Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 86238 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86238 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Annika is a nice kid, but I’ve got more pressing matters to worry about than her shock. “They brought an ultrasound machine here?” When Ana nudges up her chin, I do the second most painful thing I’ve ever done in my life. I lift Ana off my lap. Burying my daughter was the hardest. “We need to tell Ghost before he’s bombarded at the party. Kirill didn’t have that machine delivered today for no reason.”
As she cusses herself under her breath, Ana races for the walk-in closet. “I forgot about his request for a mutual celebration tonight. I swear to God my brain goes to mash when I’m pregnant.” As she yanks a red dress down from the hanger, she murmurs, “Do you think this has something to do with Katie?”
I shrug, truly unsure. “I lost any sense of normality for that man when he cut his own daughter out of his wife’s stomach.”
Ana shivers. “I guess that makes sense of Sofia’s…” she air quotes her last word, “… issues.”
Issues is putting it nicely. She is several slices short of a loaf.
“Do I look okay?” Her cheeks are ruddy from the heat we generate while fucking, her lips are plump from our kisses, and her hair is extra voluptuous from where I gripped it while she sucked my cock.
She couldn’t look more perfect.
When I tell her that, she plants her lips on mine before announcing she will meet me at Ghost’s office.
She only just makes it out the door when her head cranks back to look at me. The noise trickling into my room from outside announces festivities have started early.
I realize my stupidity when my eyes drop to my watch. The party didn’t start early. I simply refused to stop fucking Ana until she collapsed from exhaustion. That gobbled up most of our afternoon.
With the crowd thick enough to hide our mutual arrival, I follow Anastasia into the foyer where most of the guests are mingling. The shady shit that’s been occurring the past two years is the strongest it’s been tonight. You could cut through the tension in the air with a knife, and I’m not the only one noticing.
Ana cusses under her breath when the host arrives shortly after us. Kirill isn’t alone, and despite Katie appearing as pure as an angel in a flawless white dress, there’s a bump in her midsection you can’t miss. It appears around the same size Ana’s was when she lost our daughter. If you weren’t looking, you wouldn’t notice she’s pregnant.
Everyone is looking, though, but their eyes aren’t on Ana.
They’re fixed on Ghost, Katie, and Kirill.
Ana has never been overly close to Ghost, but you can’t miss her sympathy for him when he joins Kirill and Katie at the end of the stairwell. “He thinks she deceived him.”
I nod, agreeing with her. “I just don’t understand why.”
She squeezes my hand like we’re not being eyeballed by Sofia from across the room before murmuring, “Because grief makes you foolish, and although Ghost hasn’t lost her, in his head, he believes he has.”
After a final squeeze, she exhales and rolls her shoulders before putting on her game face. She is about to commence the role of doting fiancée, but before she can, Kirill asks for Katie and Ghost to join him in the den.
I tug Ana back. As much as I believe her ‘fake’ presence in Ghost’s life the past month has taken a lot of the heat off Katie, Kirill’s expression is manic, so I refuse to let Ana associate with him until I fully understand his game plan.
“Stay here.”
“Alek—”
“I wasn’t asking, драгоценный. Stay.”
She hates being barked at like a dog, but she also knows I wouldn’t snap at her if I didn’t believe it was necessary. I’m not a cunt just for the hell of it. I only bring out my assholeness when it is needed to keep her safe.
“What’s going on?” I ask a dude with a head the size of a watermelon when I mosey up to him like he doesn’t have the protective bodyguard stance down pat. “I thought the main festivities were happening out here.”
I hear Ghost shouting something about Kirill being paranoid, but since Walter booms out, “Nothing that concerns you,” I miss most of what he says.
“What the fuck crawled up your ass and died? I’m asking a question, not your mother’s chest size.” He looks set to pop an artery when I murmur, “I don’t need to ask since I already know. Big enough to bury my head in between them.”
That riles him enough to get him to move from his station, but regretfully, the person who has my back this time around isn’t Ghost.
Ana slips behind Watermelon Head a second after my fist lands on his chin in retaliation for his missed swing and announces herself to the room with the confidence of a woman many years her senior.