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Her thumb twisted one final time and her orgasm cascaded over her like a tsunami.
She shuddered and came, calling his name and a litany of prayers. Her head fell back to her pillow, and even as she resituated herself, she couldn’t help but touch her stomach as well, trailing her fingers over her growing bump. She already loved the child there so much it hurt. Part of her knew that hiding him from Amir was wrong, both for his sake and for Amir’s. However, she couldn’t have them sent away. Wasn’t it better to live with some small, weird hope than to know for sure that she and her baby were unwanted?
Tears stung her eyes in the quiet darkness of her bedroom, and she struggled not to break down completely.
“We’ll make it together, buddy, you and me. I promise that it’ll be alright. You’ll never want for love, even if I have to love as much as two parents’ worth. I swear.”
It was silent in the empty bedroom, and it felt like her voice was echoing around her. That was the best answer she had for now, even if it weren’t enough.
***
“Damn it!” she swore under her breath, even as she woke up.
She wasn’t that far along, comparatively. In addition to the hormone surges, she already had her little passenger pressing against her bladder. It meant she peed at all hours of the night. It left her tired on her shifts at the diner, but it was also just another one of those sacrifices that came along with her life, with what she was beginning to do for her son.
Shifting up to the sitting position, she hobbled to her bathroom and took care of business. Then she started back to her room. Oddly, there was a breeze blowing through it, and that confused her. Her curtains ruffled, and she swore she didn’t remember leaving the window up when she went to bed.
How strange.
Suddenly, she heard the loud thump of boots on the tile of her apartment floor and a huge hulking man rushed out from behind her curtain.
He was dressed all in black, including the balaclava mask he wore so all she could see of him was his eyes. Surging forward, he lunged for her. She tried to dodge him, but her body wasn’t as nimble as it had been before, and she miscalculated her damn added weight around the middle. As she dodged, she tripped and fell hard onto her tailbone. Pain lanced through her like a shot, and she screamed.
She heard Margery across the apartment yell and started rushing for her. Then there was a crash and a shout from her as well that made Amanda’s heart pound even harder. Getting to her feet, she rushed as fast as she could to the door, hoping she could outrun her mystery attacker. He leapt over her bed as if it were nothing.
She tried to rush out the door, pulling at the knob frantically so she could escape out into the living room and help her still screaming friend. Instead, a sharp pain slammed into her back and she shrieked as all the air was pushed out of her lungs.
“I…” she rasped, having to wait until the air came back to her. “Who are you?”
A thickly accented voice answered her. “You didn’t think that you could keep digging into our business and not pay, did you, puta?”
Her eyes were wide and she wanted to scream. This was it, ending up just like her mother. “Please, I’m pregnant.”
He pulled out a bowie knife and held the massive serrated edge to her throat. “I don’t care. If my boss hadn’t requested your ass right now, I’d kill you here. You cost us far too much trouble.”
“Margery.”
“We’re tying her up. We don’t need her,” he said. “It’s more hassle than it’s worth to dispose of a body, but I wish the boss didn’t want you so badly,” he said, grazing the blade over her skin until she felt blood well up on her cheek. “We’ve all wanted a shot at you, and soon maybe we can convince him to let us have it.”
“No! You can’t!” she said, kicking at him, even as adrenaline flared through her body. She managed to get
his shin. Her triumph was short lived because then there was a sharp pain in her temple as his fist struck her.
Then there was only darkness.
Chapter Nine
“Sir, the newest earning reports from Ali Babba’s are in,” Mafir said, setting the sheaf of records on his desk. “I think you have a lot to be proud of. The revenues are astounding and the property, from what I’ve been able to dig up, seems to be doing better than ninety-five percent of the casinos and other resorts in town.”
“The servants’ scuttlebutt?” he asked, his tone maudlin.
Although, it felt like everything was maudlin these days. Ever since Amanda had fled from his life, it was as if his senses were muted. Everything tasted like sand, everything smelled dull and uninteresting. It felt as if his world were only in grayscale. It didn’t make sense. He’d never once felt that connected to another human being. But then again, it wasn’t about the physical passion that had brimmed between them for a short weekend. It was about the honesty. He had a feeling that Amanda didn’t often talk about her insecurities with her reporting career and that, at first, she’d had no intention of telling him about Senator Jackson and her investigation. Yet she had. Similarly, he never talked about Farana—that pain was forever an open sore in his heart. With Amanda, everything had seemed possible, even baring his soul.
But her sudden departure and the firestorm of press and gossip that had followed wasn’t what bothered him most. He’d had two of his best security agents watching Amanda and her new roommate, Margery Simmons, very closely. His lover had been quick to brush off the possible threats from a senator as powerful as Jackson; she was far too sure that he would only stick to ruining her reputation. Amir didn’t believe that, not in his heart. He’d known too many power-hungry leaders in his time, thankfully not within his own family, but more than his fair share. So he’d made sure she was protected even now, even if she’d never asked for it. It turned out that Amanda was pregnant. A report about two months ago had confirmed that she’d started going to an OB-GYN. It was possible the pregnancy was related to their one night, but highly unlikely. Maybe she’d fallen back with an old boyfriend or had quickly found someone else after her humiliation.
Even if she were someone else’s now, he had to protect her, but that was the biggest burn of all—that Amanda had a life and a child without him, and he had to watch from the shadows.
“That’s good.”
