Total pages in book: 331
Estimated words: 315585 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1578(@200wpm)___ 1262(@250wpm)___ 1052(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 315585 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1578(@200wpm)___ 1262(@250wpm)___ 1052(@300wpm)
I take my hand from Kashton and rub it on my legs nervously. “Help us how?”
Sin glances at me as he softly bounces the baby on his chest. “Devin and Gavin cleared Laura this morning to be your surrogate.”
I look at Ellington. “No—”
“This is what you want, angel,” Kashton interrupts me.
I search his hopeful eyes, and my heart hammers in my chest. How do I tell him what I’m feeling? As much as I want us to have children of our own, I don’t deserve them. Not after what I did. “I…”
“I know what you’re thinking.” He speaks softly, and I swallow the knot in my throat. “Stop, Eve. You deserve this.” Leaning down, he kisses my forehead and whispers, “You’ll be a wonderful mother, angel.”
EIGHTY-SEVEN
EVERETT
Ipace outside the door to the room. It’s been a week since our conversation with Devin and Gavin about the possibility of us being parents.
Have you ever wanted something so badly, but you knew it was impossible, but then all of a sudden, it’s not? It’s terrifying.
In our world, we aren’t allowed to dream. We are given what they think we deserve.
Bill’s words in his office keep repeating in my mind. “You’ll get everything you want.”
I told him he had jokes, but he knew. He had to have. That’s the only explanation as to why he allowed Kashton to marry me. To help out with my assignment. He knew that I’d get what I always wanted.
A family with a man who loves me.
So many things can still go wrong. I’m afraid to get excited or hopeful because it may not happen. Then what? I just go on with my life, knowing that it’s within reach?
What if the eggs don’t take and I run out? Devin said there aren’t many, but that all we need is one.
Is this the Lords playing another game with me? Will this be how they force Kashton to leave me? By putting me through one last assignment that is going to break me? I put nothing past them.
Shaking out my hands, I let loose a deep breath and walk into the cold room, seeing the woman on the table. She’s unconscious and lying under a white sheet. She’s not dead, but I’ve wished she was so many times in the past.
Moving to stand next to her, I look at the woman that I begged to help me. The one person I thought would understand the situation I was in and could save me. She chose their side. She was the one who suggested Garrett place me on fertility drugs. That my body just needed a little help in order to produce children. I’ve hated her ever since. She recommended I see a doctor. It was her idea for them to retrieve my eggs. Garrett would have never thought of that on his own. Like Kashton’s father once said, What’s the point of knocking up a woman if you can’t fuck her?
Is this what karma is? Am I supposed to be grateful or angry?
I run my hand over her dark hair. “You were right, Laura. We all must serve and have a purpose. I guess you finally found yours.”
I’m sitting in my room, like every other day, when the door opens and my father enters along with the bitch who told him I’d bitten her.
My father once called her Laura.
She hates me. The feeling is mutual. It makes me so mad that my father listens to her and her nonsense.
“It’s been long enough,” he states. “It’s time to test your theory.”
“It’s not a theory,” she argues. “It’s science.”
“Here.” My father pulls something out of his pocket, holding it to me. “Take this.”
I just stare at him.
He huffs. “Everett—”
Laura places her hand on his arm, cutting him off, and then removes what he’s holding. “It’s okay, Eve. This isn’t going to hurt. You just have to pee on it. That’s all. I’ll go with you.”
All they do is hurt me. I’m covered in bruises from when they hold me down and give me the shots that they say I need.
“No.” Why the fuck would they want me to pee on something? And why would she think I’d want her in the bathroom with me?
My father’s face grows tight. Turning, she walks him to the corner and speaks in a hushed voice. He nods a few times, and then they both turn back to face me. “You will pee on this stick. One way or the other,” my father tells me. “It’s up to you.”
“I’m not peeing on anything.” I shake my head. Fuck them.
I will not bow down to them and their demands. I will not be the weak woman that Laura is trying to brainwash me to be. Raping your child isn’t okay. Letting your friends rape your child is not okay.
I might be uneducated, but I know right from wrong.