Chapter Twenty
Damien
Despite the fact that my mansion was huge, it felt like the walls were closing in on me. It had been a few weeks since I’d left Rory, but it felt like a lifetime. Every moment dragged on with endless torment. I normally would have thrown myself into work but that was even difficult. What I needed to do was get everything in line to launch the new military medical development division at Raoult Industries, but that just made me think about Rory.
Even worse was that I was getting sick, and that was something that almost never happened. I could count the number of times I’d been sick in my entire life on one hand, but there I was feeling exhausted. I barely had the strength to mope properly.
I had to have been coming down with the flu. Nothing tasted good, and every time I tried to take even a sip of whiskey, it turned my stomach. I’d completely quit drinking, but not because I wanted to. I bitched constantly to Basil and Terrance, a childhood friend and one of my best software developers, about not being able to drink. I said it wasn’t fair because quitting booze was supposed to make you feel better, but I felt terrible.
“You’re pregnant,” Terrance said one day while we were sitting on my stone terrace drinking milk, which I’d hated before but seemed to not be able to get enough of as of late. “You’re pregnant and you need to take a test and shut up about it.”
He was the only person in the world I would let tell me to shut up like that. Well, him and maybe Basil. “I’m not pregnant, Terry. I was on heat suppressants up until I went into the hospital.”
“And then you had sex with an Alpha after you got out of the hospital.”
“I wasn’t in heat.”
“Are you sure?”
“Fuck. Okay, I’ll take a test. I need to buy one.”
“Already done. Basil and I knew this day was coming. There’s one in the third drawer of your bathroom vanity.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Yes, really. Now go take the test.”
“I need you to come with me.”
“Eww, dude, no. I’ll sit out in your room and wait, but you’re on your own for the peeing on a stick part.”
“Fair enough.”
We went up to my room and Terrance sat in one of my wingback chairs that overlooked the gardens while I went into the bathroom to take the pregnancy test.
I felt stupid trying to pee on the thing. It’s not like I could really be pregnant, but once it came back negative, I could go to the doctor and find out what was really wrong with me.
After cleaning off the test and putting the cap on, I took it out into the bedroom and sat in the chair across from Terrance. We waited quietly for the three minutes until it was time to read the result.
“Fuck,” I said when I looked down at the little purple plus sign, but an unexpected flutter of excitement danced in my belly.
“I told you,” Terrance said.
“I can’t believe I’m going to have a baby. I mean, this is exciting, right? I can’t believe I’m excited.”
“I can. I think you’re going to be a great dad if you can learn to get over yourself,” Terry said.
“That’s the problem. I want this baby to have everything I didn’t and I’ve ruined that,” I said.
“How? You can give your baby the whole world.”
“I can’t give them their father. I blew it, Terry,” I said and started to cry. “I said horrible things and made him hate me so that I couldn’t get hurt. Now I’m more hurt than ever.”
“You can do this on your own, Damien. You’re the strongest Omega I know.”
“I don’t want to do it alone. I love Rory, and I want to be a family. What do I do? I’m sure he doesn’t even want to talk to me, but I have to at least tell him about the baby. He deserves to know that he’s going to be a father.”
“If you want him back, you let me handle it. I know what to do,” Terrance said. “Give me a way to contact him and I’ll make things right between you two. He’ll be begging for you to come back.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Trust me. It’s better if you don’t know,” Terrance said with an impish grin.
Well, he couldn’t make things any worse, and Terry had always had my back in the past. I decided to trust him and handed over Rory’s contact information. Then I sat down and prayed to the Goddess that whatever he had planned would work.