Feeling exposed, I stared at myself in the full length mirror in the fitting room. The outfit looked good on me but it didn't feel like it was me. The black crop top I wore with a red and black plaid skirt didn't cover as much as I'd like. The fishnet tights dug into my feet as I stood, making them hurt. My eyes even glanced at the black high heeled boots because I knew that I would end up killing myself if I tried to walk in them. Gracefulness wasn't my middle name.

"Jared, I'm not too sure about this," I called out. I could hear him sigh in response.

"Let me see," he ordered.

I did what he asked and stepped out of the dressing room. My arms instantly went to cover my exposed stomach. Jared ended up removing my arms so he could get the full picture. He frowned as he focused on my look as if he was trying to figure out if something was missing or not.

"Wait here," he ordered once again as he went to a section of the store only to come back with a hooded zip up sweater that was half black and half red. It matched my skirt and looked like something I would have worn even without the outfit. Jared held it out to me and instructed, "Put this on."

Following his instructions, I put on the sweater. Instantly I felt better and not as exposed. Jared smiled like he was pleased with himself for being my own personal stylist. The downside to the new trends is that they didn't really have anything in my favorite colors. There were hardly anything that had a hint of blue on them. But after taking the tags off of my outfit, Jared dismissed me to grab my clothes from the dressing room while he went to pick more stuff out. He even asked me for the credit card Donny had given me.

After I grabbed my stuff, I went to the sales clerk to let them know what Jared was doing. They were nice about it and even took off the security tags that were still on the clothes. I wasn't sure if they were supposed to do that but it gave me an excuse to put on my shoes that I came in with. I didn't even bother with the high heeled shoes and left them behind. Jared didn't seem to care and my shoes seemed to kind of go with the outfit anyways.

After exiting the store, I sat down on the nearest bench. I already felt exhausted and I didn't do much. In the corner of my eye I could see someone sat down on the bench next to me. They didn't say anything for a while and I just began to think it was a random stranger taking a break from the miles of shopping. But then they spoke.

"You make a cute Shidonna," my head snapped to see that the person sitting next to me was David. He just smiled at me, "Fancy running into you here."

"Why are you here?" I asked him.

David pointed towards the store I had just exited, "The asshole in here abandoned me with babysitting his wife. I didn't marry her, so why should I follow her around while she tries to spend all of the Seadonna money in one go?"

A small giggle escaped my lips, "Why did you tag along then?"

"I needed to get away from the chaos back at the tower. Ricky has decided to take power and Boss isn't liking that idea. People are taking sides and it isn't pretty," David explained, "The Royal Guards are mostly on the side of Boss."

"Even you?" I added.

He looked at me like he couldn't believe I could say something so stupid, "I said mostly, not all. A few of us actually have some common sense."

"Could have fooled me," I half joked as I stared at the store. David just looked at me like he couldn't believe the words coming from my mouth.

"You left her unsupervised?!" Jared suddenly said as he walked out of the store with his hands full of bags.

David looked at him, "She isn't my wife. She was looking at a jewelry store when I left her."

Jared quickly gave me my bags and Donny's card before running off. David just chuckled as he relaxed a little bit. I've never seen him relaxed because he was always on alert as part of his job. So getting away must have been like a mini vacation. Then it made me think of something.

"Aren't you on the clock right now?" I suddenly asked him.

"You are smart after all," he mentioned, making me hit him on the shoulder. The action only made him laugh, "Jared can take care of himself. Also we are in an area that would cause too much attention for anything bad to happen."

I looked at him skeptical. Only because the last attack the Shidonnas did on the Seadonnas wasn't very private. It was all over the news and families were destroyed. Just the memory had me wondering how Mike and Amanda were doing after losing their son. I don't even remember visiting them before leaving the tower.

David must have noticed the look on my face because my thoughts tended to flash across like a neon sign, "They are doing better. Mike is training harder and Amanda is dealing. A little distracted at the moment."

"Why is that?" I heard myself ask.

I could see that he debated to tell me or not. He eventually went with the second choice, "Ashley is pregnant."

If this was a cartoon, my eyes would have popped out of their sockets and my mouth would have dropped to the floor, "What?"

David nodded, "Shocked Ricky too. Even though she can still get pregnant, there is no guarantee that she can carry to full term."

Now I understood why he was hesitant to tell me. There was no point in getting excited if Ashley was known to have miscarriages for every pregnancies. But I had to ask the next question.

"How far is she?"

"Farther than she has been before. Doc is optimistic this time around, but there are still the risks," he told me, "Even if Ashley is to carry to full term, the baby could still not make it. Also Ashley might not make it either. The abuse that nearly killed her makes this whole pregnancy unpredictable."

Thoughts ran through my mind. My emotions were all over the place. I wanted to be happy for both Ricky and Ashley, but I also couldn't be because of the cost they might have to pay in order to have the family they always desired. You could tell how much Ricky relied on Ashley. If he were to lose her, there was no telling what would happen. I think that was the one thing that made all of us hold in our emotions of happiness.

"What does Ashley have to do in order to survive with the baby?" I suddenly asked.

David looked at me curiously, "We don't know. Like I said this is all unpredictable and she's never carried this far before."

That is probably why Amanda has been distracted. She is probably making sure that Ashley takes it easy. Knowing the motherly nature that is Amanda's personality, she is most likely doing everything she could to take care of everything. Being the wife of the head of the Seadonna family, Ashely had a lot of responsibilities and Amanda has probably taken them all on. Just hearing the news made me want to return to the tower to take my rightful place, but I couldn't until Boss was gone. Boss needed to pay for all that he has done over the years.