Possessed By You (The Consumed Series Book 3)

by Alicia Marino

  We’re getting somewhere now.

  The office door opens with a tap, revealing Tiffany. When she sees me between his legs and our arms around each other, she pales. “Oh, oh gosh. I’m sorry. I didn’t know—”

  I try to peel out of his grip, but his hands are locked. “It’s fine. What is it?”

  “Your mother is on the line.”

  “Tell her I’ll call her later.”

  “I did. She’s been extremely insistent. She said she’ll continue to call until you pick up.”

  “Fine. Send her through.”

  “Okay. And if it’s all right with you, I’m off?”

  “Yes. Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight, Mr. Scott.” She smiles at me. “Darcy.”

  “‘Night, Tiffany.”

  When she’s gone, he finally lets me go with a groan. “I’ll just be a second.”

  “Do you want me to leave?”

  “No.” He answers the incoming call. “Mother.”

  I nearly cringe at the formality dripping in his tone. Somehow by the conference table, I’m able to hear her through the receiver, and she is not happy.

  “When in the hell were you going to tell me you got married?”

  “It’s been public knowledge for a while now.” He begins packing up, phone to his ear.

  “I’m your mother! How could you elope and not tell anyone? I’ve been out of the city, and Alexander just told me!”

  “My marriage is the one aspect of my life I’m trying to keep private.”

  “Private from your family?”

  “Why are you calling me?”

  I divert my gaze, hearing his disdain. He wasn’t kidding when he said they had no relationship.

  “You married the prison girl. The girl who killed someone.” Benjamin’s eyes lock on mine to judge whether or not I’m hearing all of this. “Ben, come on!”

  That’s my name. The prison girl.

  “Mother, are you trying to get me to hang up on you?”

  “Did you even think? This girl comes from no family, and the only family she actually did have was scum of the Earth. Do you even know who you married?”

  Although her words sting, I remain unmoving. Benjamin moves around his desk, completely unfazed by her venom. No doubt he’s heard this before.

  “I know full well who I married,” his eyes flicker to me decisively then back to his desk, “and who’s carrying my child.”

  “What? What did you just say?” Benjamin thankfully can’t see my horror-stricken face at the drop of our news. “She’s pregnant?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re having a baby?”

  “Yes.”

  “With her?”

  “Yes, with her.”

  “You’ve got to be joking…Alex, she’s pregnant.”

  Oh, Alexander’s hearing her eviscerate me too. Great.

  “How far along is she?”

  “Eight weeks.”

  He shuts his briefcase, not looking up at me.

  “Did you have her sign a pre-nup?”

  I stiffen as it becomes harder to remain silent.

  “No, I did not,” Benjamin answers swiftly, blunt as hell.

  I hear a shrill snicker. “Have you got a brain tumor, Benjamin? Have you fallen on your head?”

  Like the night with his father, Benjamin reaches a breaking point, having surpassed annoyance, and leaps straight into fury. “I’ve had enough of this. No, she didn’t sign a pre-nup. We’re married, and there is not a damn thing you can say that would change that. Also, since she’s heard every word you’ve said, you may have just lost the chance to get to know your grandchild. Goodnight, Mother.”

  He slams the phone down.

  Now I know why he’s hesitant about children. I just heard the evidence.

  “Well, she was lovely,” I say airily, shielding her insults with a quip, refusing to let her drag us down. Benjamin is visibly relieved to see I’ve chose amusement rather than complete defensiveness.

  “Isn’t she?”

  I scoop up my purse from next to his desk. “Let’s go.”

  “I’m sorry you had to hear that. She’s usually unbearable, but that was disgusting behavior,” he says, obviously not past what she said.

  Oddly enough, I am. “It’s okay, Ben.”

  Instead of focusing on his mother, I feel for him. Benjamin has dealt with a woman that vicious all his life, and it’s a pity. She’s never going to know her son, her amazing, beautiful son. I pity her, and one day she’ll envy me. She’s going to envy that I know him better than she ever will.

  He takes my hand as we leave his office and walk through the empty suite.

  “What do you think about eating on the boat tonight? It was cold last time we were on it. It will be nice tonight.”

  “I’d love it,” I say, appreciating the world of difference he’s made since yesterday.

  Noticing my silent probing, his brows furrow while he clicks for the elevator. “What?”

  “I love you,” I declare, walking past him into the parted doors with a sly smile. I giggle when he catches me from behind and nuzzles into my throat.

  “I love you too,” he says near my ear as the car begins its descent to the lobby. He’s caged me into a corner. His mouth is nearly upon mine when my phone blares between us.

  We both exhale, releasing the pent-up tension while I dig for my cell.

  Kevin’s name is lighting up the screen.

  “Shit.”

  “What?”

  “It’s Kevin.”

  “You haven’t told him yet?”

  “I left a voicemail,” I say guiltily.

  Benjamin leans into the railing. “Ooh, you are in so much trouble.”

  ***

  I rest my elbows against the railing of the yacht. Benjamin’s deep rasp echoes from the bedroom, thirty minutes into a call with someone who’s made him upset. My mind is far away, stuck on the fact that I haven’t told Benjamin about the medical tests or the fact that my iron count was so low I needed an immediate transfusion. Part of me is sure he’ll make a scene about it if I told him. It’s why every time I’ve thought of doing it, I’ve stopped myself.

  There is the option of not telling him, waiting to see if I can fix this somehow, biding my time until we’re more secure with idea of having a baby. But this is a secret he will not appreciate being left in the dark on. There are also the dreaded appointments I’ll have to schedule around him. I tell myself that I’m doing this to spare him worry, but really, I’m a coward who would rather see him happy about a baby than expecting the worst every day.

  We babysit Dante tomorrow, and it needs to go perfectly. It’s our first trial run.

  “What are you brooding about out here?”

  Benjamin’s at the door. I hadn’t even heard him end the call.

  “Nothing important.”

  “I just spoke to my brother.”

  Alexander keeps appearing today, doesn’t he? “About what?”

  “He’s leaving Scott Industries.”

  “What? Why?”

  “He’s starting a company with my mother. He’s decided he is sick of living under my spotlight, that I’ve dragged him down, etcetera.”

  “How could he say that? You’ve given him so much.”

  “We’ve been at odds for a long while now.”

  “Brothers fight, Ben, but they don’t—”

  “No, Darcy. This isn’t a brotherly fight. We’ve barely spoken to each other in over a year.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He doesn’t answer me, which instantly tells me that I’m somehow involved.

  “It’s because of me? Ben—”

  “Don’t Ben me, Darcy.”

  “I never wanted to drive you away from your family.”

  “He wanted you. He wanted what was mine.”

  My heart thumps irregularly at his bluntness, enjoying his claiming. “He didn’t know we were together at the time,” I remind
him with a smile.

  “I’m talking about after I fired you.”

  I stare at him, absorbing the fact that he’s kept this from me for almost two years now. “What happened?”

  “He told me he wasn’t going to stop pursuing you. That he and you had something special and he didn’t care about my thoughts on the subject.” He sighs heavily. “I had Dimitri keep a close eye on him. Not one of my finer moments, I’ll admit. One night he showed up at the bar, but you were off. Dimitri told me, and I went to his apartment…I just lost it. Fucking destroyed him.”

  I stare wide-eyed at my husband, shocked beyond words.

  “I have no remorse for the damage I did to him that night, which should tell you how he behaved. I won’t repeat what he said, but remembering it makes me glad you married me instead of him.”

  “I don’t even know him, Benjamin. He and I spent time together that one night at the gala. There was never any possibility of marriage or even a relationship.”

  “Well, he’s fixated now on the notion that he’s crazy about you, that he always has been. And that I kept him away from you.”

  “I can only imagine how angry you were when I told you I saw him at the bar the other day.”

  I’m relieved when he smirks. “Maybe at him. Not you. I didn’t trust you before. It’s different now.”

  “Because you do trust me?”

  “Yes.”

  Yet you’re keeping a whopper-sized secret from the man.

  He places his hands on the railing and stands behind me, caging me to him. We both hum when his lips meet my cheek.

  “Is this normal? Is this what this is supposed to feel like?”

  “What?”

  “Love. Marriage.”

  “What does it feel like to you?”

  “Secure.”

  He rests his chin on my shoulder, lacing his fingers with mine on the railing. “I feel like nothing can break us.”

  “Nothing can,” I whisper back, relaxing into his embrace.

  ***

  In bed hours later, I lie awake, tangled in the sheets bunched up at the end of the bed. Benjamin’s head weighs down my chest, his cheek against the hill of my breast. The waves rock the yacht back and forth, the moonlight shining off the water and onto my husband’s glorious body, which is unabashedly bare.

  Catching me by surprise, he moves his arm, indicating he’s been awake this whole time too and content in our silence. My pulse speeds as he glides a hesitant hand over my stomach, touching the skin softly.

  He lifts his head, laying it down on the arm that was massaging him, his emerald eyes watching me. Speechless, I watch his gaze settle onto his hand on my stomach.

  “I’ve been imagining a boy,” he says.

  “You have?”

  He nods, caressing my skin lightly. “I don’t know what to feel about this. At moments, I think I don’t want children. I panic, I get angry…then sometimes, when I think…when I think of it being ours and you being its mother, I feel a kind of happiness I haven’t felt before.”

  “I’m scared too, Ben, but we’ll do our best. I think we’ve both experienced enough in our pasts to know what a child wants from their parents.”

  He turns me toward him so we’re face to face. Our bodies flush together, he takes my mouth, tangling a hand into my hair.

  “You’re going to be a beautiful mother.”

  ***

  I untangle myself from Benjamin desperately when I feel a familiar tight sensation in my throat. I scramble out of bed and pull up the toilet seat cover in time to vomit. Unwilling tears blind my vision as I heave, my throat catching on fire.

  I’ve known about the little one growing in my belly for two weeks now, and I’m convinced it’s actually making me sicker somehow. Nausea is the devil.

  A soft hand pulls my hair back, saving my locks from the line of fire. I want to tell him to go, but my stomach twists again.

  Neither of us says anything when straightening, nor when I brush my teeth, avoiding his gaze in the mirror. This is only ten weeks in.

  He rubs my back soothingly. “Do you still feel sick?”

  I shake my head, and we have no choice but to fall into our routine and move past the abrupt start to the morning. It looks as though we’re going to have many more of these. What I’m still not used to is the dizziness that is making it very hard to see straight. With every passing day, I feel a little more off, a little more different than the person I was before.

  After a long hot shower to calm my nerves, I’m able to focus on the busy day ahead of me. Doris’s house, work, and then Jasmine’s house.

  “You look beautiful.”

  I glance up from the vanity, finding Benjamin easing on his watch, his gaze focused on me.

  I smile, rolling my eyes. “I don’t, but thank you.”

  My eyes are dark circles. The tan from Bali is long gone, leaving pale, pasty skin in its wake. And my lips are white, a result of my condition. I trace a nude lipstick onto them to hide the natural shade. “I’m seeing Doris today.”

  “She’s no doubt heard by now,” he says, smirking.

  “Yes, but not from me. I hope she’s not upset.”

  “Why would she be upset?”

  He kisses my cheek and picks up his jacket. I don’t tell him it’s because Kevin has probably informed her of the risks, which I divulged to him when Benjamin wasn’t around. She probably is aware that I have a doctor’s appointment in a few days, one that will enlighten me as to why I’m in a high-risk pregnancy. I spend the rest of the time Benjamin is in the room staring at him, gearing myself up for a confession I know I won’t allow myself to voice.

  ***

  “You and Benjamin will be wonderful parents,” Doris says over a cup of coffee, regarding me with positivity. “He’s nervous; so are you. Arthur and I were up in arms when we found out we were pregnant. It will pass.”

  “It’s a high-risk pregnancy.”

  I’ve focused on pleasantries since I arrived, but it’s nearly time to go, and I need her advice. At my confession, she tilts her head.

  “What do you mean? What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know yet. My red blood cells are too low. The doctor ran tests, and I find out in a few days.”

  “Is it dangerous?”

  “She said many women have it, but usually not this severe. She said it’s dangerous, yes, for the baby and me, which is weird. I always thought anemia meant, like, pale eyelids and stuff. There’s a lot more to it, I guess.”

  “What are the treatments?”

  “Until we know more, there’s not much to do. I’m eating greens, iron-filled foods. I’m taking supplements. I got a transfusion.”

  “Blood?” She blinks. “While pregnant?”

  “Yes.”

  She takes my hand. “I’m sure everything will be fine, Darcy. What did Benjamin say about this?”

  “I haven’t told him.”

  She closes her eyes. “That’s…not good. You need to tell him, immediately, Darcy. If this is a risky pregnancy, you need to give him heads up.”

  “I fully plan to. He’s just…he’s just getting right with this. You know Benjamin. He’s going to freak out and then research the worst stuff and turn this into something bad. I don’t want that.”

  “I get why you’ve kept it on the down low. But he’s feeling better about this, as you’ve said. You need to tell him, all right?”

  “I will. When I know more, after this visit, I will tell him. I just want to know all the facts first.”

  She caresses my cheek with the edge of her knuckle. “You are going to be just fine, Darcy. You both will.”

  ***

  I reach over for Benjamin’s hand to provide support. Even though he’s trying very hard to conceal it, I can tell he’s panicking. We’re on the way to Jasmine’s and John’s house. I manage to free his fingers from the fist he’s formed and flip it over onto my lap, massaging his skin from palm to jumpy fingers. His eyes never leave
the road, but his shoulders relax—a good sign.

  John and Jasmine’s house looks like them. Warm, beautiful, and larger than life. Out of the way of the city, their mansion is complete with expensive landscapes and Mediterranean vibes. Their wealth is on full display and protected by a towering gate.

  “Come on. We’re late,” Benjamin says, unbuckling his seatbelt. I smile at his nervousness.

  I shut the door and take his outstretched hand. “It’s going to be fine.”

  He looks down at me, not bothering to say anything.

  I ring the doorbell, and wanting to disarm him, I lift onto my toes enough to peck his cheek. Somehow he manages to disarm me when he cups my cheeks and plants his mouth on mine. I blush, pulling back hastily when the door opens.

  Jasmine chuckles and hugs us both. “Hello, you two. Come in. Come in.” We enter behind her, and I gawk at the size of her foyer.

  “Your home is beautiful, Jasmine.”

  “Oh, thank you so much. We just finished the remodel.”

  John walks out, shrugging into his jacket. “Thank you for doing this for us. We’ve forgotten what it’s like to go out on the town.”

  Benjamin glances at me, blinking.

  “You look terrified,” he says to Benjamin, patting his back with a chuckle.

  Benjamin shakes his head. “I’m fine.”

  “What are you guys doing tonight?” I ask.

  “We’re going to see a play and have some dinner in the city. If we don’t leave now, we’ll miss it…” She glances at her watch. “Dante’s in his chair. He missed his nap, so he shouldn’t be up for too long. I have a bottle for him in the fridge. Give it to him in about an hour and he should pass out after that.”

  “Okay.”

  “Let me show you his room and changing station and all that,” Jasmine says, taking my hand. I follow her, letting Benjamin relax his nerves with John.

  I follow along, listening intently while she explains the routine for the night. I’m sure of myself when we approach the men again.

  “Don’t worry about anything. Have fun.”

  Jasmine picks up her clutch. “Thank you. We’ll call when we’re on our way back. Text me if you need us at all.”

  “Of course.”