Free Tied To You by Kit Tunstall, Kit Kyndall

Nila sweep through the lobby on several occasions, but she never deigned to speak to me or the other receptionist. She never even looked at us.
    She was a beautiful and graceful woman, but she seemed kind of cold. Maybe I was just imagining things, and I hoped that was the case. Mykael said she was busy, and I believed it, seeing the number of clients that rotated through the office on a regular basis for all the attorneys, so perhaps she wasn’t deliberately shunning the lowly front desk staff.
    It wasn’t even his mother that scared me as much as Annika herself. From what I had pieced together, she was fairly withdrawn and didn’t venture outside with the exception of going back and forth to her brother or her mother’s apartments. She sounded lonely and broken, and I was afraid I would burst into tears the moment I saw her and apologize for the horrible things my stepfather had done to her.
    I didn’t want to mention that until I got to know her a little better, but I didn’t want to avoid the topic either. She was bound to hate me when she found out I was Wayne’s stepdaughter, even though we were estranged. I couldn’t blame her if she did, and part of me was concerned that if she insisted on Mykael choosing, he would naturally choose his sister over me.
    That led to a greater fear, which was if he chose to end things with me, he might decide he wanted to take our baby. I didn’t think I would lose custody, but I might have to share half-time custody. With our money disparity, it’s possible I might even have the weekend visits, and he’d have the weekdays. The thought broke my heart, and I cupped my stomach to pat the mound gently.
    I couldn’t let that happen if there was some way to avoid it, but I couldn’t see entering a loveless marriage, or being the object of his family’s hate just to make sure we had the appearance of a family that was cohesive. I’d had enough fake family and real loathing in my lifetime to voluntarily accept such a farce as an adult when I had a choice.
    “You look beautiful.” He bent down to give me a kiss on the cheek, but that was it. He didn’t even take my arm as we stepped out of the apartment, and I walked beside him in silence, my thoughts heavy.
    A car service waited for us, the driver holding the door open to take us to the marina. I thought it was silly to go on an evening cruise, but I hadn’t shared that with him. At least my nausea had stayed away today, and I hadn’t had even a hint of it since this morning. There’d been the briefest roll of my stomach when I woke, but a couple of saltines had curbed that, and I’d been able to eat a full breakfast, including a cappuccino from the coffee shop downstairs on my way to work.
    Mykael would have disapproved of the caffeine, so I had sneaked it behind his back. It was ridiculous to feel the need to do so, but he was like the nutrition Nazi when it came to pregnancy, while I was a little more laidback. My midwife had said an occasional coffee wasn’t going to hurt us, but he still harped on it if he caught me with something I couldn’t have, according to the “expert” he’d consulted.
    His boat was somewhere between a dinghy and megayacht. I wasn’t very knowledgeable about sailing vessels, but I guesstimated this was probably around a forty-footer. It was far more modest than I had expected, but if he had purchased it with his own money and wasn’t relying on the Watts’ family wealth, it made sense he would go for something more frugal. As if owning your own yacht was frugal , I thought with an audible snort.
    The wind was brisk, but the sea air was surprisingly delightful, and as we sat on deck eating food prepared by a personal chef hired for the evening, I revised my opinion of the idea of coming all the way out here just to cruise around for a couple of hours. “This is lovely, Mykael.”
    He smiled at me, his white teeth a gleaming contrast to his dark skin in the warm illumination provided by