Filed to story: The Alpha and His Nanny Luna (Tiffany & Asher) Book PDF Free
That night, after dinner, I began to feel sick again. It felt as though my stomach was rejecting any sort of food that I put in it, as if the very act of eating was also an act of poisoning myself.
“Ah,” Ella sighed, leaning back in her chair and patting her tummy, “that was so tasty. I love spaghetti.”
I smiled and stood to clear the dishes away, but as I did, a wave of dizziness came over me. My ears filled with the sound of my own pulse, and suddenly I found myself sitting back in my chair.
“Tiffany?” Ella asked as she jumped up and ran around the table to come to my side. “Are you still sick?”
I swallowed and managed a weak nod. “Yes, love,” I said. “I’m okay. Just a little sick to my tummy, that’s all.”
Ella didn’t seem satisfied with my excuse.
Without a word, she scampered off into the kitchen before I could stop her. My ears were still ringing from the wave of nausea, but I could hear her say something to Selina in the kitchen, followed by the sound of pots banging around and the kitchen stove clicking to life.
“Ella, what are you doing?” I called. I tried to stand again, but felt the nausea worsen and promptly sat back down. I leaned my forehead on my hand and rubbed the space between my eyebrows as I took several deep breaths, praying that I could just keep my dinner down. I always knew that morning sickness was awful, but no one ever explained to me that morning sickness wasn’t just limited to the morning.
A few moments later, I opened my eyes to see Ella standing in front of me with a grin on her face. She was holding a glass of steaming milk in her hands and set it down on the table.
“Warm milk,” she said. “It always makes my tummy feel better.”
I felt a tear come to my eye at the little girl’s sweet nature despite her father’s cold demeanor. I took a sip of the milk, which was warm and soothing as it went down my throat, but it didn’t stop the tears.
“Why are you crying, Tiffany?” Ella asked, cocking her head.
I shook my head and wiped the tear off of my cheek with the back of my hand. “It’s nothing,” I lied. “Sometimes adults just cry for no reason.”
“Oh,” Ella replied, furrowing her brow. “I’ve never seen my daddy cry for no reason.”
I glanced up, then, to see Selina standing in the kitchen doorway looking at me with a concerned expression on her face as she dried her hands on her apron.
“Adults are just good at hiding it usually,” Selina suddenly interjected before Ella could ask any more questions, which I was grateful for. “Go off to bed, Ella. Let Tiffany rest early tonight.”
“Okay.” Ella planted a kiss on my damp cheek before scurrying off to her bedroom. When I heard the door click shut, I looked up again to see Selina still standing there. Although the old woman was often distant herself, I could tell that she was worried about me.
“I’m alright,” I lied. “It’s just food poisoning.”
Selina didn’t seem to believe me, but before she had the chance to inquire further, I stood and took the glass of milk. “Thank you for this,” I said. “Goodnight.”
Selina nodded. “Goodnight.”
I held my emotions together until I was alone in my room, but as soon as the door clicked shut, the tears started to flow again. Surely I was experiencing heightened emotions from the pregnancy hormones, but it didn’t make them feel any less real. I set the glass down and walked over to the balcony, closing my eyes as I felt the fresh breeze blow across my face.
“It is Asher’s baby,” Mina’s voice suddenly echoed in my head, taking me by surprise. Where had she been earlier when I needed to talk to her?
“Yes,” I replied in my mind. “But I don’t know if I should keep it.”
As I said that, Mina seemed to react extremely negatively. I could tell that she wanted the baby just as much as I did… but was bringing a baby into a situation like this really fair?
Tiffany
I woke up in the middle of the night that night with an even greater pain in my stomach than before. The doctor had warned me that the anti-nausea medication might wear off after twelve hours. Somehow, I had managed to fall asleep without needing to take it again. It seemed that Ella’s decision to get me a glass of warm milk actually worked as she intended, but not for long; when I woke up, I ran straight to the bathroom to vomit again.
When I was finished throwing up, I popped another one of the anti-nausea pills in my mouth and climbed back into bed. My body felt restless, though, so I decided to go to the kitchen to stretch my legs and get a cold glass of water.
The penthouse was dark and quiet when I came out of my room. I figured that everyone was soundly asleep, so I tiptoed over to the kitchen and quietly grabbed a glass out of the cabinet before filling it with ice cold water and beginning to make my way back to my room.
It seemed, however, that I was wrong about everyone else being asleep. I heard a sound of an angry voice that made me jump, and when I looked over in the direction of Asher’s study where it came from, I realized that I could see light coming from underneath the door.
“I’m not going to give you any more than that!” his muffled voice shouted from the other side of the door. “No! That’s enough! How much more could you possibly need?”
Maybe it was my pregnancy hormones getting the best of me again, but I was incredibly curious about what was going on. Without thinking, I slowly padded over to the door so I could hear what he was saying more clearly. I didn’t hear another voice; he must have been on the phone.
“Yes, I’ll send it in the morning,” he said. His voice sounded irritated and hoarse. He paused, listening to whatever the other person was saying, then groaned loudly. I heard the sound of what sounded like him slamming his hand down on his desk. “This is even more than we agreed on. The deal was that you would get a nice sum of money and I’d buy you an apartment. How have you blown through all of that, already?”
I furrowed my brow. Was he talking about Ella? Who was on the other end of the phone?
“That’s a pathetic excuse, and you know it. You and I both know that you’re still squandering it. Christ, Olivia! Grow up already.”
Just then, I heard the sound of the phone hanging up, followed by footsteps stomping toward the door. I quickly jumped away from the door, my heart pounding, just before Asher swung the door open and stepped out into the living room. The light from the study poured out and illuminated the spot where I was standing.
“What are you doing up?” Asher asked bluntly. His eyes looked tired, and his hair was a bit disheveled. He was still wearing his business clothes, although his tie was loosened around his neck and his shirt had the first few buttons undone. Seeing the Alpha CEO like this had an attractive quality to it, and I couldn’t stop my mind from flickering back to the last time we almost had sex. Part of me still wanted him now, even after everything.
I held up my glass of water. “Just thirsty,” I said. It wasn’t a complete lie, although I knew that he knew that I was eavesdropping when I shouldn’t have been.
“Hmph.” Asher looked me up and down, which made me even more nervous. “How much did you hear?”
I swallowed. “What do you mean?”
Asher rolled his eyes. “I know you were listening, whether it was intentional or not. How much did you hear?” He crossed over to the bar and solemnly grabbed a glass from underneath. I watched as he filled it a third of the way with whiskey.
“I heard something about when Ella was born,” I admitted. “And something about squandering money, I assume. And the name… Olivia.”
