For a few minutes he was content with just watching her. He memorized the look of rapture on her face, the way she licked her lips, but mostly the way her touch made him feel complete. He loved this woman so f**king much that sometimes like now it was a struggle to breathe through the panic, knowing this had to end.

Soon.

If she wasn’t so damn stubborn she would have already left months ago, but she wouldn’t. No matter how hard he pushed her, ignored her or made it painfully obvious that she needed to leave, she refused to budge. In the three months that she’d been here she hadn’t gone out once. Not once, because she wasn’t allowed to.

It wasn’t the life he wanted for her and he hoped she figured out that she was more of a prisoner here than she would be on an island. There she could at least go wherever she wanted on the island and explore, but here she was limited to the confines of the compound.

He couldn’t stomach the idea of her living like this for another day never mind a hundred and seventy years.

“Chris,” she moaned, grabbing his attention once again.

This was their time together. He savored his mornings with her before he had to turn into an ass**le and ignore her, only seeking her out for sex. She should f**king hate him. Hell, he hated himself, but she didn’t seem to care one way or the other. She was too focused on her job and her excitement over the baby to care.

He bent his knees and held her h*ps as he began thrusting into her, careful of her and the baby. Several minutes later she was screaming his name again and he was biting back the words “I love you,” so instead he shouted them over and over in his head as he struggled to catch his breath.

“Oh my god……Chris! She’s kicking again!” Izzy said, reaching for his hands to press against her stomach, but he wouldn’t let her. If he did it would add to his pain and misery.

“I have to get to work,” he said, guiding her off of him.

He ignored the hurt look on her face and forced himself to walk to the bathroom. “Training is in two hours,” he bit out coldly.

“I can’t make it. I’m having breakfast with Joshua before my appointment,” she said, making him stumble.

Fucking Joshua.

The bastard was always around, always laughing and smiling with Izzy while he had to be the bad guy. He almost hated his brother as much as he loved him. It pissed him off knowing that he couldn’t allow himself the pleasure of spending time with his mate, but Joshua could.

That was probably because his brother didn’t have a wife and daughter to worry about. He did. All the f**king time, he worried about them.

************

“Don’t you think you’re getting a little fat?” Joshua asked, trying to steal the coffee roll off her tray.

“Stop!” she said, laughing when he pouted. She’d tell him to go and grab another one, but she’d grabbed the last two. She loved the compound’s cafeteria. It was large, but without the cafeteria feel. The room was large, with oak wood trimming, beautiful cream tiles, small oak tables along with long ones for large groups to eat together before and after patrol and of course it had Helga.

She loved Helga.

Helga ran the cafeteria. It ran twentyfour hours a day.

She could get breakfast any time of day, pizza, hamburgers and if she asked in advance she could have an entire turkey dinner any time she wanted. When she left in a few weeks she was going to try and kidnap Helga.

“I’m starving,” he said, reaching for it again, but she ignored his pathetic little hurt expression and took a huge bite out the warm pastry.

“Fine,” he said, sniffing. “Then I’m going to show you the surprise.”

“Yes, you will,” she said, stealing his orange juice and taking a sip, knowing he couldn’t keep anything from her. Over the last couple of months they’d grown close, very close. He was her best friend and pain in the ass.

He amused her, kept her entertained and held her when she couldn’t take it anymore. She lost count of how many of his shirts she’d soaked with her tears.

He sighed heavily as he took his juice back and finished it off. His eyes glimmered with humor and she wasn’t too surprised to find Chris glowering at them from across the room.

“He wants to kill me,” Joshua said brightly.

“No,” she mumbled, “he just wants me to leave.”

“There is that,” Joshua conceded. “But I think that he thinks it’s for your own good.”

“It doesn’t matter what he wants. I’m staying,” she said, for probably the thousandth time. She didn’t care what he wanted or thought anymore. The only thing that mattered was her baby, her little girl. He didn’t want them, then that was fine because in less than two weeks she was moving into her new home. There she could live a full life, go out, enjoy her life and raise her child in peace while she still worked. Joshua must have read the expression on her face and knew what she was thinking.

“Have you told him yet?”

“It’s none of his business.”

“He’ll find out soon enough since the rest of the family is going with you,” he said sighing as he stole a pancake off her plate.

She shrugged, knowing that there was no way to hide it from him since he was no doubt going to be coming with them. Yes them, apparently she’d inherited his entire family and they didn’t want to let her go, which actually felt pretty good. It was nice to be a part of a family for once.

Ephraim treated her like a daughter. Jill and Madison treated her like a sister and good friend. Marc was like the little brother she never had and of course Chris was the estranged husband that wanted to get rid of her.

As she popped a hunk of ham from Joshua’s plate into her mouth she wondered how he was going to feel when he found out that he was going to be moving into a house, mansion really, half owned by her. He probably wouldn’t take it well, she decided, trying not to smile.

His eyes narrowed on her before he stormed off towards the food. Nope, he definitely wouldn’t take it well and he’d have his family to thank for that.

It hadn’t taken long to realize that compound life was not for her, except for the lovely Helga of course. After they staged her death and filtered her money through what seemed like a hundred banks Isabella Williams was born and she decided to start her new life. She looked at houses online for a good week before decided to treat herself after years of a crappy existence to a really nice home.

The one she settled on was a beautiful English style cottage mansion, whatever the hell that meant. All she cared about was that it had virtually no neighbors and a hundred acres of land that guaranteed privacy. It had taken several long arguments to convince Eric that it was the best thing for her and in the end he gave in because she promised to keep working for them and agreed to the three Sentinel homes he decided to put in the area to help protect her.

When she asked Joshua to go see the property on her behalf and finalize the sale she hadn’t expected Ephraim to go along with him and definitely hadn’t expected Ephraim to put down half the money and buy it with her. So now she was co-owner of a very large home and part of a very close knit family. Everything would be perfect if her mate wanted more than just sex and to make her feel awful.

“I am starving,” Madison said, placing her tray on the table and sat down and Isabella envied the woman.