thirty years? That, paired with the shit security and how fucking easy it was to read Daphne’s medical records just sprawled across the desk…
Well, I’m in no mood to negotiate.
“What the hell?!”
I shut the door behind me just as quickly as I opened it, fully prepared to duck any flying specimen cups or whatever Daphne launches at me. “You?—”
“What the actual fuck?!” She scrambles to tug the threadbare blanket over her body with one arm while she waves me off with the other. “Get out!”
She glances over at the perplexed nurse, her features shifting from shock to rage to embarrassment. “I am so sorry–I didn’t think he’d just barge in like this.”
Again, she whips on me. “Are you out of your goddamn mind?!”
For a brief moment, I’m a little distracted. The sight of Daphne reclining on the medical table, her blouse undone and the blanket draped over her curves, manages to reroute some blood flow from my head to my… other head.
As does the sight of her bare stomach, swollen slightly in a way I hadn’t noticed before.
I swallow back my baser emotions and remind myself that I’m pakhan and I’m here to lay down a few ground rules. Rule Number One: no one excludes me from my own family.
“This is my baby, too,” I growl to the nurse as much as to Daphne. “You promised you’d let me know when your next appointment would be, and I promised to be by your side through every second of it. Guess which one of us lied?”
Daphne looks away, a blush spreading across her cheeks. She has the decency to look sheepish, if nothing else.
The pakhan in me is determined to teach this woman a thing or two about loyalty.
The man in me is determined to show her what it means to be protected.
