Page 71 of Thin Lives

His baby. She almost scoffed, but held it back.

Emma’s anger swelled, but she kept it in check. “The pregnancy is coming along fine, but I’m not to be up on my feet for long, and I’ll probably have him early, as they suspected.”

Affonso didn’t look pleased about that at all. “He better be healthy, Emma.”

“Then maybe you should smoke those cigars you just asked for somewhere else,” she suggested.

“It was a distraction for them,” he explained with a shrug. “I want them back at school within a couple of days. They don’t need to be here taking up time that could be better spent elsewhere.”

His coldness burned.

She wasn’t even surprised.

“Whatever you want, Affonso,” Emma murmured.

Then, with a grunt and a scowl, Affonso pushed up from the wheelchair. He cringed, his pain obvious, as he took a hesitant step. “You are not the only one who was ordered to stay off their feet, but I have a feeling you’ll be lazying around far more than me.”

Fuck him.

She didn’t give him a response to that nonsense, either.

Emma’s eyes snapped open to darkness. She wasn’t sure what had woken her this time, but as she raised her hand to move the hair from her eyes, she found her forehead damp with sweat and a chill ran through her blood. The house was quiet, and it had been ever since Affonso shipped his daughters off back to boarding school just two short days after he came home from the hospital.

Without much of a fuss, the girls went. Of course, it was clear they had wanted to stay behind a while longer, but when Affonso gave them one of his looks, he silenced their opinions. They covered up their sadness, and everyone’s mask was put firmly back in place.

It was business as usual.

Except it wasn’t.

Affonso, when he was in pain, turned out to act even worse than he did on a regular day. He berated anyone within spitting distance, he drank too much when he wasn’t supposed to consume any alcohol due to his medications, and he couldn’t be pleased.

For the most part, he took his abuse out on whoever visited him. His men, friends, and business associates. He couldn’t leave the house for any long periods of time, and as far as she knew, there was still a hell being unleashed on the streets with the Irish. So, he did his business from his office.

Emma tried to stay as far out of his way as she possibly could.

She didn’t need the added stress of being put under his abuse with everything she already had going on. Sometimes, though, Affonso couldn’t be avoided. He questioned her often, demanding to know what she had done when he was incapacitated. Sometimes he accused her of lying to him when he was drunk, but he never explained exactly what she was lying about. Occasionally, he would eye her rounded stomach with a mixture of disgust and anger, before reminding her what would happen, should she fail to see the pregnancy out with a healthy child at the end, and Calisto none the wiser.

Emma was dying inside.

A little more each day.

She thought about Calisto constantly. She dreamed of him more often than she wanted to. Maybe it was the pregnancy hormones doing it, but the dreams were rarely innocent. She could almost feel his fingers between her thighs, and his tongue working her to a fever. She’d wake up hot, sweating, and unsatisfied.

Blinking up at the darkness, Emma rolled over to her other side.

And then she felt it between her thighs, soaking the sheets.

A steady drip of water.

Now, she knew why she had woken up. Especially when she was suddenly doubled over with pain as a contraction started from the middle of her stomach and worked its way to her back.

Her baby was coming.

Cross was coming.

She shouted for Affonso, as he was just across the hall. As much as she hated to do it, she didn’t have much of a choice. As she heard him begin to cuss and move around next door, Emma breathed her way through the last of the contraction.

It actually wasn’t that bad.