"If I love you, what? Everything magically works out? I keep my job and my self-respect and somehow convince everyone that I earned my position while visibly pregnant with the CEO's baby?" I laugh, and it sounds slightly hysterical. "That's not how this works."
"Then howdoes it work?"
"I don't know. But I know I can't keep doing this.” My voice rises. "There's nothing rational about this situation, Donovan. I'm pregnant. With your baby. While working for your company. While falling apart because I don't know if you actually want this or if you're just going through the motions because you think it's the right thing to do."
"I want this," he says, his deep voice a raspy growl now. "I want you. I want our baby.” He chances a glance towards the thick glass walls. “How many times do I have to fucking say it?"
"Until I believe it." The words come out broken. "Until I stop feeling like I'm one bad day away from you deciding this is too hard and walking away."
Donovan runs both hands through his hair, and I can feel the tension coming off his chiseled body in waves.
"What do you want me to do?" he asks quietly. "Tell me what you need, Emma,and I'll fucking do it."
What I need is to feel safe. To feel wanted. To feel like I'm not just a problem to be managed or a mistake to be corrected.
What I say is: "I should have never told you about the baby."
Donovan pales, neck straining. "What?"
"We could have just gone on with our lives. You running your company. Me building my career. No complications. No expectations. No—" I motion between us. "—this."
“Don’t say shit you don’t mean, Sinclair.”
"Don't I, though?” The words feel like poison, but I can't stop them. "Maybe it would have been easier. For both of us."
"Emma." His voice is very quiet. Very controlled. "Do you really believe that?"
I want to take it back. Want to tell him I'm just scared and hurt and saying things I don't mean.
But the walls are too high now, the fear too deep.
"I don't know what I believe anymore," I say instead. "I just know I can't do this. Not like this."
"So what, you're just going to take off? Find another job and pretend I don't goddamned exist?"
"I don't know. Maybe."
"And the baby?"
"The baby is mine. I'll figure it out."
"Ours," he corrects, voice turning hard. "The baby is ours, Emma. You don't get to make unilateral decisions about our child."
"Then what do you suggest? Because I'm out of ideas. And I can't—" My voice breaks. "I can't keep hoping you're going to turn into the man I need you to be.” I pause. “A man who loves me.”
Donovan has confessed to many things since I told him about the baby. But not that.
Not once.
I saw the woman outside of the restaurant. It took me a little while, but I pieced it all together.
She was the woman from Sasha and Riley’s little Google research on Donovan after my first Titan event. The woman he was photographed with, looking suave and distinguished and…
Engaged.
He’d been ready to marry that woman. And me? I’m just the woman he had a one night stand with and accidentally knocked up.
He opens his mouth, closes it… just as a knock sounds on the conference door.
