Chapter 107: Playing With Me

Astrid’s pov

Ethan still wanted to know if Thalia had stopped harassing me.

"Yes," I told him. "She stopped."

"What happened?" He studied my face. "What did you do to make her back off?"

I said nothing. Just gave him a small shrug and told him she’d simply stopped on her own.

He wasn’t buying it. I could see it in the way he kept looking at me.

I hadn’t wanted to involve Ethan in any of it from the beginning ... I’d been scared, yes, but I’d handled it. The issue was resolved. He should have left it alone. But Ethan wasn’t the kind of man who left things alone.

"Maybe she just wanted to frighten me," I said carefully. "Remind me she was once married to you. You know it’s been eating at her ... the fact that I’m your wife now. She blames me for the divorce."

"Exactly," Ethan said. "Which is why I already contacted the authorities. A restraining order is in place. They’ll bring her in for questioning. She can’t come anywhere near you again."

"Thank you, baby."

I smiled at him.

Internally, I wanted to scream.

He had made everything so much worse without even knowing it. How was I supposed to fix this now? I kept running the question through my head long after he dropped the subject.

I was at work when my phone rang.

Thalia.

I already knew it was going to be bad before I even picked up.

"Hello, Astrid." Her voice was smooth. Too smooth. "I assume you’re aware of what your husband did."

"Please," I said quickly, lowering my voice. "I’m sorry ... he only told me after he’d already contacted them. I didn’t know beforehand, I swear. Please don’t be angry."

"The authorities came and embarrassed me," she said, the sweetness dropping out of her tone. "And yet the actual culprit is out here living her best life with a husband she was cheating on."

"Don’t insult me. I wasn’t cheating ... and besides, we had a contract, didn’t we? We settled this."

Thalia chuckled. That familiar, infuriating little sound that made my skin crawl.

"You might think you settled it, Astrid. But the power still sits with me. You’re the one who fucked someone else ... not me. So either way you look at it, you’re the one who’s fucked."

She hung up.

This bitch and her audacity.

I’d just wired her thirty million. Thirty million to buy her silence and her cooperation, and she had the nerve to cut the call on me like I was nobody. I stared at my phone for a solid ten seconds before I called her back.

By then I’d already reached the office. I sat down, tried her number twice, and finally she picked up.

"Why haven’t you been answering your phone?" I snapped. "And what are the threats for? We had a deal."

"Your husband reporting me wasn’t part of the deal," she said flatly. "So as of right now, there is no deal."

She sounded almost bored. Like this was fun for her.

"Don’t fuck with me, Thalia. No one will believe you ... the video is gone."

She chuckled again. "You really think I’d delete the one thing that could make me a billionaire? That’s sweet." A pause. "Ten million more. Or I release it."

I sat back in my chair and stared at the ceiling.

I had never been played like this. Not once in my life. I’d thought I was handling her ... I’d thought I had the situation contained ... and the whole time she’d been sitting on that video like a loaded weapon.

"You want an extra ten million?" My voice came out steady, which surprised me. "Where exactly do you think I’m pulling this money from, Thalia? I don’t have that."

"Secrets are costly. You of all people should know that. I can’t keep my mouth shut for free."

I pressed my eyes shut.

"Fine," I said. "I’ll get you the money. Just don’t do anything stupid."

I wired the money that same day.

Except it wasn’t my money.

I used Ethan’s account. I’d figure out what to tell him later ... something important came up, something urgent, something that couldn’t wait. I’d find the words. I always did.

Forty million total. For one secret. One stupid, reckless night that just kept billing me.

Ethan had unknowingly backed me into this corner, but I didn’t have a choice. I had to protect what we had.

That bitch could rest now. At least for a while.

I threw myself into work after that.

Ivy had been by my side from the moment I walked in, and honestly I didn’t know what I would have done without her. I’d been meaning to do something for her for a while now ... get her something to show I saw how hard she worked ... because Ivy went far beyond what her job description asked. Not because she had to. Because that was just who she was. And I loved that about her.

Liam had a pile of accounts that all needed balancing on the same day, and with everything sitting heavy in my chest, I was in no state to be staring at numbers for hours. Ivy stepped in and covered it without being asked.

"Thank you, Ivy," I said when the afternoon finally slowed down. "I mean it. I owe you."

"It’s my job, ma’am," she said, smiling like she always did.

"No," I said. "It’s not. You do more than your job and we both know it. Thank you for covering for me."

She smiled again and left.

She’d carried a lot that day. I went home feeling lighter than I deserved to.

But Thalia never fully left my mind.

What if she came back with another threat? What was stopping her? The restraining order meant nothing to someone like her ... she could strike from a distance and I’d feel the impact before I even saw it coming. And she’d already made it clear she still had the video.

We had an agreement. She was supposed to delete it. That had been the condition. And she’d taken thirty million from me and done absolutely nothing she’d promised.

I was done waiting for her to do the right thing.

I was going to handle it myself. She wanted to play crazy ... I was going to show her a whole different level of it. I planned to get into that media room and find whatever wolf she claimed to know. I was going to locate that video and take it back by whatever means necessary.

I was still turning the plan over in my head when I got home.

Ethan wasn’t there. Probably out for groceries ... we’d been running low on a few things.

I set my bag down and stood in the kitchen for a moment.

Then the nausea hit.

It came out of nowhere ... a sudden, rolling wave of wrongness that sent me straight to the bathroom. I barely made it before I was throwing up.

I straightened up slowly, gripping the edge of the sink, staring at my own reflection.

No.

No, no, no.

I pressed a hand to my stomach.

I couldn’t be pregnant. I refused to be pregnant. A pup would tie me down in ways I wasn’t ready for ... not now, not with everything happening, not when I was already drowning. The timing alone would have destroyed me.

I washed my face just as the front door opened. Ethan came in carrying bags ... groceries, exactly as I’d suspected.

I waited for him to set them down. Then I sat beside him.

"Ethan," I started, keeping my voice even. "Do you think it’s time for us to talk about having children?"

He looked at me immediately. "Why? Are you pregnant?" His hand moved to my stomach.

"No," I said, shifting back slightly. "I’m not. I just think it’s a conversation we should have had a long time ago."

He was quiet for a moment. Then ... "There’s nothing wrong with having a child. And there’s nothing wrong with waiting either. Honestly? I think we should enjoy ourselves first. We have time."

Relief hit me so hard I almost exhaled out loud.

Because if there was already something growing inside me, I already knew exactly what I was going to do about it.

Period.