Lured (Team Zero #1) by Rina Kent

“You are jealous.”

“I’m not. I just fucking hate that he had you.”

Which is basically jealousy. I bite back a grin and drown my glass. Then, I look at the date on the TV and frown. Wait. It’s already past half of August? I do a mental count of the last time I had the birth control shot.

My throat clogs and my stomach twists in knots.

It’s been more than thirteen weeks since my last shot. I’m in the grey area and Dominic comes inside me the entire damn time.

“What’s the matter?” Dominic asks, seeming to notice my agitation.

“I need to renew the shot.” Words tumble from my mouth in quick succession. “I got passed the thirtieth week. I can’t believe I forgot about it!”

He nods. “Okay.”

“Okay?” I ask, baffled. “I could be carrying your freaking baby right now and okay is all you offer?”

He leans in, a slight crease between his brows. “So?”

“So?!” I raise my voice, heat smothering my cheeks. Why the hell is he being so nonchalant about this? “I can’t have a baby with you!”

His face closes. Silence drops between us like a bomb. Only the chatter in the restaurant remains. Dominic slowly leans back, his voice stone cold. “Giving birth to the spawn of a sociopath would be a tragedy.”

A pang hits my chest. I was so harsh. Bordel. I’m overeacting. There’s probably no baby in the first place. I soften my tone, despite the panic still lurking inside me. “It’s not that I don’t want to have your kids. It’s that kids are like a huge responsibility.”

Seeming consoled by my statement, he appears thoughtful as he rubs his bottom lip. “You’re the most assertive person I know, Cam. I’m sure once you put your mind on something, you will be able to achieve it. If there’s a baby, I would never leave you alone. I’m not afraid of responsibility. If I have a child, I wouldn’t forfeit my right to be a father. I would never be the parents who abandoned me.”

My toes curl, and my heartbeat skyrockets. I never pictured Dominic as the parenting type, but after what he told me the other night, I see him under a different light.

He wouldn’t repeat what his parents have done to him. It wounded him to the point he turned his back on all of humanity.

But he never turned his back to me.

I’m certain he won’t if there’s a baby.

A flash crosses my mind. Dominic’s strong arms surrounding me from behind while we meet our baby for the first time. He’s smiling, happy to be a father, and the baby smiles back –

“You could always abort if you don’t want it.”

My foolish dream shatters. I gasp, placing a protective hand on my belly as if feeling my non-existent child. “I would never kill my flesh and blood.”

He smiles a little. “Even if it ruins your future?”

“It won’t. Many mothers study and raise their children. It will be hard, but I can do it.”

“I’m sure.”

“Just be careful when your future snobbish wife asks why you’re sending cheques to France.”

His eyes glint with mischievousness. “Is that so?”

My chest tightens. Just imagining another woman sleeping in his bed, being tied and punished and fucked senseless by him makes my blood boil.

She’ll be eating the breakfast he prepares and going on daily banters with him.

I hate his future wife. She’s such a bitch.

I seal the stab of jealousy and continue in a teasing tone. “Uh huh. I mean, I would have my French lawyer husband by then, but I would tell him about my unplanned pregnancy. Youth mistake and all that jazz. He’s so generous, he would raise my child as his own.”

“Or…” Dominic trails off, pauses like the tease he is, and then says, “There won’t be any snobbish wife and certainly no fucking French lawyer husband because you will be my wife and our child will be raised by both of us.”

If I were drinking anything, I would’ve choked by now. The waiter returns with my pasta and Dominic’s steak. Both of us fall silent, but Dominic is watching me with that challenging gaze. Like he’s daring me to counter him.

I recall what he told me this morning.

Don’t go back to France. Stay with me.

I ignored it because I thought it was a ruse of the-after-sex dopamine. But I was serious when I said I was falling in love with him so perhaps he meant what he said, too?

After all, he’s talking freaking marriage over a hypothetical baby right now.

Giddiness overtakes me. That balloon grows in my heart until I’m almost bursting with happiness.

Once the waiter is out of earshot, I place both elbows on the table and lean closer until my face is only inches away from Dominic’s. I’m not naive to think I would intimidate him, but I need to be as close as possible to read the changing in his eyes. At this distance, he’s downright edible. His intoxicating aftershave turns my head and shoots need to my core. Those lips are beckoning me for sin.

I rip my eyes from his mouth and focus on his eyes. “You meant it earlier?”

“When have I ever lied?”

“Oh, let me count.” I pretend to be thoughtful. “Access denied. It’s too many to count.”

“When have I ever lied to you?”