First Chapter Heat Clinic. We’d been there ten days ago to get the medication to put me in heat and get a sample of Logan’s sperm for them to wash.
The doctor believed Logan, and I had a “minor” incompatibility issue resulting in my body rejecting his seed. They promised that they could isolate his strongest sperm, push them into me with a fake knot, and I’d not only get pregnant butstaypregnant.
And that thought terrified me.
My eyes sealed shut as I pressed my forehead against the passenger window of Logan’s car. He’d been nice enough to turn on the air conditioning and point all of the vents toward me, but that didn’t stop me from panting.
Logan swore the last ten days had been torture for him. He said it constantly, casually, like a joke I was expected to laugh at. The pills. The injections. The forced cycle.
“You smell stronger,” he’d complained, like I’d done it on purpose. “Do you know what it’s like having you around and not being able to touch you?”
He framed it like restraint; he was some saint holding himself back for the greater good. He wanted his wife pregnant, and this was the “sacrifice” he had to make.
Meanwhile, I’d entered the worst heat in my life. For the past ten days, I’d been unable to eat, barely able to drink, and hardly restraining the urge to tear myself apart just to escape my own skin.
It was so bad that my breath tasted like smoke.
Still, I held myself together enough to make a scent-blocking sachet to hang on my necklace. It wasn’t anything special, just salt, lavender, crushed sage, and dried orange rind. But I think it worked.
The rest of the mob wasn’t in rut, and that was good enough, at least I thought it was.
A large hand slipped up my skirt and planted itself on my thigh.
“After this, we’ll stop and get lunch okay?” Logan asked. “We can go to that pizza place you like. Gotta keep up your strength, you know, for the baby.”
My stomach roiled at the idea. He didn't even have to name the restaurant, and immediately I knew where we’d go, not because I liked it, but because he did.
Giovanni’s.
The pizza there was so greasy it made my stomach hurt. The cheese slid off in clumps, the sauce was always too sweet, and the place reeked of greasy meat and cigarettes. But Logan liked it.
He liked how the staff knew his name and how they called me “Mrs. Stellar” and asked about the baby that didn’t exist yet.
And, when the public treated us like the loving couple Logan wanted to be, it made him feel important. Like someday, we’d be everything he ever dreamed of and more.
I clenched the sachet against my chest as the car slowed in front of the clinic. Logan parked in the space closest to the door before hopping out into the oppressive Florida sun.
Mrs. Stellar was not allowed to open her own door, if she did, Logan looked like an inadequate mate.
When I’d first been sold to him, I didn’t know that.
First time, when he parked outside a restaurant, and I reached for the handle, already halfway out of my seat, he smiled, took my hand in his, and broke every single finger. All the while, he explained my place was to wait.
People were watching, and Mrs. Stellar wasneverto disrespect her alpha by acting like she didn’t need him.
I never made that mistake again.
Now my hands stayed obediently folded on my purse, trembling only a little as Mr. Stellar circled the car as slowly as possible, leaving me to bake just so he could ensure as many people as possible saw him.
The perfect husband, the devoted alpha, the man who tooksuchgood care of his fragile little wife.
His shadow poured through the windshield before he opened the door and leaned in, fingers unfastening my seatbelt.
“Let’s go, Little Dove,” he said softly, offering me his hand. “We have a baby to make.”
A wounded whimper escaped my throat before I could stop it, and my bottom lip trembled. I hated that he saw it.
“Don’t be so sad, my pet,” he cooed, pressing a kiss to my temple. “No matter how many children we make, I will always have time for you.”
