Page 25 of The Cabin-A Reverse Harem Romance
I wanted to tell her she didn’t owe Brad shit. I wanted to tell her that if she’d decided to never talk to him again, she had that right – and that he more than deserved it. But something stopped me. The look in her eyes was something I hadn’t seen before. Something I couldn’t put my finger on.
She was trying to be sly, and didn’t think I was paying attention, but I watched as she reached into the basket she was carrying, and pluck something from the mount of things. She was doing her best to be nonchalant about it, as she slipped it into her coat pocket. I barely caught a glimpse of what it was, but I saw enough, and it made my heart stutter in my chest. My throat was suddenly dry, and I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me.
She’d picked up a pregnancy test. A pregnancy test, for fuck’s sake. I opened my mouth to say something, but bit back the words and closed it again quickly. No need to make a tense, awkward situation any worse than it already was.
Suddenly, it all started to make some sort of sense. I suddenly understood why she might need to stay in touch with him after this was over and done with – because if she were indeed pregnant, she’d be tied to this bastard for the rest of her life.
My heart sank, imagining that sweet, beautiful Elise tied to such a hateful piece of shit like Brad forever. That she’d never be completely free of him, and that knowing the little bit about him that I did, knew that he’d go well out of his way to make her life a living hell.
I knew her well enough to know she wouldn’t get an abortion or give the child up for adoption. She’d always wanted to be a mother – I just doubted she wanted it to be in a circumstance anywhere remotely like this one. If she were pregnant, she’d be tied to that man forever – or, at the very least for eighteen years. Eighteen years of misery, abuse, and constant humiliation. The very thought of that filled me with rage.
God, please, whatever you do, please don’t let it be so. If it was, please, please let her turn to one of us to help her, rather than force her to turn to Brad. Deep down, I hoped she might come to me. I’d gladly step into the role of the baby’s father, if that’s what she wanted. I’d take care of her and the child. I loved her. I’d always loved her, and I’d do whatever it took to protect her from the likes of Brad too. I would be a good man to her, and a good father to the child.
Any of us would.
It just came down to what Elise wanted to do, and if she’d even want that with any of us.
I gritted my teeth and hoped that all of my worry was for nothing. I begged silently, pleaded with whoever might be listening, to let her not be pregnant with that asshole’s kid in the first place.
* * *
“It’s a good thing someone knows how to cook,” Elise said, chuckling as she watched me boil the pasta on the stove.
“Come on, spaghetti isn’t that hard. Especially with packaged sauce and no meat,” I said.
“I know. Maybe one day you’ll have to make the real thing for me,” she said, playfully nudging me in the side.
“Maybe I will.”
I’d always loved cooking, especially Italian food, thanks to my upbringing. My dad worked as a chef, often spending long hours at a restaurant, leaving me and my brothers to fend for ourselves most nights. Because he’d been a chef, we’d always had a spice rack and seasonings cupboard most people who were into cooking, would have died with envy over. Back then, I wanted to make my dad proud, and sometimes thought about following in his footsteps. I experimented with all of the different spices and seasonings, learning ways to take ordinary, cheap pasta to new heights. I’d never had anyone besides my little brothers to cook for though, and they probably would have eaten dog shit, if I’d seasoned it properly. They weren’t very good judges of what was good or not and were simply empty stomachs that wanted to be filled.
I’d never had a girlfriend to cook for as I got older, much to my regret. I’d never even had a serious relationship in my life. Though I enjoyed it a lot, my love for cooking – as well as my hunt for a girl to call my own – got pushed to the back burner as I grew up, and then enlisted in the Army. Suddenly, my world wasn’t all about wining and dining women, impressing them with my mad culinary skills. No, most days after that were about getting through training, and then after that, about staying alive in a fucked up war zone.
