Page 133 of Pregnant By A Rich Demon 2

Someone else I hadn’t even met yet?

And Amai… God, Amai was too obsessed with having a baby, with havingme, to even consider he might be behind the original scheme. His obsession felt genuine. Raw. Like something that had been buried deep inside him for years and was only now clawing its way to the surface.

But that didn’t mean he was innocent of other things.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t hiding something.

I turned away from the window and looked around the empty, sterile cabin again.

And that’s when the real realization hit me.

Everyone in the Landry family had been making decisions about my body except me.

Kaisen. Amai.

They’d all been moving pieces around a board, and I was the board. I was the territory they were fighting over. I was the prize, the leverage, the thing to be controlled and claimed.

Not once—notonce—had anyone asked me what I wanted.

Not when my egg was harvested.

Not when it was fertilized.

Not when Kaisen’s sperm was added to the mix.

Not when Amai decided I needed to be protected.

Not when he brought me here, to this beautiful, empty cabin in the middle of nowhere.

I’d been reacting. Surviving. Trying to keep my head above water while everyone else made decisions that affected my life, my body, my future.

And I was done.

I was done being passive. Done being the thing that stuff happened to instead of the person making things happen.

My mama’s words echoed in my head again, louder this time.

Lock the fuck in.

I needed answers. Real answers. Not Amai’s version of the truth. Not what he thought I needed to know. Not what he decided was safe for me to hear.

I needed to know whose baby I was carrying.

And I needed to find out on my own terms.

It was different when I was a surrogate. When this was just a contract. I could trust the process then because I wasn’t emotionally involved. I was providing a service. I was helping someone build a family.

But we were clearly more than a contract now.

Last night, in front of that fireplace, when Amai had looked into my eyes and told me I wasn’t alone anymore—that had been real. That had been more than sex. More than physical.

That had been a claiming.

And that changed everything.

Because if I was going to be with him—if I was going to let myself fall completely—I needed to know the truth. All of it.

I couldn’t do this blind.