Betrayed

☾Chapter Thirty-Six☽

My father rolls his eyes before walking over to a table and picking up ribbon and scissors. "It's time for the next game now that they know." He hands the items to Lilli.

She pulls me onto the stage and finds the person who found the strip of paper. "Come up please and receive your reward."

The woman bounces onto the stage with a bright smile and selects one of the many gift cards Lilli is using as rewards.

"Alright! The next game can't include everyone, but I'll need twelve volunteers to use this ribbon—" She waves around the blue ribbon. "—to guesstimate Queen Vladimira's circumference of her stomach. Who ever is the closest wins the reward," She says after shushing the crowd.

Immediately, hands pop up, and I'm stuck to making the decision of who to choose.

I just randomly point at six women and six men.

Then, for the next ten minutes, the twelve people measure out the ribbons before cutting them and waiting to start.

Amazement seems to cover all of their faces as I let them wrap the ribbon around my stomach, their eyes widening whenever they touch it.

Strawberry took that as a sign to get very active and started to kick at about the time when the seventh contestant is wrapping their ribbon around my stomach.

The man gasps when he feels Strawberry kick, drawing both Titus and my father's attention, their eyes locking onto the man as if he's about to pounce on me.

Both of their bodies stiffen, and Titus even stands up, ready to attack him.

I look back at them. "Calm down, he just kicked," I soothe them.

At that, they relax, but I can see in peoples' eyes that they already know Titus is the father.

The game eventually ends when everyone has wrapped their ribbon around my stomach.

A man ends up winning the award and I'm escorted back onto the stage by Lilli.

For the next hour or so, we play games until it's time to eat cake and open presents.

My father, without any effort, puts a large chair down at the front of the room, so I can sit down and open presents.

Turns out, my father was correct. Everything else I needed for the nursery—there was even items I had already bought—was given to me as presents.

Some went small and bought me diapers or bottles, while others went big and bought me a crib.

I have a feeling they conversed on all the big items so they didn't buy me two cribs or two strollers.

Titus walked up to me after I finished opening all the present and pulled me close to him. "Let's tell them now," He suggests.

Nodding at him, I lead him onto the stage and clear my throat into the microphone. "Thank you everyone for coming and buying me all the gifts for me and the baby. I have some news, though," I speak into the microphone.

Everyone turns towards the stage when I say that. They stop eating their cake, they stop picking up the trash, they even seem to stop breathing.