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“I’ll protect you both for as long as I’m alive,” he says fiercely, kissing my neck, nipping at my earlobe, and when I turn over, he kisses me hard on the mouth, hungry.
I kiss him back eagerly but he pulls away, shaking his head as if to clear it.
“Not tonight,principessa. You’re hurt.”
“I feel fine,” I say, but I know that’s probably because of the drugs and he’s right.
“Not tonight,” he repeats, pressing his forehead against mine.
I feel tears pricking at my eyes again, and this time I let them fall. Nico cups my face, running his thumbs down my cheeks and being careful of the bandage on my cheekbone.
“Everything’s going to be all right,principessa,” he says, and I can’t help but believe him. I just wish I knew what “all right” looks like for us.
I manage to drift off to sleep after just a few moments of his quiet, deep breathing.
16
NICO
Iwake up with a vicious hangover, the sunlight streaming through the blinds feeling like spears in my eyeballs. My stomach rolls with the whiskey I ingested the night before, and I reach out for Aurora, groaning.
She’s not in bed, and I sit up quickly, more pain spearing through my head.
“Aurora?”
She pops her head into the door. “I’m making pancakes,” she chirps, and I blink, feeling like my eyelids are sticking together.
“You are? With one arm?” I ask incredulously.
“It is kind of hard,” she admits, laughing a little, and I can’t believe she’s in such good spirits after everything that happened.
She’s pregnant.The thought slams into me like a train, and I feel sick all over again, bolting out of bed and barely making it to the bathroom before throwing up in the toilet. I groan and brush my teeth and wash my face before coming out of the bathroom.
I head into the kitchen to see Aurora standing there at the sink, washing up the dishes.
“I’ll do that,” I mumble. “You should be resting.”
“I feel better,” she insists, and I sit down at the table because the room is spinning. She laughs at me. “How much did you drink last night?”
“Too much,” I manage, and when she puts a bottle of water down on the table, I drink half of it.
“It was a rough night,” she says, and I nod, agreeing, before wincing because it hurts my head.
“Rougher than most,” I agree. I’m thinking about the baby. Staring at her lower abdomen, all I can think is that there’s part of me floating around in Aurora’s stomach right now.
She continues to make breakfast, humming and flitting around the kitchen, doing everything one-handed. I know that I should get up and help her but it feels like my head is going to split open if I move too fast.
“I never really had a father,” I comment, not sure what I’m saying, and Aurora freezes, turning around from the stove and looking at me. “I don’t know how to do this.”
“You don’t have to do anything,” she says, just like she had last night, and I frown.
“What does that mean?”
“It means that I don’t mind being a single mother,” she says easily, and I huff out a breath.
“I’m going to be its father,” I insist. “I’m going to take care of you both.”
She snorts. “Did you just call our baby ‘it’?”
