Page 73 of Bought to Bear Bratva Heir

"So it is. Do you want breakfast?"

For a second he paused. "Is your—"

I knew what he was asking before he had even finished. "No, not today," I said softly. "Marguerite won’t be around at breakfast time for a while."

"Is ma—" he paused, and I heard him swallow hard. "Can we see Daisy today?"

I closed my eyes. He missed her, and he had been about to call her mama. It wasn’t the first time he had called her his mother.

"Yes." I smoothed my hand down his back before placing him on his feet. "Yes, we will be going to see your mama today."

There was hope in his eyes when he lifted them to mine. Like he recognized the gravity of what I had just said.

"But you need to go to school first. Afterwards, we will go and see Daisy together, okay?" I stared at his face, so open and happy that he was allowed to now call her mom, that my heart gave a pang.

"We will bring her home," I said quietly. "After school, though, okay?"

The plan made me smile. Yes, later this afternoon we would bring Daisy home, and we would be a family. Finally.

He opened his mouth to argue back and then shut it again with a nod of his head. "Okay."

Without a backward glance, he skipped away, and I knew it was to change into mismatched clothes that I would have to help him change before school.

Still, it gave me a few minutes to shower and gather my thoughts around me.

Daisy was the love of my life. There had never been any doubt about that. She was the mother of my son and soon-to-be mother of my next child.

And I was never, ever going to let her go.

I couldn’t.

Marguerite…

I hadn’t even thought about her until Alec had brought her up. She hadn’t even been a blip on my thoughts, but I had to deal with her sooner rather than later.

Another sigh, and I was reaching for my cellphone. Scrolling until I found her number. It was still early, so she might not be up, but it shocked me that her phone went straight to voicemail.

Taking a deep breath, I left a message. "Hi Marguerite, it’s Ilya. We need to talk."

She would know something was wrong the moment she heard the message, and that was for the best. I didn't want to blindside her, but I didn’t want to marry her either.

I couldn’t marry her.

I’d only marry one woman, the woman I loved.

And her name was Daisy.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Daisy

"So." The nurse swept in. All smiles and charm that didn’t really reach her eyes, which never once met mine as she busied herself around the room. Finally, she came to a rest at the foot of my bed to check my charts. "The doctors have said you're free to go."

"Oh?" Shock lifted my eyebrows up. Without meaning to, I glanced at my phone. It wasn’t even seven a.m. And I hadn’t seen the doctor yet this morning. Did they discharge people this early? It didn’t make sense to me. "Is he on his way?" My fingers clutched the blankets, twisting them in my fists. "He said I had to have some tests and—"

The nurse's head snapped up, and the smile was gone completely, replaced by a frown that pinched her eyebrows together. "I’m only the messenger," she snapped. "If he wants you to have more tests done, then I guess he would call you to arrange them?"

My mouth fell open. What the hell was that? I knew that nurses were overworked and underpaid, but I had never had one speak to me like this before. Even the one who had cared for mewhen Ilya had forced me away after giving birth to Alec had been nice in comparison. I continued to stare at her even when her eyes dropped again.