Claiming His Unexpected Baby (Assassins Guild #2) - Michelle Howard Page 0,20
lifted his head, his gaze burned a hole through her. Teeth clenched, he gritted out, “Do you know what you’ve done?”
Amelie ignored the sweat dampening her brow. She focused on her reasons for why she and Scarlett had done all this. “I had to protect my daughter. Nothing else mattered.”
“Fuuuck!” he roared, launching upright. “I didn’t ask to be mated. I don’t want to be mated.”
“Then don’t be!” she yelled, raising her voice to match his.
“Mommy, what’s wrong?”
They both spun around and looked down to find Fleur in the room with tears hovering in her eyes. She’d removed her party dress and wore pink leggings with stars in silver glitter and a purple short sleeved tee.
Amelie hurried to her side and dropped to her knees to grab Fleur’s forearms. She forced a smile though it quivered on the edges. “Nothing’s wrong. We were just talking.”
Fleur’s mouth formed a pout as she twisted her hands in the bottom of her shirt. “I don’t want you fighting. It got loud.”
The heat of Sulen’s glare burned Amelie’s back. The tension in the air eased as he held his silence. She appreciated him not letting his temper loose in front of Fleur.
His steps drew near and his voice was much calmer when he spoke. “I need to go. Tomorrow, be prepared for more questions. I’ve waited a long time to get my justice and won’t be deterred because of...her.”
Amelie scooped Fleur up in her arms and stood. “Are you going to tell the enforcement authorities about what I did?”
Without answering, Sulen strode toward the door and let himself out.
Chapter 8
“He’s what?!”
Scarlett’s screech caused Fleur to twitch in her sleep. Her friend had arrived minutes after Sulen left.
“Shh. It took forever to get her to settle down. She refuses to let me out of her sight.”
Amelie brushed a hand up and down Fleur’s arm until her little chest rose up and down in soft exhales again. After the real Sulen left, Fleur had been hard to soothe. She went from questions on why her daddy wasn’t staying to why the strange man wanted to take her.
The same strange man who’d been talking to her at school also happened to be Roan, which at least solved that puzzle.
When Amelie’s half-answers weren’t enough, Fleur became inconsolable and cried. It took forever to distract her from the day’s events. Afterward, Fleur had insisted on following Amelie everywhere, fearful she’d leave her for some reason. Poor thing had had a rough couple of days.
Scarlett leaned over the sofa with Fleur stretched out between them and hissed. “He’s really Sulen? The same Sulen Czen I stole the hormone sample from?”
“Yep.”
Flopping back on the sofa, Scarlett groaned. She still wore the dress from the party and the purple skirt fluttered around her thighs. “What are we going to do? What’s he going to do?”
Amelie had no idea. This scenario had never come up when Scarlett had presented the idea for this whole charade. Back then, their biggest concern was someone sensing she wasn’t bonded for real.
“I’m not sure. He said he’ll come back tomorrow to ask more questions. I’ll try to keep your name out of it but I’m not sure he’ll accept half-answers, Scarlett.”
Sulen came across as very intense. He’d hammer at her until the full truth came out and that meant revealing Scarlett’s role in all of this.
“What about Roan? What was that mess about? I didn’t notice him there and by the time I reached you, he was being loud and obnoxious.”
Amelie’s fingers trembled as she gazed down and stroked Fleur’s hair. “The ambassador he works with is here on some visit or another. Roan started going on and on about how he knows Fleur’s is his and that I kept her from him. You heard the rest.”
“That jerk!” Scarlett sat upright, breathing fire. A muscle ticked in her jaw as she glared. “He will not take this beautiful girl from you. Not after the way he insisted you—”
She broke off and glanced at Fleur. Her voice lowered to a whisper. “He didn’t want a baby and then he violently attacked you in a way that almost guaranteed to make that come true. So no, he can’t have her and I don’t care what we have to do to stop him.”
Relief almost drowned Amelie. She trusted Scarlett in a way she’d never trusted anyone else, not even her family. “You are the best, Scarlett. I don’t know how hard he’ll fight. Apparently, his wife, Aviana, can’t have children