Chapter 6

Marceline sat cross legged on the edge of the bed, a thick business textbook open across her lap.

Tears blurred the words on the page. She had been trying to study for hours...she was going through contracts, corporate structures, anything that might give her a future beyond these walls...but the pages kept soaking with tears. Every time she wiped her eyes, fresh tears replaced them.

“There was the point in hoping or trying to be the perfect wife for a man who only saw her as a temporary inconvenience.“ She muttered softly.

She closed the book slowly and pressed her palm against the hard curve of her stomach. One of the babies kicked, strong and insistent, as if reminding her she was not alone.

Her mind drifted, unbidden, to a night two years earlier.

Adrian had insisted she accompany him on a business trip to the northern district. “I need the appearance of a stable family man for this contract,” he had said, not looking at her as he packed his bag. “You’re coming.”

The meeting had gone well. The contract was signed. They were halfway back to the private airstrip when the ambush hit. Gunfire erupted from both sides of the narrow road. Glass shattered and the driver slumped.

Adrian shoved her down onto the floor of the car and returned fire through the broken window until his own shoulder and side bloomed red.

By the time the remaining security team cleared the attackers, Adrian was barely conscious, blood soaking through his shirt and pooling beneath him. Marceline’s hands had not shaken.

Years of living in the countryside had taught her what to do when rich men and their hired guns came to seize land and left bodies behind.

Her grandmother had shown her how to stop bleeding, how to dig out bullets with clean tools and steady fingers.

She had done it again that night in a roadside safe house.

She cut away his ruined shirt, packed the wounds, removed two bullets while he gritted his teeth and refused to scream.

For three weeks afterward she barely left his side. She handled the urgent project files that arrived daily, answered calls in a calm voice, and every evening she brewed the same herbal tea her grandmother had taught her..it was bitter but fragrant, the only thing that settled his headaches and finally let him sleep.

He never said thank you.

The moment the doctors cleared him to walk without assistance, the women started appearing. “Business partners,” he called them.

He would lock the door to his home office. Marceline would stand in the hallway and hear everything...the low male groans, the female cries, the rhythmic slap of skin.

Later the women would leave, some of them leaning heavily on the wall or being helped into cars as if their legs no longer worked properly.

She had seen him once through a crack in the door, naked and relentless, and the image of his cock had burned itself into her mind.

That was the night she realized she had already started falling for him.

She had cried into her pillow until dawn.

In the morning he glanced at her red eyes and muttered that she should handle her own emotions better.

Marceline blinked hard and the memory dissolved.

She closed the textbook, slid it into the bottom drawer of the nightstand, and stood. Her back ached. Her ankles were swollen.

She moved slowly toward the bathroom, needing cold water on her face.

The bedroom door slammed open hard enough to rattle the frame.

Adrian stood in the doorway, jacket gone, tie loosened, the sharp scent of expensive whiskey rolling off him.

His green eyes were glassy but focused on her with unpleasant amusement.

“Well, look at you,” he said, voice thick. “Getting bigger every day. You look like a baby hippo.”

Marceline froze. One hand went protectively to her stomach.

He stepped further into the room, smirking. “Not exactly appetizing anymore, are you? All that soft flesh. No wonder I can’t stand to look at you for long.”

A single tear slipped down her cheek before she could stop it. Pregnancy had changed her body...her hips were wider, her belly was heavy, breasts fuller....and she had tried not to care. Hearing it from him still cut deep.

“Get out,” she said quietly.

Adrian laughed, a short, mean sound. “No.”

“I said get out of my room.”

He walked closer instead, stopping only when he was near enough that she could smell the alcohol on his breath. “Why should I? This is still my house. You’re still the woman under contract to give me an heir. Produce a girl and you can finally leave. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? A way out?”

Marceline’s hands curled into fists at her sides. “You signed the agreement. If it’s a boy I stay. You don’t get to rewrite it because you’re drunk and cruel.”

He tilted his head, studying her like she was a puzzle that had started to annoy him. “Cute.... You’ve done something to my family. They look at you differently now. The aunts bring you tea. The staff actually answers when you speak. What exactly did you do to make them soft for a country girl who was never supposed to matter?”

She met his eyes and refused to look away. “I treated them like human beings. Something you might try one day.”

Adrian’s smirk faded into something colder. He reached out as if he might touch her face, then dropped his hand.

“Soon, Two months,” he said. “That’s all the time you have left in this house if that thing in you is a girl. Enjoy my wealth while you're hear.”

He turned and starting walking towards the bathroom...the door was wide open behind him.

Marceline stood alone in the middle of the room, one hand still resting on her stomach, the other wiping the single tear from her cheek.

The textbook stayed closed in the drawer.

The future she had been trying to study for suddenly felt both closer and more impossible than ever.

“I will be in my private Office with Victoria. We have ..uhm...Things to discuss. She's waiting for me right now." He said, scanning her face for a reaction.

“I don't care what you do...“ Marceline held her hands on her waist gently. Trying to balance herself.

“Really? Well then, I may just fuck her instead...Since you can't handle my boner right now.“ He smirked arrogantly. Even though deep down, he wanted to see just how much she loves him.

Adrian was smart enough, he knew she loved him but his own arrogance and pride would never let him love her back. He knew she was extremely beautiful. Just looking at her made him hard. But he would never admit it.

He stepped out of the shower shortly, wrapped a towel around his waist...His rock hard cock was visible through the towel. Hard as a rock.

He saw Marceline, who was facing the window now and walked out the door. deliberately not wearing anything but the towel.

“Adrian...Wait..." Marceline called out.

A smirk curved at the corner of his lips. *So she cares...* He thought.