Pregnant With Alpha’s Genius Twins

#Chapter 25 – Weakness

As I lay in bed that evening, I hear a phone ring. I glance at my bedside table, intent on ignoring it, when I realize that the screen of my cell phone remains dark. Huh?

Suddenly, I realize that the tinny ringing is the old-fashioned rotary phone that I use for sessions with Victor. s**t. I head to my closet, where I’ve hidden the phone and the equipment. I pick it up on the sixth ring.

“Hello?”

“Hello. I apologize, I know that we don’t have an appointment tonight. I just…I needed to talk.” Victor’s voice is disguised, as always, but I can tell that he’s upset. I raise my eyebrows. That makes two of us.

“It’s okay,” I say, eager to talk to him, but scrambling for the language that a regular therapist would use on such a call. “It’s going to be…an extra charge. For out-of-hours care. Is that acceptable?”

“Sure, fine.” He says.

“Okay. I’ll…process that with the office,” I riff, grimacing, hoping it’s the right response.

“Great. I’m having some trouble,” Victor says, dismissing the money problem off-hand. “My relationship with my mate is becoming even more complicated.”

“Tell me more,” I say, folding my legs and settling in amongst the pile of shoes sitting on the floor, waiting to be sorted.

“I suspect that she is…manipulating me. Lying to me, maybe,” he says. “I can’t have that, not in my life, my line of work.”

“Can you elaborate?”

“I think that she’s…” he sighs, clearly embarrassed. “I think that she’s using s*x to get her way. She knows she has power over me in that sense, and she uses it. The other day we had a…problem. I confronted her about it, determined to get to the truth – but she denied everything, and we went to bed and….”

I know that he’s talking about Amelia and the boys’ kidnapping. “Do you suspect that she is lying? Do you think that she betrayed you?” I push, a little breathless.

“I don’t know,” he says, and I can hear his frustration. “I…I have trouble suspecting that she could do something so cruel. But…if she did, it would be unforgivable.”

“I understand,” I say, nodding. “Well, have you expressed your boundaries? Have you told her that she crosses a line when she…did whatever it is she did?”

He huffs a laugh. “I would imagine that everyone would know that this is unacceptable,” he says and I agree. It crosses pretty much everyone’s boundaries to kidnap their kids. But, I remind myself, I’m not Evelyn. I’m the therapist.

values. These kinds of

on the other side of the call, and I can almost see him nodding along, forming new plans. “I

say, trying a new tack. “Imagining that you can trust her, what is this problem really about? If she has not betrayed you, do you mind that she has a method for

“What do you mean?”

using the bedroom as a place

“Because it is manipulative, and it takes advantage of me in a weakened

her? Or using your money and power to put her in a weaker state so

goes silent for a long moment. “That’s

not?” I ask, pushing him. “For you, it’s the natural order of the world. But for her, it’s

silence, before Victor grudgingly admits, “I can

suspect,” I say, continuing carefully, “that you are used to having things your way. When someone is able to persuade you away from your decisions,

Like I’ve been fooled into letting someone to disrupt the order I need to keep everyone in

to have a weakness,” I

“When I have a weakness, people die. As the Alpha of my

is it so bad, really, if

“Can you explain?”

to say this to Victor

weakness,” he says, “it must be addressed and fixed

interest at heart? If she is your mate, and you trust her completely, which” I say, carefully, “are not necessarily things that go hand in hand…then perhaps it is not so bad. If sometimes she gets

mean. If we are truly united in our vison for our life and our goals…then I can sometimes let her take the lead, trusting that she will get us to

working to bring some humor to the situation, “then at least they’re enjoyable

along

I grimace here, wondering if I pushed it

something to think about,” Victor says. “Thank you, this has been

up without

and wondering if I’ve done the right thing, right for Victor, and for me. I still don’t regret my choice to take these calls. In some ways, I realize, I’m doing the same thing Amelia: wresting power from Victor without his

not the same, right? I doing it for both of our goods. Can he trust