Rejected and Pregnant I Fled The Pack (Evelyn and Damon) novel Chapter 177

Damon pov

I sat in my father's study alongside him and Marcus, the three of us waiting in a silence that had grown increasingly heavy as the minutes ticked past, Callum having gone to escort Nadia from the front entrance.

Marcus kept glancing around the room, his attention flicking between the bookshelves, the window, the door, anywhere but actually sitting still, his hands restless against his knees.

"You're going to wear a groove into the floor if you keep shifting like that," my father said, something gently teasing beneath his own obvious tension.

"I don't know what to actually say to her," Marcus admitted, his voice tight. "Twenty-three years, Robert. What do you even say to open a conversation like that?"

"Just be honest," my father said. "That's all any of us can really offer her at this point."

I watched them both, understanding the genuine weight of what was about to unfold, my own nerves building alongside theirs despite my more peripheral role in this particular reunion.

Footsteps approached from the hallway, and I felt the tension in the room sharpen immediately, all three of us turning toward the door as it opened.

Nadia stepped inside, and for a moment, she simply stood in the doorway, her eyes moving across the room—my father first, familiar from our previous meeting, then toward me, before finally landing on Marcus.

Something happened to her expression the instant she registered him, some visceral, immediate reaction crossing her features that I hadn't anticipated. Her breathing changed, sharp and audible, and I felt something shift in the air around her, a wave of genuine, overwhelming panic that hit me even before she spoke.

"No," she said, the word tearing out of her sharp and broken, her hand flying up as though to physically ward something off. "No, this isn't— I can't—"

She stumbled back a step, and Callum, standing just behind her, moved instinctively to steady her, though she flinched away from the contact entirely.

"That's okay," my father said gently, moving to stand beside Marcus, offering quiet, steady support. "You don't need to figure all of that out right now. Nobody's expecting you to simply trust everything immediately."

Nadia's breathing gradually began to steady, though tears continued slipping free, and she allowed Callum to guide her carefully toward one of the chairs, settling into it with obvious, lingering unsteadiness.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly, once she'd caught her breath somewhat. "I didn't expect to react like that. I thought I was prepared for this."

"You don't need to apologize," Marcus said gently, settling into the chair across from her, careful distance maintained despite his obvious desire to somehow offer more direct comfort. "This is genuinely overwhelming, Nadia. Meeting me after everything you've apparently been told, after years of believing something that isn't actually true—that's not something anyone could simply prepare for adequately."

She nodded slowly, wiping at her tears, some of her earlier composed, calculating demeanor from our initial meeting entirely absent now, replaced by something rawer, more genuinely vulnerable.