This is a good time for the reminder about being an adult before you read. I should also point out a few readers see this as non-consensual. At the very least, there's some Casey abuse. You have been warned.
Where we left off: "You saw me with Ilsa," he said quietly. She went even more rigid. Casey would have bet money that wasn't possible, only he felt her do so, and then he felt a slight tremor run through her body. He recognized it for what it was: his wife was dead furious, and he was going to have to defuse her before she detonated.
Ghosts that Haunt—24
"Riah," Casey said softly, and this time he moved her hair and put his mouth on her neck just below her ear. Usually, she melted when he did that, but she stiffened once more. "Honey—"
He had apparently miscalculated, though. "Don't honey me," she ground out.
His jaw clenched. She let Paul Patterson call her a pretty little girl, but if Casey tried anything other than the shortened version of her name, she usually smacked him down verbally. In this case, he suspected it was less about the word he'd chosen than it was about what she had seen. He supposed he was lucky she didn't know what had happened in Ilsa's hotel room, and he hoped her father hadn't been stupid enough to call and blab. Casey sighed and lifted his head. "Riah, it wasn't what you think."
"And what, exactly, do I think?" He tried to find a way to tell her other than to just baldly blurt it out, especially since there were parts of it he wasn't exactly proud of but was going to have to tell her anyway. He couldn't afford for Ilsa to try and make trouble if she decided to do so, so he had to fully disclose or risk losing Riah if she learned differently. Her voice was a little softer when she spoke again, though the sharp edges were still there. "John, you love her."
That surprised him. He thought he had made it plain to Riah that he loved her, not Ilsa, not anyone else. She was the one he married, and he had done so voluntarily with no gun held—literally or figuratively—to his head. He had been willing to end his career for her and had almost ruined it twice for her. Ilsa, on the other hand, he had kissed goodbye and let walk out of his life with no real expectation he would ever see her again, had put her firmly out of mind once she had passed through the archway leading out of the apartment complex's courtyard. He had been unwilling to let Riah do the same, unwilling to have to push her behind a locked door in his head, and he thought she understood that.
Casey moved slightly, rolled her onto her back and held her in place with his body while he reached over and turned her lamp on. She blinked in the sudden light, and he leaned down so that she could see his face clearly. He was pissed off as well, especially since she apparently doubted him. He tried to temper his voice when he told her, "I love you, Riah. That's why I married you. Ilsa's the past."
"From what I saw," she ground out, "not exactly the past."
His temper teetered on the edge of control at that point, and he wondered briefly if she had been spying on him. Then he remembered that she had, essentially, admitted she'd seen him with Ilsa that morning, and he realized what she had probably seen—Ilsa touching him and their kiss. It didn't make him any less angry, though, because she obviously didn't trust that he had held true to the promises he had made her. "If you'd stayed—"
"I saw the whole thing, John," she snapped, "from the moment she walked up to you until you went inside the Buy More. My question is what I missed when you were on your 'mission.'"
There was a surprising amount of vitriol in his wife's voice, and he realized that she hadn't been half this angry when he turned up after she thought he had abandoned her. He was not a complete idiot, nor was she, and if anything, he learned from his mistakes. Riah was not a mistake, of that he was absolutely certain, but he was damned if he was going to put up with this kind of behavior every time he had to work with an attractive woman or even simply a woman with whom he'd been intimate. He had rarely mixed business and pleasure on the job, had, in fact, only seriously done so twice: Ilsa and the woman beneath him. He cocked his head, narrowed his eyes. Okay, three times, since he technically had to include Kathleen. That didn't stop him from saying in a low, dangerous tone, "You of all people, Riah, should know that I do my job, not my partner."
"Would you care to rephrase that, Colonel?" Her voice lashed that out as she bucked beneath him, tried to dislodge him.
Casey put his entire weight on her to hold her still. His temper ticked up again, this time at himself. He should have thought that through a little more before he let it come out of his mouth. He could argue Riah hadn't been his partner, but he had most certainly done her—very thoroughly, too. "You know what I meant," he growled back and eased his weight off her. He tried to find a way to regain the high ground. "You also know you're being unreasonable. I can't tell you what the assignment is, and because I can't tell you, you're not going to believe a word I say."
"How convenient that it didn't involve Chuck or Walker," she snarled. "No witnesses. Add to that your Ilsa has a job that connects to the NSA, and, hey, you get your fucking girlfriend back without having your wife in the mix!" Her voice rose toward the end, and so did the venom.
Casey was tempted to say something unforgiveable in return, the words were right there on the verge of slipping out, but a sane part of his brain kicked in. He loved Riah, was miserable without her, and he wasn't about to ruin the one truly good thing that had happened to him. He dropped his weight on her again when she tensed once more, certain she intended to try and roll out from under him and storm off. He had sense enough to know that if they didn't resolve this now, it would only get harder for them to find their way back. His tone was dangerous when he echoed her earlier question: "Would you care to rephrase that, Mrs. Casey?"
She opened her mouth to retort, but Casey's brain had caught up with his ears. She had said he was working on a mission with Ilsa. He had said nothing about that, Chuck couldn't have told her since he didn't know, and she and Walker were hardly the best of friends, so she hadn't heard it from his partner. That raised huge red flags. "How did you know Ilsa has a mission that involves the NSA?" he asked silkily. She had resigned from ISI. In theory, that meant she no longer had intelligence contacts. The Canadians had shut off access as soon as she submitted the paperwork, tightened it when she did her exit interviews while she was in Ottawa when he took Bartowski to Prague. Word had gone out on the American side as well. It was the equivalent of a burn notice without the nastiness usually involved. Riah was playing a dangerous game, and so was her father, if her resignation was a sham.
"I was on the phone with Dad when you decided to make out with your girlfriend—mistress," she bit out viciously.
That explained how V. H. had known he had seen Ilsa and why he had made the threat to kill him. "You told your father Ilsa was here?" he demanded.
She narrowed her eyes and her jaw tightened. An angry flush stained her skin, and he had a sinking feeling. She usually got that look when she was about to spill blood. "You should have told me you and Dad like to share women, John," she bit out. "It came as quite a surprise. How many others, and how many of them will turn up on my doorstep?"
He had already worked out that her father and Ilsa had apparently had a thing, but he couldn't believe her father had told her that. It did, however, confirm his suspicions, but it also made him wonder again if Riah had lied about her resignation, still worked for ISI, something that would ruin him and would mean someone like him would have to quietly make sure she was permanently stopped. He felt the blood drain from his face. He couldn't bear losing her, not now, and he certainly couldn't face returning to the life he had had before her or the man he'd been when she first came to live with him. He swallowed, and said, "Riah, you're playing a very dangerous game if you're still working for ISI."
She went incandescently ballistic then. "I fucking quit for you!" she shouted at him as she struggled beneath him, tried to get him off her. "I'm just the goddamn messenger these days! From now on, talk to Dad, not me!"
"You're right," he growled, pissed off despite his relief that he was apparently wrong. He was pretty sure now that the information had come from her father, and that meant there was a breach somewhere else because the NSA wouldn't have shared that with V. H. "I should talk to your father." He watched Riah's face pale as his words sank in. She went still, and he suspected that was because he'd used the dispassionate tone he normally reserved for delivering unpleasant ultimatums. Dealing with V. H. was a separate matter from this, though, and Casey needed some sleep before the night was over.
He decided it was time to let her know he didn't care for her attitude or her accusations. "As for you, I should put you over my knee and do what neither of your parents apparently ever did." His face hardened, and he was sorely tempted to do precisely what he threatened. "Listen carefully, Riah, because I will only explain this to you once. I love you. You, not Ilsa. I made my vows in good faith, and I will honor them. I meant them. What you saw was Ilsa kissing me." He gave her a hard stare to emphasize his words before he admitted in a more moderate tone, "Having said that, I was with Ilsa tonight."
She moved so fast it didn't occur to him what she intended until her hand connected with his face, hard. She had slapped him once before, and he had warned her then to never do it again. It had been an empty threat, though. He would never intentionally hurt her, but he was even more tempted than before to put her over his knee. "Do that again," he ground out tightly, "and you'll regret it." He glared at her, and as a precaution he took her hands and slapped them against the mattress on either side of her head, kept them pinned there. She struggled against his grip, and for a moment he nearly released her when he remembered how anxious she got when she felt cornered or trapped. That didn't seem to be what drove her, though. She was more pissed off than he thought he'd ever seen her, and the side effect of that was that she didn't regress into fear. Because he didn't want her to think about the fact that he had her immobilized, he simply gave her a hard, warning look. "I was with Ilsa professionally, Riah."
She gritted her teeth and strained against him. He caught an angry gleam in her eyes, and he had a feeling she was connecting his unfortunate choice of the word professionally with a slur on Ilsa's character. He was glad she didn't make the obvious remark because he was pretty sure he would be enough of an idiot to defend Ilsa, and that would only put more fuel on the fire. Besides, he wasn't at all sure he could honestly defend Ilsa at that point, especially not after what she had tried to do to him that night.
When Riah remained quiet and stilled beneath him, he felt tiredness wash over him. He decided to do something he had never done before. He didn't think he had much choice since Riah could not only put him through seven kinds of hell, she could wreak havoc with his assignment. He sighed and broke an oath to his employers. "Since you obviously know I've been assigned to work with her, you might as well know the rest. I have to pretend to be her husband. As a result, I was at dinner with her and her target." Casey kept his eyes on hers, and retaining a tight hold on her right hand, he lifted it and put his left hand in front of her face so she could see the ring she had put on his finger when she promised to love and honor him. "Your ring, Riah," he told her. "Call it marking your territory. I told Ilsa this was a job and nothing more, that I love you, and that I won't betray you." When he saw the anger lighten a bit, he lowered her hand back to the mattress and continued his explanation. "The French lost a nuclear scientist."
"How do you lose a scientist?" she sneered, and he gave her a look that told her not to interrupt him again.
"The scientist turned up here in L.A. He's supposedly here to sell his stuff to the Iranians. Ilsa tracked him here." She made a bit of a face there, and even he recognized that the story sounded weak. "I speak Farsi, Riah. Ilsa doesn't, and the NSA doesn't have another operative who could who could get here in time for tonight. As a result, I'm assigned to her mission."
"How convenient," she spat.
"Riah," he warned.
"Seriously, John," she continued tightly. "I understand that Farsi is a rare skill, but you still haven't told me how this particular mission intersects with the NSA's interests. CIA, yes, but NSA, no."
Sometimes he really wished she wasn't as smart as she was. She was right. If that was all there was to it, this was a CIA job, and Walker or someone else would be on it. As was always the case on this assignment, that wasn't the part they were most concerned about. "The scientist in question was a college friend of Stephen Bartowski's. He knows about Bartowski Senior's early ideas on the Intersect."
Riah froze, and he could see that she understood exactly why he had been given the job. Maybe there were benefits to having an intelligent wife after all. Her anger wasn't completely gone, though, so he remained wary. "Are you finished with your part of this?"
Casey hesitated to tell her that he wasn't, in part because he didn't want to ignite her anger again just when she seemed to finally be calming down. He knew he would have to tell her, but before he could do so, her eyes narrowed, and she said, "You're seeing her again, aren't you?" He wanted desperately to deny it. She must have read something in his face, though. "Get off me," she ground out. She struggled against him, but he simply crushed her into the mattress. When she realized she wasn't going to budge him and her movable parts weren't going to connect to any of his vulnerable ones, she stilled, looked away from him.
She was close to tears, Casey knew. He could see it before she turned her face from him, could hear it in the way her breathing hitched and her voice weakened, wobbled a little when she told him again, "Get off me."
He said quickly, "I have to have lunch with them tomorrow. Maybe dinner."
The anger flooded back into her face. It wasn't hard to tell what she was thinking, either. He realized she thought he had forgotten her appointment and his promise to her. "I can tell what you're thinking, Riah," he said, careful to sound conciliatory.
"Really? Turned into a mind reader, have you?" she snapped. "Then read this." Riah sank her teeth hard into the muscle a few inches above his left nipple. He was momentarily shocked since she had never done anything but slap him twice in all the months he'd known her. She was going to draw blood in a minute, so he dropped her hand and pried her mouth off him with his thumb. It hurt like a sonofabitch, and then he wondered if she had done it deliberately so Ilsa would see it if he let the other woman get him naked. In her fury, Riah swung her hand for his face again, and he caught it mid-swing, noted her fist instead of the open hand.
"I warned you," he snapped out. Riah flinched and braced for a blow, which only made his nearly out of control temper further flare. She had clearly expected him to hit her, and he struggled to contain the rush of red-hot anger in the wake of that. He would never hit her, and even as he took her mouth viciously, he wondered who had. He punished her lips, and when she sank her teeth into his lower lip, he once more used his thumb on her chin until she eased off. Instead of releasing her mouth, he sucked her own lower lip between his and sank his own teeth into it, though he didn't bear down anywhere as hard as she had done on his. He stared into stormy blue eyes, held her lip hostage, and ran the tip of his tongue over it. Something shifted in her when he did so; he felt it in the way her body pressed up into his. He stroked along her trapped lip again, and he felt her shiver beneath him. She might be furious, but she was turned on, and that shocked him most of all.
Though she had been physically abused, never sexually and never by him, she wasn't fighting him—at least not at that moment—and when she moved restlessly against him when he licked at her trapped lip again, he thrust his hips against her as she lifted up against him. He didn't think he should take her in anger, but he wanted her desperately, wanted to strip her and pound into her. He wasn't very proud of the fact that he wanted to burn off his pent up anger by fucking her until she couldn't move if she wanted to.
When he released her mouth, he could see a similar hunger to his underneath her anger. He yanked the spaghetti strap of the camisole she wore to expose her breast, and he didn't care when it tore. He latched on to her nipple, used his teeth as he worked it, and she pulled his hair until he let go before she crushed her mouth on his, demanded he open it and let her in. He ignored the pain in the lip she'd bitten and let her in. Riah shoved at him even as her mouth clung hungrily to his. He realized he was crushing her, so he rolled over. She followed him, fought her way out of the covers. They were both breathing harshly when she was on top of him. She bit his earlobe, growled in his ear, and the combination of pain and sound did something to him he would never have predicted. He didn't think he'd ever been this hard or this hungry for a woman. He ripped the camisole off her and rolled her once more onto her back.
It was probably the strangest foreplay Casey had ever experienced. This wasn't seduction; this was a battle for dominance. He was tempted to let her win because he was pretty sure letting her win would have amazing benefits for him, but he couldn't. He wasn't made that way. He got the feeling she was trying to simultaneously punish and reward him, and that bit of schizophrenia drove him to similar behavior. He was careful not to actually hurt her, and after the biting, she seemed to be taking the same care. Unable to take much more, he groaned and thrust inside her. Riah cried out, clawed at his back, but she raised her hips to meet each of his thrusts.
He started to slow the pace, but Riah clamped her legs to his hips and rolled him over and rode him roughly. Just as he was about to come, she stopped abruptly. His eyes snapped open, and she sat back with him fully within her, breathing hard. He stared up at her a moment before he sat up and took her mouth again. Her arms wound around him, and she moaned against his mouth when he pushed up into her again. She ground down onto him, tightened her muscles around him, and he moved to roll her over again.
Only he hadn't been paying attention to where they were, and they rolled over the side of the bed.
As they fell, he turned them so he hit the floor first and Riah landed on him, sending the breath whooshing out of him. His head also smacked against the wooden floor, but other than a sharp pain, he didn't think it had done any damage. Riah lay against him, and to his shock, especially given what had preceded it, she started laughing. It began with a rolling giggle, and then when he frowned at her, it escalated to a laugh. He was about to take offense, but he saw the humor in their situation. After a moment, Casey joined her.
"That's going to hurt in the morning," Riah said after the laughter died.
He was going to have a headache, he suspected, and his shoulder ached as well. "It hurts already," he assured her. She was plastered against him, had made no move to get away or off of him. He ran a hand down her side and over her hip before asking, "Are you still mad?"
She looked down at him, and he returned her gaze, waited for her to decide. She sighed, ran a hand up to his cheek, and leaned in and kissed him softly. He sincerely hoped that was her way of saying she was over her anger. When she didn't answer, he told her something he probably didn't say enough, "I love you, Riah," and ran his hand over her cheek to thread his fingers through her loose hair.
"I know, John." She leaned down and kissed him again. He hissed a bit when she pushed too firmly against the lip she had bitten earlier, so she softened her kiss. She began to press kisses against the parts of him she could reach instead, and he ran urgent hands over her. She took him inside her again, and afterward, after they both came apart, she moved so she lay beside him, one of her legs and one of her arms across him.
He rolled his head toward her and watched her shadowed face. Then, he told her softly something else he probably didn't say as often as he should. "I'm sorry."
Riah raised her head and smiled at him. He was glad to see that smile, certain it meant she was no longer angry and intended to forgive him. "So am I," she said.
Casey moved, intending to roll toward her and pull her close, but pain shot through him and he grimaced. "Think we can get off the floor now?"
She smiled again and sat up. He rolled to his feet, and when he reached down to help her up, he saw her horrified face. Casey wasn't sure what the problem was, but then he remembered the wounds she had inflicted on his back with her fingernails. They probably looked a lot worse than they were. "It's just scratches, Riah," he assured her.
"I did that," she said softly, and she looked away from his face. She saw the bite mark on his shoulder. He followed her gaze. Her teeth were clearly marked, and the area was growing dark as the bruise came up. "And that." She met his eyes, and she looked miserable. "John, I'm so sorry."
He slid an arm around her and pulled her to him. He dropped his voice and smiled at her. "You could kiss them better—especially the ones on my ass."
Her eyes went wide, and he nearly laughed at her horrified expression. Then he watched them narrow once more and realized he had just told her to kiss his ass. His girl was smarter than he was, he realized, when she leaned over and looked at his backside. She stood on tiptoe and pulled his mouth down to her and lightly pressed her lips to the one she had bitten. He shifted his hands to her hips, and she put her mouth on the bite on his shoulder next, pressed her lips gently to the mark. She stepped away from him then, and he grunted, "I don't think you're quite finished yet." She gave him a sultry smile and crawled onto the bed before she crooked a finger at him and reached for his hand.
Casey let her tug him onto the bed, and he followed her down when she lay back. She took his mouth in a gentle kiss and then slid out from beneath him. He stayed where he was, face down on the bed. When she said nothing and made no move to touch him, he turned his head to look at her. She sat back on her heels where she knelt beside him. He looked at her, looked at her naked breasts and the slight mound of her abdomen where their child grew. He had a brief moment of panic that they might have harmed the baby, but then he remembered Lydia's laughing lecture on sex while Riah was pregnant. Casey had asked questions that had made Riah go crimson but amused the hell out of her aunt, especially when he got specific. He found his wife as alluring like this as he had when he first made love to her—which reminded him that they could be doing something other than what they were. "Well?" he grunted.
Riah gave a slight smile and told him, "I think I need to get something to clean your wounds."
They weren't that bad, he knew. He'd felt no blood, so she had probably only scraped the outer layers of skin away. "I thought you were going to kiss them better," he reminded her.
He liked the way she raised her brows and gave him a sort of smirk. "I thought you wanted me to kiss your ass."
Casey sincerely hoped there was going to be kissing, and he didn't much care where or of what. He wanted his wife, wanted to feel her against him, wanted to be inside her again—preferably without the personal combat. He said gruffly, "Kiss anything you like."
He watched her lean toward him, felt her open mouth on his skin, and felt her tongue slide along the scratches on his buttock. The hot, moist lines she traced made him go hard. When she finished, she moved, straddled his legs and did the same with the scratches on his back. She started at his lower back and worked her way up to his shoulders, and Casey's mind went blank, all thought crowded out by the sensation of her tongue lightly gliding over the marks she'd put on him and the slide of her hardened nipples over him as she moved up his body. And then she started on the next stripe, repeated the same movement. He had to bite his lip to keep from rolling her off him and pushing inside her once more.
He held out until she had finished with all eight scratches, and then she moved her mouth on up over his shoulder. He turned his face to her. When her mouth touched his, he pulled her over him and rolled so that they faced one another before he began kissing her closed eyes, her nose, her mouth. He moved down her neck to her breasts, and he lingered there, this time gently kissing her, licking rather than biting her nipples before drawing on them. Riah moaned and moved restlessly against him. When he knew she was ready, he rolled her onto her back and slid inside her.
Afterward, when he pulled her against his side, she laid her head on his shoulder. Her hand slid up over his abdomen to his chest where she rested it over his heart. He smiled at the ceiling. She generally only did that when she was happy, and he relaxed, fairly sure they would be alright now. She slid her leg over his, and Casey rolled toward her and slid his hand over her waist and then onto her abdomen. "I haven't forgotten your appointment," he said sleepily. "I told Big Mike we'll be late to work."
"Mmm," she said, and he could tell she was on the edge of sleep. "What reason did you give?"
"Wedding plans," he said. She nodded. He decided this was as good a time as any to take up a subject about which he had given a lot of thought lately. "Riah," he said gently, "I know you don't want to tell anyone until we're sure you won't miscarry again, but we'll have to tell people soon."
She ran her foot along his leg. "Not yet."
Casey began to wonder if she ever looked in a mirror. Her breasts were bigger, a fact made obvious by how tight her bras had become, so much so that she was beginning to push over the tops of the cups, not to mention the strain on the buttons of her blouses over her breasts and her stomach. He stroked his hand over the growing bump there. That bump was likely only really noticeable to him, but it was becoming obvious her clothes were tighter. "You're starting to show."
That seemed to wake Riah up. She lifted her head and gave him a puzzled look. "I am?"
Casey wasn't sure what bothered her so much. He loved the way she looked, loved the way the changes in her body felt. He thought she was beautiful like this, but he suspected it wasn't her appearance that bothered her. He figured it was her irrational fear of telling anyone they were having a baby. He knew it was mainly because the last time she had miscarried shortly after she had confessed her pregnancy to others. In fact, he suspected she might refuse to let anyone know until she was in the delivery room. He could understand her fear, but he found he really wanted to tell people. Given he didn't like to discuss his feelings with others, let alone his personal life, that still surprised him. He kissed her. "Not much, but you are."
She put her head back on his chest. "John?"
"Yeah?"
"Would you have told me?" she asked.
Since he was suddenly very tired, it took him a second to realize she meant about Ilsa not about her pregnancy becoming visibly obvious. Then he thought maybe he was reading too much into her question, so he asked, "Told you what?" He rolled more fully toward her and pulled her a little closer. When she didn't answer, he asked, "About Ilsa?" He felt her nod against his shoulder. He really didn't want to begin the argument all over again, but he also didn't intend to lie to her. He had promised he would never lie to her, and so far he had been able to keep that promise. So he breathed in and told her, "After it was all over."
He rolled Riah gently onto her back, remembered then he had something else important to do and slid down and kissed her abdomen as he had done every night he was with her since they had found out she was pregnant again. He told their child goodnight. He kissed his way up her body, claimed her mouth, and then settled beside her and drew her back to him. "Riah, I will never deliberately lie to you. I would have waited until Ilsa was gone to tell you to avoid what just happened."
Her hand slid over his waist to his hip. "Do you love her?"
Casey caught her hand, raised it, and kissed her palm. "I love you, Riah."
"That doesn't answer my question," she said.
He knew she was right, so he gave it some serious thought. He honestly didn't know what he felt for Ilsa now. Would he be sorry if she died? Yes. Would he help her if she really needed him? Yes. If, God forbid, he lost Riah, would he turn to Ilsa? After that evening, he was pretty sure the answer to that was no. The truth, he realized, was more complicated than he thought he could explain to Riah so that she wouldn't misunderstand, but he knew one thing for sure—the strength of the emotion he felt for his wife was far stronger than what he felt for the Frenchwoman.
"I still care about her," he said carefully, "but what I feel for her isn't what I feel for you." He went on and filled in the gaps of what he hadn't told her the one other time they had talked about Ilsa. He told her all of it, and then he held her a moment, considered the rest. He gathered his courage and told her about what had happened in Ilsa's hotel room earlier that night, including the fact he'd responded to Ilsa's kisses.
As he told her, her body stiffened again, and Casey tensed as well. He should probably have let it go, especially since she seemed to have gotten the worst of her anger out earlier. For a brief moment, he wondered if their fight was going to start all over again.
Casey didn't relax until she changed the subject. "So I'm showing?"
That made him laugh, and he was pretty certain that was what she meant to do when she said it. He ran a hand up and cupped her full breast, took a second to savor the feel of her. "I've spent a lot of time studying your body, Riah. Trust me, it's obvious to me." He marveled that no one else had noticed or had even commented that she might be gaining weight. He supposed it just went to show how unobservant the Buy Morons really were. Still, he was a little surprised neither Walker nor Bartowski had noticed. "I don't know about anyone else, but I've started noticing that parts of you are growing larger."
She tilted her head back where it lay against his shoulder so that she could see his face, and he read hesitance there. "Do you want to tell people?"
"Riah, I want to tell the whole world," he confessed before he kissed her. He watched her think. She had tried hard not to get too attached to the idea of being pregnant. Lydia had told him several times Riah was so afraid of losing another child she couldn't let herself get excited about the baby. Her aunt had told him it wasn't so much that Riah didn't want a child but more that she couldn't face another miscarriage. Riah had told him herself about the depression afterward, and he had questioned Ariel and Emma both. What they had told him scared him almost as much as seeing her bleeding on the ISI training ground had. If Chuck hadn't raised the alarm, the consequences didn't bear thinking about.
Riah finally said, "We'll tell people, then, but we have to tell our mothers first."
That, he knew, went without saying. "I'm not suicidal," he said gruffly, and she smiled at him.