Page 116 of Between Desire and Denial
I waited and waited for the lines to show up.
My heart pounded while I stared at the white little window on the pregnancy test. It must have been fear. It had to be. But there was a fear of not being pregnant and then being pregnant, like suddenly I wanted a child.
Then I sat in that bathroom, staring at the lines before I finally looked up at him with tears in my eyes.
“You’re pregnant.” He smiled. “And we’re going to be the best parents.”
He said it with conviction and I bit my lip before admitting back, “I think you’re right, Dimitri. I think you might really be right.”
He pulled me close to hug and kiss my forehead over and over. I cried in his arms, realizing I was ready to put down roots here in Paradise Grove, just like my mother had said.
It should have been the most surreal day but it was just minutes later my phone went off in our room.
My father’s name was on the screen. When I picked up, he said softly, “I’m so sorry, Olive. Knox OD’d.”
Chapter Forty-Three
OLIVE
How doyou save someone when you don’t even know how to save yourself? How do you rip someone away from an addiction when it’s preying on their mind, the very thing that gives them the logic to stop? How do you stop a teenager from seeking out a drug that makes the pain go away, especially when that drug is morphing their brain, lacing it with chemicals so that as it develops, the paths for addiction are fully formed, embedded, permanent?
My nerves were fried. My worries after the initial shock of the test were back with a bit of a vengeance as I thought about Jameson’s request, about what we’d talked about. I couldn’t comprehend everything that had just happened, how I’d made such a misstep, and how I’d sat on that bathroom floor with Dimitri looking down at me, not feeling anything but joy.
It could have been hormones. It could have been the shock. But everything seemed to fall into place. I understood now why my mother protected me, why she hadn’t told me a thing about this society. I understood that I’d do anything for the baby growing inside me and for my brother. It was what a family did,what a community did, what I knew I could do even if I hadn’t felt strong enough to do so before.
I now knew I had to get to the bottom of exactly what was happening in the Diamond Syndicate.
“I want to see him!” I screamed at my father as soon as I got to the waiting room.
Dimitri whispered to me, “Do you want me to handle this?”
I stopped and looked at the man I was pretty sure I was in love with, the man who didn’t scold me for acting out at a salon but who stood by me and took care of me when I needed it. “No. This is for me. I want every single second of this conversation with him. Father. To. Daughter.”
Dimitri was protective. Over-the-top protective. Possessive too. Yet he stepped back and murmured, “Yeah, I’m not stopping you from this. No one should. Be strong, Honeybee. I’ll be right behind you but he’s all yours.”
And then I turned to speed walk toward my father and shouted, “Tell me his room number now.”
“Calm down. Your stepmother is talking to the nurses now, and she’ll—”
“She won’t do a damn thing. She’s done being the middleman between him and his doctor.”
“Olive.” His voice was so consoling, like he’d been around the whole time. So soothing like he cared. “She’s been helping him from the beginning of this. She knows what to do.”
“She’s almost killed him. Or you did,” I threw out, and it wasn’t nice and it wasn’t caring. It was dramatic like they’d all accused me of being. “Where the hell were you?”
“Well, sweetheart, now I’ve had business. It’s probably best if you let us handle this. Why don’t you go back to work with Kee and—”
“Dad. Do not play dumb with me.” I cut him off. “You tell me what the business is. Was Knox with you?”
He frowned, and although people said he was one of the best, most charming men around, I knew all of his tells. He would fiddle with his hands more, go to grab a drink as if he was parched when really he was thinking up what to say. He tried to play dumb at first, “What are you talking about, Olive?”
“I know about the Diamond Syndicate.”
This time, he didn’t try to play with me at all. His face contorted in anger, and his eyes burned with an evil in them I’d only seen a few times, one being when he hit me the night I left home. “You think you can come here and take it from me?”
“I don’t want a damn thing from you,” I threw back, not exactly sure what he was talking about. “I want my brother safe, though, that’s for sure. He isn’t with you.”
“Olive Bee. Just like a bee.” He massaged his gray temples. “You’re buzzing in things you shouldn’t be.”
