Page 59 of The Pakhan’s Hidden Heir

“I’ll bring a proper meal up shortly,” she says, smoothing my hair back off my forehead. “I really wish you’d let me take him. You look so tired, honey.” The pout on her face doesn’t go away as she walks toward the door, but I don’t change my mind either.

This is my son and I don’t want anyone taking him from me. Though the depression I’ve been feeling is heavy, and those small breaks where I can rest help more than I could ever admit.

She lets herself out, and the guard in the hall draws the door closed behind her. I settle back into the rhythm of the rocking chair and watch Felix breathing, the little flutter of his eyelids.

When we’re like this, the world dissolves down to just the two of us. It feels magical, the bond we share and how tightly he clings to me all the time, at only two weeks old for that matter.

I never knew being a mother would feel so incredibly rewarding so soon.

I’m starting to doze again when the door opens without a knock. Akim leans in to murmur something to the guard, but I’m already sitting straighter, wary of what he’s going to threaten me with this time.

The man nods and moves off down the hall, and Akim steps inside, closing us in together.

My spine goes stiff and my arms curl tighter around my son. He’s been hovering for days again. Every time he comes around, I sense the hostility between us. When he had his hand around my neck I really thought he was going to hurt me. Now I feel like there’s an hourglass somewhere with sand slipping through it, counting down the seconds until he makes good on that threat.

“I’m not here for the boy.” He crosses to the window and looks down at the grounds, hands shoved into his pockets. “You can loosen your grip. Nobody in this house would dream of touching the boss’s heir, least of all me.”

I don’t believe him for a second. I’ve seen this snake in the grass slithering around, preying on Bastian.

He lies about me, and he’s probably lying to me right now too.

For all I know he wants me gone because Bastian trusts him enough to make him the heir if Felix is gone.

It’s logical.

But not so long as Felix is here, alive and healthy.

“Then say what you came to say and leave.” My eyes stay locked on him, watching every single step he takes, the way every muscle flexes and shifts. I read him better than I used to read books, which I haven’t had time for. Felix won’t let me enjoy them anymore.

“I came to do you a kindness, since no one else in this house will.” He turns from the window, studying me with a fixed glare. “Bastian doesn’t want you here. He never did. He got his heir, and now the sight of you is a thing he’d rather avoid, which is why he only comes to the nursery once you’re asleep. You have to know that, right?”

His words sting but part of me knows they’re probably true. The instant I announced conception he tried to throw me out of his bed.

The only reason I was let back in was on my insistence.

And he still slept away from home many nights, not to mention the fact that if we had sex it was because I instigated it.

I knew Bastian was coming to see Felix while I slept. Maybe it’s part of the reason why I won’t let Ingrid take him so I can rest.

If Bastian hopes to bond with his son, he should hope to do it in my presence, not in secret.

“You don’t know the first thing about what that man wants.” Giving Akim what he wants feels like a punishment itself. I hate him and just want him gone. “Get out of my room.”

“Twenty years I’ve stood at that man’s side, and I know what he wants better than he knows it himself.” He doesn’t give up so much as an inch of the floor between us. “And I promise you, it isn’t you.”

I look down at Felix so I don’t have to look at Akim, kissing the fine dark hair on the crown of his head and breathing him in until the burn behind my eyes fades.

When I raise my head, I don’t feel like crying anymore, but I do feel like punching the man still.

“Alright, then well if he doesn’t want me here. I’ll go…” I’m not sure I mean that, but I’m angry enough to spit it out. Akim seems to want me gone, and Bastian isn’t doing much to show me he wants me to stay.

It’s terrifying to think about taking a baby out into this world alone, but I have the million dollars in my bank account now.

Lada would help me. “Then can I go? If he doesn’t want me under his roof, will he let me walk out the gate?”

His eyebrows lift, and his eyes narrow to thin slits.

He crosses the room and settles onto the arm of the sofa, lowering his voice even with no one there to hear us. “It’s possible to make you vanish.”