Chapter 89: Inseparable

Daphne

I still couldn’t believe that my brothers hadn’t noticed the fact that Louis was glued to my side. He found every opportunity to put a hand on me, in small, innocuous ways. Pressing the small of my back to guide me out the door, a touch on my shoulder to point out someone who was waving at me, laying his palm over my forearm when he spoke to me. No one seemed to notice, but I sure did.

It was all so confusing, but I didn’t try to stop him, because frankly, it felt good. It felt comforting. It even made the ever-present nausea recede. It soothed my frayed nerves and calmed that ever present lonely ache that Nate had left behind.

Nate was in the auditorium. I couldn't sift out his spicy scent in the massive crowd of people, but I felt him there, I was sure of it. And when I held my diploma, and the crowd cheered, I discerned his voice in the melee. But when the ceremony ended and I left the stage to join my family, there was no sign of the man.

“He was here,” I whispered to Bella as we joined the throngs of people moving toward the exits. “I know he was here. I felt him.”

Bella nodded and gave me a sympathetic look.

Maybe it meant something. Maybe he missed me as much as I missed him. Maybe he’d come to the graduation ceremony to see me.

Or maybe he’d been someone else’s guest. The thought that he might have been there with a girlfriend made my stomach churn with jealous acid.

Whatever the case, he was gone. I felt that too. I felt his absence from the building as keenly as I’d felt his presence. He’d made no effort to stick around, to come and see me. But of course he wouldn’t. Because if he faced me, then he’d have to explain who the hell he was and what he was doing in Bleakley house, posing as a student.

And I would have to tell him that he was going to be a father.

Perhaps it was for the best that he had spared us both a difficult confrontation.

I pasted a smile on my face. This was my day. I’d worked for six long years to reach this point in my education and my career, I wasn’t going to let Nate-whatever-his-name was - steal the joy from my accomplishment. I wasn’t going to keep looking over my shoulder, hoping he would follow me. I wasn’t going to keep checking the mirrors to see if there was a Jeep on our tail as we left the venue and headed for a restaurant to celebrate.

My brothers were oblivious, as brothers usually are, but Bella kept sneaking me concerned glances. However, it was Louis who seemed most in tune with my feelings. Which was weird.

Everything was weird.

Louis had kissed me. A man old enough to be my father. Hell, he was my best friend’s father! And he was a king! But when his lips met mine, he was just a man, a tall, attractive man, and his touch had brought a rush of warmth and comfort. Not the burning desire that I felt with Nate, but something so similar that it filled my heart with an overwhelming longing.

Louis knew I was pregnant with another man’s baby. That should have been enough to turn him off, to send him running for the hills. I’d even admitted that I was still in love with the baby’s father.

Kind of. Maybe. How could I be in love with a man I’d only known for such a short time? How could I be in love with a man, when I didn’t even know his real name?

However conflicted my feelings were, Louis seemed to accept it all without so much as a flicker of anxiety. When the kiss was over, he had stepped back, and released me. We had returned to the pack house, and he helped me unload the car like nothing had happened. He carried my boxes of books like he was just an ordinary man, not a king of a massive territory of werewolves.

At the restaurant, he chose the seat next to me, and quietly rested a hand on my thigh while we read through the menu. My brothers chatted excitedly, boasting about my accomplishments, as though they were personally responsible for my achievements. “She gets her brains from me,” Wyatt said confidently.

“And naturally, she gets her common sense from me,” Byron countered.

The bickering went back and forth comfortably, even after the appetizers were delivered to the table. I picked at my salad, all too aware that Louis’s fingers were stroking my thigh in a slow, subtle rhythm. The scraping of forks against plates was grating on my nerves, and my head was beginning to throb.

“There’s something I have to tell you all,” I blurted out. The tone of my voice was alarming enough that everyone stopped eating, lowered their forks, and waited.

Under the table, Louis gave my leg an encouraging squeeze. And I was glad, really glad that he was beside me, that my secret was already out to him. I sucked in a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and let it rip. “I’m pregnant.”

Byron’s fork slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor. Bella gasped. Wyatt stared at me like I’d grown two heads.

“It was that a.sshole roommate, wasn’t it?” Wyatt finally growled.

I bristled. “Don’t call him that,” I snapped. Maybe Nate had his reasons for doing what he did. Maybe he was just an a.sshole, but no one got to call him names, except me. However, in defending him, I had confirmed the paternity of my baby to my brothers.

“A human?” Byron half-whispered incredulously.

“Does it matter?” I leaned back in my chair, my appetite gone.

“Oh, Daphne,” Bella said my name softly, tears in her eyes. She knew, better than any of them, what Nate had meant to me.

With a great effort, Wyatt composed himself, although I could still see a slight tremble in his hand when he lifted his water glass. “Have you told him? What was his name, Nate? What are his intentions? What are you going to do?”

What am I going to do? What am I going to do? The words echoed through my head like a church bell tolling, and I felt sheer panic rising from the pit of my soul. What am I going to do??

Louis’s hand left my leg and moved to my back, to the point between my shoulder blades that was suddenly aching with tension. “She’s going to continue with her plans,” Louis said firmly, on my behalf. “She will come with me to Canada, and take over for our resident psychologist, and she’s going to be amazing.”

Normally, I wouldn’t allow anyone to speak on my behalf, let alone make decisions for me, but all I felt at that moment was an overwhelming flush of gratitude. Louis made me feel safe, secure, protected. When I turned to offer him a smile of thanks, he looked deeply in my eyes. “Don’t worry,” he said, speaking to my brothers, even though his eyes were on me. “I’ll take care of her.”

From the corner of my eye, I saw my brothers exchange an uncomfortable look. I think that was the moment they finally noticed that Louis had taken an unusual interest in me.

My brothers would s.hit a brick if they knew that I had already kissed Louis in the garden.

I turned away from Louis and focused on my salad, but I couldn’t suppress the almost hysterical giggle that worked its way out of my belly.

I had kissed their father-in-law!