Page 90 of Beautiful Obsessions
There were two clear lines.Unmistakable and undeniable.
My breath caught.Everything in me went still.And not long after, something inside me shifted, soft and warm.
My hand moved instinctively, pressing flat against my stomach.
Beneath the weight of what this meant, something undeniable settled.
I wanted this.A piece of him.A piece ofus.
Something that existed beyond the chaos and the choices and the lines we weren’t supposed to cross.
A future.Even if I had no idea what it looked like.Even if it terrified me.
Because that didn’t change the other side of it.
Raze.My cousins.The family.The expectations.The rules.
My chest tightened.Because I already knew that this wasn’t going to be simple or even easy.
But I wasn’t going to give this up.Not for them.Not for anyone.
I looked down at the test again, my grip tightening.
Options.I needed options.Because staying here—staying under Raze’s watch, under his control—that wasn’t going to work for long.
Not with what was growing inside me.I probably had a couple of months at best.
My mind moved fast, calculating, searching for something—anything—that gave me space.Distance.Control.
And then, it hit me.
Paris.
The thought settled in, quiet but certain.I’d been thinking about it for a while, even before this.
Distance from the house.From Raze.From the constant surveillance.
A place where I could breathe.Where I could figure this out on my own terms.
My pulse steadied slightly.It wasn’t the perfect solution, but it was a start.
I exhaled slowly, slipping the test back into its packaging as if I could contain the reality of it, too.
Then I looked at my reflection.I had already started looking paler, tired.The changes had started.And I had no idea how long I could hide this secret.
27
Tone
Ahome pregnancy test was one thing.I needed more than that.Something clinical.Final.Impossible to argue with.
Izzy already knew and had been trying to make me see it.I just wasn’t ready to believe her or face the truth of my predicament.
With my background in medicine, finding a doctor who could be trusted—and who knew how to keep his mouth shut—was easy.Getting in and out without drawing attention should’ve been just as simple.
It wasn’t.
The building itself was nondescript, wedged between two businesses that had no signage.No indication of what operated behind closed doors.
