Page 63 of Entangled

He realized in that moment how delicate of a line he was walking with his wife. It was not one he wanted to walk at all, but it seemed Elena was not going to give him a choice in the matter.

“Cara—”

“Did you think I wouldn’t know about her visit when you were in jail? Or how curious it is that you are bringing her to visit … not to mention, when she’s pregnant? Or that you hole yourself up in her place for days, hiding away from the world?”

“Elena, that’s enough,” Gian warned. “This isn’t your business, and you have no reason to care, either way.”

“Someone told me she was pregnant,” Elena continued, not heeding his warning in the slightest. “I had to see, so I did. I approached her in the grocery store. I don’t think she even knew who I was, or if she did, it probably wasn’t until after. A boy, she told me. Marcus for a name, maybe. You’re going to give your bastard—even if he is a firstborn boy—your family’s name? And not even for a middle name, but a first name, his given name. I don’t understand, I guess, what about her that does it for you. Like I said, nothing about her is spectacular or amazing. She’s just a woman.”

“Because she isn’t you,” Gian said, “she is the complete opposite of you, Elena. And that is everything. Stay away from Cara, understood?”

His rage simmered through his bloodstream, but he managed to hide it for the moment. How long that would last, he couldn’t say.

How dare she approach Cara?

How dare she seek her out?

Had Cara even realized?

“I will make your father look like a saint, if you hurt that woman or my child,” Gian murmured in Elena’s ear. “We both know the only reason you’re still a problem for me is because of your father. You have things in this life that she doesn’t, where I’m concerned. You have my last name, my homes, my money, and my grandmother’s rings on your finger. And you don’t deserve a single fucking one of them. You know it, too. So, try not to let your need to play games with the lives of others cloud the smart part of your brain that knows you’re safe and comfortable in your good little life here, Elena. I don’t love you and you will never have my children, because those are things she has. And if you try to take them away from her because you are jealous or bitter, I will scatter you from one end of this city to the other.”

Gian smiled, but Elena stayed stone-cold.

“Just so we’re clear,” he added.

Elena stayed where she was in the doorway. Gian went to bed. Cara, however, got an enforcer to watch her the very next morning.

“Eight weeks left—let the countdown begin,” Jenny teased.

Cara huffed as she bent down to pick up the rest of the art supplies on the small kiddie table. “Don’t remind me.”

“You’re thirty-two weeks pregnant, Cara. How can you not know it every second of your day?”

“That’s my point. I don’t need more reminders.”

Jenny laughed. “Uh-huh. Are you nervous, is that it?”

“Excited, but mostly …” Cara waved at her very large stomach that made it hard to sleep, eat, and almost every other function of life, including breathing some days. “I’m just over all of this.”

“Don’t worry. It will all be worth it in the end. Once you have the little one in your arms, all of the hells of pregnancy and birth will be forgotten.”

Oh, Jesus.

Birth.

That was another thing Cara was not looking forward to. Not by a long shot. That, she was scared of. Terrified, even. A baby—a small human—was going to come out of her body. Women might have been doing it for millennia, but sweet Jesus, Cara had not.

“Wow, you just went white,” Jenny noted.

Cara tried to be nonchalant as she put all the supplies away into their proper places. “I guess birth makes me a little worried.”

“When a baby gets in, Cara, it has to eventually come out.”

“Yes, that is the only guarantee about pregnancy. I’m well aware of that.”

“Women’s bodies are made for this, too.”

“Again, I know.”