Page 111 of Pregnant By A Rich Demon 2

Truth nodded. “Yeah. He did.”

I felt something crack inside me. Not break—crack. Like a fault line opening in bedrock.

Kaisen had met Delphine. Had been inside Truth’s family home. Had sat at her table, probably charmed her mother, made himself part of her world in a way I attempted.

“Delphine even said you two looked alike,” Truth added, and there was a strange note in her voice. “But I thought she was just drunk. Or delusional.”

I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t process. My brother had beenright there. In her life. In her space. Playing a role I should have been in.

Truth was still talking, her voice softer now.

“I should hate him for what he did,” she said. “And part of me does. But the Kaisen I met wouldn’t do this.” She looked out at the water. “I believe he deceived me. But he wasn’t all bad.”

The jealousy was a living thing now, coiling in my chest, squeezing my lungs.

I forced myself to ask the question I didn’t want the answer to.

“Do you like him?”

Truth turned back to me, and for a long moment, she just looked at me. Really looked at me.

“I don’t know how I feel right now,” she said finally.

It wasn’t a no.

It wasn’t a yes.

It was honest.

And somehow that made it worse.

I leaned back in my chair, one hand coming up to rub at my jaw. I needed to think. Needed to strategize. Needed to figure out how to compete with a ghost—because that’s what Kaisen was now. A memory. An ideal. The man who’d brought homemade soup and met her mama.

But I wasn’t a ghost.

I was here. Real. Solid. Dangerous, yes—but present.

I dropped my hand and looked at Truth again. At the exhaustion in her face. At the strength underneath it. At the woman who’d survived a shit marriage, a violated body, and a revelation that would have broken someone weaker.

“Can we get to know each other?” I asked.

My voice came out rougher than I intended. More vulnerable.

“If I’m going to be in competition for your heart,” I continued, holding her gaze, “I at least want a fighting chance.”

Truth’s expression shifted—something between disbelief and exhaustion crossing her face.

“That’s the last thing on my mind right now,” she said, her voice tight. “After everything that happened today, I’m still trying to wrap my mind around it all.”

She looked away from me, out at the water, and I watched her jaw work as she tried to hold herself together.

“I may look composed,” she continued, and her voice cracked slightly, “but I’m devastated, Amai. I was supposed to be a surrogate. That’sit.” She turned back to me, and I saw the tears gathering in her eyes. “Now I’m caught in some power struggle between you and your brother. I didn’t ask for any of this.”

Her hands were shaking now, gripping the robe tighter.

“This was supposed to be a contract,” she said, and the tears started falling. “Clean. Not messy and a damnwar.”

The sight of her breaking undid something in me.