The Devil's Favourite Obsession

Mark walked to the rear of the black car, pulled the door open, and stepped aside with his usual composure. One hand rested on the top of the door, the other hung at his side, looking at nothing.

Cixi opened her mouth to deny the ride. She had wanted time alone for herself, just forty minutes of silence where she could breathe and plan what to do tomorrow. Rony had found her, which meant Silvia would know soon, and they might come to the café and find a way to bully her. She couldn’t go back to Warm Land Café anymore.

In between her thoughts, she noticed a pair of black leather shoes. Her eyes trailed upward, and a long leg in a black suit came into view. She bent down a little, only to discover Cassian sitting inside the car with his long legs crossed at the ankle, one arm draped lazily across the back seat, his dark head tilted slightly to the right.

He was watching her.

Cixi averted her eyes immediately and started tapping the toes of her shoe against the concrete in a rapid, agitated rhythm.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Mark stood beside the open door with his hand resting on the car door frame, while his expression betrayed not a flicker of opinion.

Inside the car, Cassian simply leaned his head against his right hand, letting the amusement shimmer openly in his dark eyes, and watched Cixi stamp her foot on the concrete like a furious little bird deciding whether to fly or fight.

Cixi was wrong if she thought she had a chance to reject. He had come to pick her up, and she was going to ride with him.

Ten seconds passed. Then twenty, then thirty.

Cixi’s tapping grew faster, then slower, then stopped entirely. She exhaled sharply through her nose, pressed her lips into a thin, defeated line, and climbed into the car.

Mark closed the door behind her with a soft click and returned to his seat beside the driver. The car pulled away from the curb and merged into the city traffic.

The silence inside the vehicle lasted exactly four seconds before Cassian spoke.

”I have heard quite a bit about hormonal changes.” His deep voice rolled through the confined space of the car like velvet dragged over gravel.

Cixi turned to look at him, confusion creasing her brows. ”What?”

”Women often experience mood swings when they are pregnant.” His gaze dropped deliberately to the padded curve of her belly before rising back to her face. ”I imagine the stamping was one of those.”

That earned him a glare so pointed from Cixi that it could have drawn blood.

For not climbing into the car immediately, for taking her own time, for daring to hesitate on a public pavement while the Devil himself waited inside a luxury vehicle, Cixi had been diagnosed with hormonal changes.

Magnificent.

”Are you making fun of me?”

”No.” Cassian’s expression did not shift by a single millimetre. ”I am stating a fact about pregnant women.”

Cixi glanced down at her belly—the silicone belly she had strapped back on before leaving the café bathroom—and found Cassian’s eyes already there. How embarrassing...

She shifted in her seat uncomfortably and dragged her gaze away from him, staring fixedly at the headrest of the driver’s seat.

The mortification made her want to jump out of the car and never see Cassian again. He was looking at her stomach—the stomach she had fabricated. The stomach carrying the child she had invented. The child she had told his entire family was his.

She could feel the heat climbing from her chest to her throat to her ears, and she pressed her thighs together beneath her loose clothing as though physical pressure might somehow contain the humiliation spreading through her body.

”In the nineteen-eighties,” Cassian began, his tone shifting into something conversational that immediately put Cixi on high alert, ”young girls in certain parts of the world grew up terrified of kissing.”

Cixi’s heart lurched at the word kissing.

Why was he suddenly talking about kissing? Did he want her to kiss him? Right now? In front of the driver and Mark? Her pulse spiked at the thought of kissing in front of others. It was pure, undiluted panic.

She kept her face turned toward the window, refusing to look at him, which of course Cassian noticed.

”Those teenagers believed that if they kissed a boy, they would get pregnant.” Cixi’s brows creased harder, and her fingers curled into fists against her thighs, not understanding why he was talking about teenage girls and boys. She then heard Cassian continue. ”You made their fear come true, Lousy Kisser.”

A grin spread across his devastatingly handsome face, dripping with dark satisfaction.

Cixi pressed her lips together so hard they turned white. She shut her eyes with such force that wrinkles formed at the corners. Her fists clenched tighter, then loosened. She opened her eyes, turned her head just enough to glare at him from the corner of her vision, and cursed him with every foul word her mind could summon.

”Did I say something wrong?” Cassian tilted his head as his grin widened. He could not let a single opportunity pass without twisting the knife. Teasing Cixi had become the closest thing to entertainment his dark, exiled existence in Demond City had offered in months.

Flashback

Since the moment he had heard her voice on that phone call, declaring that he would become a father in three months, Cassian had not gone back to sleep.

He had sat on the edge of his bed in the windowless room in Valtham, his phone lowered to his lap, and stared at the far wall for a full minute. Then he had leaned his head back against the headboard, closed his eyes, and dialled a number.

The call connected on the second ring.

”Tell me what is happening inside the palace.”

”Sir.” The voice on the other end hesitated before choosing his words carefully. ”I am not entirely sure how to explain this, but a woman has arrived at the estate claiming she is pregnant with your child. She is currently staying on your private floor.”

The corner of Cassian’s mouth twitched. Then pulled upward. Then spread into a full, genuine grin that he could not have stopped if he had tried.