Chapter 60: The Billionaire’s Baby
Moana
I had just begun to drift off to sleep. Somehow, I had made it through the gala, and Edrick hadn’t pried about the pregnancy. Maybe he didn’t actually realize it after all; maybe it was just my nerves getting to me, and the Edrick I saw that night was only him being his usual abrasive and cold self.
As I began to fade off into sleep, the tears on my cheek drying, I felt much more at peace. I would still have to make a decision soon, but at least I could do it in my own time.
Oh, how wrong I was!
I must not have been asleep for more than ten minutes at the most when I was suddenly startled awake by the sound of my door flinging open. I gasped and sat up in bed, my eyes wide and still full of tears from before and my heart racing as my fight or flight response kicked in, to see Edrick standing in my doorway.
“Edrick…?” I said, clutching my chest with my hand as my heart pounded. “What are you doing in my room like this?”
He stormed toward my bed. Selina came rushing in after him, but it was too late; he was already holding the bottle of pregnancy vitamins in front of my face.
“If you have something to tell me, now is the time to do it,” he growled.
I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. The lump in my throat was too large, and I felt cornered and helpless. When I looked up at Edrick, his eyes were glowing slightly. He was breathing heavily through his nose while his free hand was placed firmly on his hip. The hand that was holding the bottle of pills was trembling slightly, creating a soft rattling sound from the pills moving inside.
“I– I don’t–”
“Go on,” Edrick snarled, shaking the bottle again. His eyes burned with fury as he stared intently at me, as though doing so would make me feel even remotely comfortable enough to tell him the truth about the pregnancy. Now, more than ever, I just wanted to abort the pregnancy and be done with it — how could I bring a child into a world where his or her own father treated me like this? He was being erratic and frightening, barging into my room like this in the middle of the night.
He smelled like whiskey, too.
“Have you been drinking again?” I asked, scooting away from him on the bed.
“Oh, don’t try to twist it around on me,” he replied. “Just tell me what it is you’ve been hiding. I think I have the right to know as your employer, especially when it affects your ability to do your goddamn job!”
“Edrick, leave her alone,” Selina insisted. She came over to him and tried to take the bottle of pills from him, but he wrenched his arm away and only fumed even harder.
“I’m giving you a chance here, Moana,” he said through his teeth. As he spoke, I could see that his fangs were showing slightly from his anger, and it made my heart race faster than I ever thought it could. I felt like a frightened rabbit in front of the big, bad wolf. Where was Mina when I needed her?
I still couldn’t answer.
Finally, Edrick seemed to become too impatient to wait for my response, because he threw the bottle of pills down on my bed and glared at me with an intensity that I had never seen before.
“Fine then,” he snarled, curling up his fists into balls. “If you don’t want to tell me the truth, and you want to sit here and lie to me after I’ve given you a home and a decent salary, then you can leave. I want you gone within the month.”
My eyes widened. I felt a pang in my stomach, and it made me want to vomit. I was pregnant with his baby, and yet here he was, accosting me in the middle of the night and telling me to get out. He was sending me back to the streets, where I would certainly become homeless, and would potentially even lose the baby.
“W-Why?” I asked, crawling out from underneath my blankets and standing too quickly. As I stood, I suddenly felt lightheaded. Selina, seeing this, rushed over to me and held my arm to steady me. I sunk back down to sit on the edge of the bed, and when my eyes refocused, I looked up to see Edrick still standing there with fury written across his face. “Why are you doing this?” I asked again. My voice was soft and meek, and quivered slightly from the tears that threatened to come out.
Edrick sneered. “I know you’ve been hiding a pregnancy,” he said. “A little werewolf, hm? Tell me, was this your scheme all along? A way to get money or climb the social ranks? A way to go from a lowly human orphan who can’t even get a job to a woman of high standing with a werewolf child?”
I wanted to tell him that I wasn’t even a human, that I had already shown signs of my own wolf emerging, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. Before I could say anything, he continued.
“See if the father will accept the baby,” he said, his voice low and sinister. “You might think he’s someone who would, but I can guarantee he won’t. I told you that he’s not who you think he is, but you didn’t listen. No, you went and got yourself knocked up with his child, and he’s going to laugh you back out into the streets when you try to go to him and ask for a place to stay.”
I frowned then. Who was he referring to? Was it Ethan?
“Edrick,” I said, “who do you think the father is?”
Edrick let out a short, sharp breath that sounded like a laugh. “Who else would it be if not Ethan?” he snarled.
I went silent for a moment, puzzling over how he had come to that conclusion. Ethan and I were just friends — hadn’t I made that clear to him? Aside from the brief moment at the family banquet that there was a bit of chemistry between us, I had never once thought about going so far as to sleep with Edrick’s own brother. I wasn’t a cheap w***e who would do something like that!
I opened my mouth to tell Edrick that I had never slept with his brother, but before it could come out, he continued.
“Now,” he said, “like I told you, you have until the end of the month to get your things and get out. I don’t want to see you anymore, hear from you anymore, and I especially don’t want you hanging around my dau–”
“It’s your baby!” I finally blurted out, surprising even myself from my sudden outburst. My eyes widened as I looked back at Edrick, who took a staggering step backwards. Beside me, Selina whispered something to herself and took a deep breath, clutching the bedpost at the foot of my bed.
The room, which had just been full of anger, was now filled with nothing but shocked, disbelieving silence from Selina, Edrick, and even myself.
