Throne of Power (Throne Duet #1) - Rina Kent Page 0,69
I open them again, Kyle is lifting my panties up my legs. I push away from him, finish the task myself, and go to my console.
Since we have a morning meeting with Sergei and the others, I expect Kyle to go ahead, but he sits behind his laptop while I’m doing my hair and makeup. The moment I’m done, he’s by my side.
“You don’t have to be my shadow,” I say as we leave the room. “I don’t need protection.”
He raises a brow, grinning. “But our baby does.”
“Would you stop with that?”
“With what? That our baby boy or girl is growing inside you?”
I’m about to hit him in the side when a presence catches my attention. Adrian is standing on the second floor’s small hall, wearing his usual sharp suit, and tapping his fingers against his thigh. Only family members and their guards are allowed here. The others only come up when they have permission.
Adrian isn’t the type who would do such a thing without it, and that’s how I know the reason for his presence here is concerning.
We stop in front of him, and I speak first. “What are you doing here, Adrian? Is everything all right?”
His eyes flash toward me, flickering, almost like he’s about to go into one of Damien’s manic episodes. But then, he seals his reaction in, speaking in his usual composed tone. “What happened yesterday?”
“I already briefed Sergei.”
“I want to hear it from you. Don’t leave anything out.”
It’s not a surprise since Adrian is so attuned to details and prefers to hear retellings from the source who witnessed the event. “Well, Lia and I were standing near the entrance when I saw a dot on her forehead. I pushed her down, and Kyle pushed me as the silent bullet hit the door above her head.”
“What else?”
“That’s all.”
Adrian grips me by the arm so hard I wince. “What. Else. Rai? Surely you saw something? Someone?”
Kyle grabs Adrian’s arm and twists it off mine, his expression closed. “Do not lay your fucking hands on my wife again. She already said that’s all, so that’s all.”
Adrian meets Kyle’s impenetrable glare with one of his own. A war of gazes erupts between them with their own weapons and battalions.
“That really was all,” I say in an attempt to dissipate the tension. It’s the first time I’ve witnessed Adrian like this.
“What happened after?” He breaks off eye contact with Kyle to focus on me.
“We just went into the meeting as planned.”
“And Lia didn’t do anything?”
“What was she supposed to do…?” I trail off. “Wait—is she having PTSD?”
He narrows his eyes on me. “Why would you say that?”
“No reason.” It seemed she didn’t want him to know, so I’m not going to sell her out to a frightening-looking Adrian right now. “Let’s join the others.”
We find Sergei and the four kings seated around the dining table. Vlad meets us at the threshold and follows us in.
As soon as we’re inside, Kyle pulls the chair out for me.
“I can do it myself,” I say.
“I’m just being careful so you don’t hurt the baby.”
Silence fills the room and my heart nearly knocks out of its place and spills out on the floor.
“The baby?” Sergei’s eyes widen with unmasked interest.
“It’s not—”
“I believe we’re expecting, Pakhan.” Kyle cuts me off by placing his hand on my stomach in front of everyone and smiles. “Be good to Mommy, little guy.”
Congratulations fly all over the table, and Kyle accepts them while grinning down at me. Then he whispers at my ear, “No morning-after pill. You don’t want to disappoint everyone, do you, Princess?”
That’s it. I’m going to kill him.
25
Rai
A few days later, Sergei holds a gathering to celebrate the good news.
No joke.
I don’t know why I’ve allowed it to go this far or how I let Kyle’s manipulations lead me to this point of no return, but that single moment of speechlessness during the meeting was enough to have everyone ganging up on me with well wishes and congratulations.
Then Ana came downstairs, and she kept herself as busy as a bee in the kitchen, preparing me nutritious food and making me sit down.
Sergei won’t stop smiling whenever he sees me. He may never meet his own grandchildren in this lifetime, so he’s apparently living that dream through me.
No matter how much I wanted to put my foot down and scream that it wasn’t true, I couldn’t just wipe the doting expression off Sergei’s face. He seems so happy lately, serene, almost like he’s finally fulfilling the