Page 13 of Thin Lives

Because Affonso loved his boy.

His son was his greatest achievement, even if Calisto didn’t know it right now. Calisto may have been a product of Affonso’s violence and his horrible nature, but he’d still made him. He was still his blood—his only boy.

And he would never hurt him, no matter what he did.

No matter how vile his betrayal.

So, Emma did what she had to.

She’d hoped—though it faded a little with each day that passed and Calisto didn’t remember their time, love, or moments—that Calisto would wake up one day and know her … see her and just know.

It hadn’t happened yet.

She was beginning to think, after five months of no changes, that he never would.

“What are you thinking about over there?” Affonso asked, drawing Emma from her thoughts.

She kept her head down, and traced a fingertip over her swell. “I have another appointment tomorrow. I was thinking about that.”

It wasn’t a lie. Twice weekly, she went into her OB GYN’s office to have her cervix checked and measured for any changes. Now that she had passed the twenty-week mark in her pregnancy, the doctor was even more vigilant. At any time, if the baby began to put too much pressure on her weakened cervix, it might start to open.

She could lose her child.

She couldn’t do that again, not after the last two babies. The first time, she had been alone. The second, Calisto had helped her through not only the delivery of a child that didn’t survive, but the black depression that followed right behind for months.

This pregnancy—Calisto’s baby—was so important to Emma. In more ways than just one. She had to care for his son, and keep him safe at all costs, because he couldn’t do it right now. And the baby was the one and only real thing that Emma had left to hold onto from her affair with Calisto. Nothing else had been left behind, really. With his memories gone, it was like it didn’t even happen to him.

Only she knew.

And Affonso, of course.

Yes, the baby’s life was incredibly important. She had the distinct feeling that if—heaven forbid—she went into early labor again, and the baby died, it would not end well for her.

The baby was, undoubtedly, the one and only thing keeping her alive.

At least where Affonso was concerned.

She was the gatekeeper, so to speak. She carried the child he wanted—the boy he needed. He’d been forced for years to act as though Calisto wasn’t his son, and her baby was now the one chance he would have to produce another boy.

A boy he could claim.

A boy that was a piece of Calisto—someone Affonso loved wholly.

Selfishly, even.

Affonso might have hated her, and what she did, but she had something he wanted more than anything. Something he could love, since he had so little of that to spare for everyone else around him.

No, he wouldn’t hurt her.

Not while she was the gatekeeper to the baby, anyway.

What terrified her the most, however, was what her husband might do to her after the child was safely born, and out of her arms. Would he kill her then or let her live since she’d given him a gift, despite the shame it was steeped in?

Swallowing back the sudden rush of worry, Emma forced her expression to remain a mask of calm. Affonso was still watching her from behind his desk. She pretended like he wasn’t, grabbing her book off the couch to flip through the pages and go back to the spot she had left off from.

She didn’t want to be in his office at all. She much preferred to be alone.

If she couldn’t have Calisto, then being alone seemed much better.