Page 109 of Pregnant By A Rich Demon 2

“You tell her you’ll be out of town for a while. With me.” I watched her process that, saw the flicker of resistance, the questions forming. “You say whatever you need to say so she won’t worry. Tell her you’re taking a trip. Tell her you need space. Tell her we need to figure things out. I don’t care what story you give her, as long as she believes it.”

Truth’s lips parted, then closed. She looked out toward the water, the lake peaceful in a way that I envied.

“This needs to stay quiet,” I continued. My tone didn’t change, but the weight behind the words did. “Nobody can know where you are. Not your sisters. Not your friends. Nobody.”

She turned back to me, and there was something sharp in her expression. Not anger exactly. Wariness.

“How long are we going to be at the lakehouse?” Her hands trembled.

I leaned back in my chair, one hand resting on the armrest, the other refilling a new glass. I took a slow sip, buying myself a moment. The truth was, I didn’t have a clean answer. I had variables. Moving pieces. Threats I needed to neutralize before I could bring her back into the city. She was visibly still terrified. Of me and the unknown. I hated she saw the other side of me. A side I never wanted her to see. But with everything going on, I knew it wouldn’t be the last time she saw the demon.

Rahsaan circling. Victor holding leverage. Winston watching. Yahmaria refusing to let go. Kaisen’s blood still fresh on my hands.

And Truth, sitting here in my robe, asking reasonable questions that I couldn’t fully answer.

“I’m not sure,” I said finally. “I need to get some things in place before we go back.”

“What things?”

Her voice was calm, but I heard the edge underneath. She wasn’t going to let me be vague. She wanted details, assurances,somethingconcrete to hold onto.

I set my cup down on the small table between us. I turned my body toward her, one arm draped over the back of my chair. Close enough now that if I reached out, I could touch her.

I didn’t.

“Just things,” I said.

It sounded dismissive even to my own ears. I saw her eyes widen, saw the way her fingers curled into the fabric of the robe. She was frustrated. Maybe scared. Definitely tired of being kept in the dark.

I couldn’t blame her.

But I also couldn’t tell her everything. Not yet. Not when the landscape was still shifting, when I didn’t know who was listening, who was watching, who would use any scrap of information against us.

I exhaled slowly, my gaze locked on hers.

“I know it’s a big ask,” I said, and my voice dropped lower, rougher. “Especially after everything that’s happened. After what you found out at that clinic. After what I did to Kaisen. After I pulled you out of your life and brought you here without giving you a choice.”

Truth didn’t look away. She held my gaze, and I could see her working through it—weighing my words, measuring the distance between what I was saying and what I wasn’t. Fear lingered in her eyes.

“But I need you to trust me.”

The words hung in the air between us.

Trust.

The most unreasonable thing I could ask for. I’d had her investigated. Inserted myself into her life. Knew she’d be my surrogate before I even met her. I’d stabbed my own brotherin front of her. I’d brought her to a place she didn’t know, surrounded by people loyal to me, not her.

And now I was asking her to trust me.

I watched her face, reading every micro-expression. The way her breathing changed. The slight tension in her shoulders. The way her eyes searched mine, looking for something—honesty, maybe. Or proof that I wasn’t just another man trying to control her.

I wanted to tell her I’d burn the whole city down before I let anyone touch her. That I’d already decided she was mine, baby or no baby, Kaisen’s sperm or my own. That the feeling in my chest when I looked at her wasn’t strategy or legacy or obligation—it was something I didn’t have a name for, something that scared me more than my father’s wrath or Victor’s leverage or Rahsaan’s patience. I didn’t know how to not control what I loved.

But I didn’t say any of that.

Instead, I waited.

Because this moment—this choice—had to be hers.