Page 139 of Pregnant By A Rich Demon 4

I sat still in the oversized velvet armchair near the foot of the king-sized bed. I kept Tru resting against my chest, burping her with small, rhythmic pats against her back, keeping my breathing slow and even.

The heavy mahogany door swung inward. Kaisen stepped into the suite, carrying a silver breakfast tray. He was dressed in a crisp cream linen button-down, sleeves rolled neatly to his forearms, his dark hair freshly cut and combed. He smelled of sandalwood soap, expensive pomade, and the faint metallic tang of river air.

“Good morning, sweetheart,” he said, setting the tray on the low cedar coffee table with deliberate care. A covered plate of scrambled eggs, fresh strawberries, sliced avocado, and a pot of chamomile tea. “The fog is lifting off the marsh. If the wind stays down, we should make good time through the Intracoastal cut today.”

Usually, I would have told him to choke on the food.

Instead, I let my chin drop slightly. I kept my gaze fixed on the steam rising from the tea spout.

“She didn’t sleep well last night,” I said softly. My voice had the rasp of genuine exhaustion, stripped clean of the sharp edge I usually wielded like a shank. “Her gums are swollen. I think she’s starting to cut a tooth early.”

Kaisen paused. His hand lingered on the handle of the teapot, his knuckles freezing mid-motion. In a month of captivity, I hadn’t offered him a single unprompted detail about my daughter’s routine. Every word out of my mouth had been an interrogation or a curse.

He turned slowly, studying me with the clinical precision of a chess player suspecting a trap. “Did you use the cooling gel I bought from the marina pharmacy?”

“A little,” I murmured, shifting Tru into the crook of my left arm. I reached down, took the linen napkin from the tray, and unfolded it across my lap. My hands weren’t trembling. I made sure of it. “It helped. But she mostly just wanted to be held.”

Kaisen didn’t move. The silence between us stretched, filled only by the low, subterranean rumble of the riverboat’s generators.

I lifted my eyes. I didn’t glare. I didn’t summon the fire that burned behind my breastbone every waking second. I softened my expression, letting the dark circles under my eyes and the sheer weight of thirty sleepless days do the work for me.

“Kaisen,” I said.

“Yes, Truth?”

I took a slow, measured breath, letting my shoulders cave inward just enough to look defeated. “I owe you an apology.”

The word hung in the air between us, heavy and bizarre.

Kaisen’s eyes widened a fraction of an inch. A flicker of sheer, hungry astonishment passed over his features before he quickly smoothed it into a posture of gentle concern. He took two steps closer, sinking onto the edge of the ottoman across from me, his hands resting lightly on his knees.

“You don’t owe me anything, Truth,” he said quietly. “You’ve been through hell. I told you, I understand what Amai did to your head.”

“No,” I cut in, keeping my tone quiet, weary, and small. “That’s not it. I mean… maybe it is, partly. But I haven’t been fair to you.”

He leaned in closer. I could feel the heat radiating off his skin. I forced myself not to flinch.

“You took me out of that house overnight,” I continued, looking down at Trumai’s sleeping face, tracing the soft curve of her cheek with one finger. “You brought me onto this boat, showed me DNA papers that turned my whole world upside down, and expected me to just… adapt. I was terrified. I thought if I stopped screaming, it meant I was admitting everything I thought I had with Amai was a lie.”

“It was a lie,” Kaisen whispered, the words coming fast, eager. “You know that now, don’t you? He used you. He used his money and his violence to build a wall around you, so you couldn’t see the truth.”

I swallowed, letting a shudder run through my chest as if I were swallowing a bitter pill.

“Maybe,” I whispered. “I don’t know. My head has been spinning for four weeks, Kaisen. All I’ve done is fight you because fighting was the only thing keeping me from falling apart. But looking at Tru this morning… seeing how safe she is here, how you made sure she had medicine, formula, clean clothes…”

I lifted my gaze back to his and let a faint, fragile hesitation show in my eyes.

“Maybe I need to stop fighting long enough to understand what you’re actually trying to build for us.”

For two seconds, Kaisen didn’t breathe.

Then, the transformation hit him.

It was almost terrifying to watch. The tight, guarded vigilance in his posture melted away, replaced by an expression so bright, so utterly vindicated, that he practically glowed from the inside out. His chest swelled. A radiant, triumphant smile broke across his face—the look of a man who had solved an impossible equation and proved the entire world wrong.

“I knew it,” he breathed, his voice trembling with an emotion so intense it bordered on religious ecstasy. He reached out, his long fingers hovering an inch above my hand before resting gently over my knuckles. “I knew it, Truth. I told myself every single day: She’s smart. She’s observant. Once the shock fades, her natural discernment will take over.”

I let his fingers stay against mine. The contact made my skin crawl, but I didn’t pull away.