Page 216 of Pregnant By A Rich Demon 2

Someone who was done being moved around a board she didn’t choose to play on.

“I believe you,” I said quietly.

Truth’s eyes met mine, and for the first time since I’d arrived, I saw something other than anger in them.

Not forgiveness. Not trust.

But acknowledgment.

She saw me. Not as Amai’s brother or Winston’s disappointment or the Landry fuck-up.

Just as Kaisen.

A man who’d made mistakes. Who’d been complicit in a violation he didn’t orchestrate but didn’t stop. Who was trying—desperately, imperfectly—to be better than the legacy he’d been born into.

“I don’t know if I can trust you,” she said finally, her voice quiet but steady. “I don’t know if I can trust any of you.”

“I know.”

“But I need answers. Real ones. Not the sanitized version Amai gives me. Not the manipulative bullshit your father probably feeds everyone.”

I nodded. “Ask me anything. I’ll tell you the truth.”

Truth studied me for a long moment, her eyes searching my face for any sign of deception.

“Why did you really pursue me?” she asked. “And don’t give me that ‘I needed to know you’ bullshit. What did you want?”

The question cut deeper than the slap had.

Because the answer was complicated. Messy. Tangled up in jealousy and resentment and a desperate need to prove I was more than what my family believed me to be.

But she’d asked for the truth.

So, I gave it to her.

“I wanted what Amai had,” I said, the confession burning in my throat. “Not you specifically—I didn’t even know you then.But the idea of you. The baby. The family. The thing Winston and Amai decided I wasn’t worthy of.”

Truth’s expression didn’t change, but I saw something flicker in her eyes.

“And then I met you,” I continued, my voice rough. “And it stopped being about Amai or Winston or proving anything. It became about you. About the way you laughed at my terrible jokes. About the way you opened up about your divorce, your pain, and your dreams. About the way you made me feel like maybe—just maybe—I wasn’t the fuck-up everyone believed I was.”

I paused, trying to find the right words.

“I’m not saying that makes it okay,” I said. “I’m not asking you to forgive me or trust me or even like me. I’m just telling you the truth. All of it. Even the parts that make me look like the villain.”

The silence that followed felt endless.

Truth looked away, her hands still folded in her lap, her expression unreadable.

When she finally spoke, her voice was quiet but firm.

“I appreciate your honesty,” she said. “But honesty doesn’t undo the violation. It doesn’t change the fact that your family used my body without my consent. That I’m carrying a baby, and I don’t even know whose it is.”

“I know.”

“And it doesn’t change the fact that you pursued me under false pretenses. That you let me believe we were just two people who happened to meet when it was calculated from the start.”

“I know.”