Page 36 of Kept By the Bratva

I nodded.

“I will do everything I can to help you.” She smiled. “I can arrange for an ultrasound, basic prenatal care.”

“No!” I sat back down from launching to stand. “I… I don’t want to be indebted. To your family.”

“Nonsense.” She nodded once, like she was reaffirming the plan to herself. “Rest, Amy. And should I receive news about Nikolai, I will share it with you. Like I said, he is a private, reclusive man, but the fact that he’s brought youhere, to his private wing, must mean something.”

I frowned, lowering my gaze.

“It tells me thatyoumust mean something to him.”

I met her serious gaze. I was jaded, always skeptical to trust someone, but I saw no hint of a lie on her face. She really meant it, and as an insider to this Bratva family, I knew she would be someone who could make such a claim.

A deep, secret part of me wanted to cheer this news. Knowing Nik sawmeas the one, unique woman to bring into his home made me feel good. Her remarks should have made me feel better about my future. If Nik went so far as to keep me here, inhisspace, then he couldn’t fork me over to someone else or leave me to fend for myself, right?

“Coffee turns my stomach, too,” she said. “I’ll have Margie stop bringing it. Try the water and saltines as soon as you wake, though. The morning sickness is easier to handle when your stomach isn’t empty.”

Saying nothing further, she turned and left me alone in this empty but lavish suite.

Nervous and bewildered, I sat there in that chair and reluctantly took Mila’s advice. I nibbled on the salty crackers, relieved when the urge to vomit didn’t come. Maybe she knew what she was talking about, experiencing it firsthand and all.

I didn’t want to lower my guard. It was difficult to accept that I’d lowered my guard and the walls around my heart to let Nik matter this much. I wasn’t used to having friends. Knowing I could count on another woman was too great of a risk to take blindly. Mila seemed to want to help, but it was awfully telling that she would abide by my continued captivity here.

But I am safer here.I knew that.

So, what the hell is going to happen to me?

“To us?” I whispered, rubbing my still-flat stomach.

Eventually, the nausea subsided completely. And with that calm, I grew tired.

Returning to the big bed alone felt wrong. I didn’t sleep well last night, wondering and wishing Nik would return. He’d become the constant in my life. I knew it was stupid to want him, but my body had proven how foolhardy it was to try to keep that from happening.

Every time I closed my eyes, I grew sleepy, but then jerked awake with a sudden pang of missing him. Of hoping he was all right.

This connection that kept us bound together lulled me into a false sense of security. When he was near, I felt safer. Grounded. With his touch, caressing me or gripping me tightly, I was soothed with the sensation of his strength and heat. Under his demanding kisses and smoldering stares full of heady desire and lust, I experienced a new sensation of belonging.

With him.

It couldn’t be right to want him this badly.

He wasn’t a stable man. I knew I wouldn’t fit into this mega family this crime lord supervised here, with all these examples of wealth and opulence.

I didn’t fit in here.

When Nik was near, though, challenging me to let go and justbewith him, I was right where I needed to be.

Tears leaked to the pillow again. It was hormones or sadness. Worrying or wondering.

I wanted him here. I wished for his arms to hold me so I could drift to that soul-deep peacefulness like I had the first night I’d ever met him.

But that night, he’d left me. With lies about his identity, abandoning me with this yearning to have him close again, he’d left me without a word.

I was stuck in a nasty loop of that incident repeating itself.

Left behind.

Dismissed.