Madison Square Park is one of those rare spots in Manhattan that lets you believe, for five seconds, that the world isn’t falling apart around you.
Trees sway above in the autumn midday light, pretending they’re not about to shed the last of their leaves and turn bare for the winter. Pigeons swarm like tiny sociopaths around an old man throwing birdseed, and somewhere nearby, a street musician is singing Sinatra off-key. It’s too cold for a picnic, but I needed air and movement and food to distract me from the psychotic conversation I’d had with Anthony, if it could even becalleda conversation.
Nicky sits on a bench opposite the fountain, two coffees in a cardboard carrier beside her. Her long camel trench looks slightly too light for the weather, but she’s always been a fan of the chillier days and loathes the heat, so it’s not a surprise. She pushes her sunglasses up onto her head, her black hair fanning back from her face, and grins at me as she raises a small brown bag that I recognize immediately.
Pastries.
“You’re the best,” I groan, sinking down beside her on the bench and snatching up my coffee before reaching into the bag.I pull out a chocolate croissant, and nearly cry from just how perfect that pick-me-up is.
She snatches it back. “Nope, nuh-uh,” she smirks. “You get your pastry when you tell me what happened between you and the Ice King.”
I roll my eyes and slump back against the bench.
“Clearly, the apocalypse is upon us, so spill.”
“Can’t I just have my snack first?”
“Are you a child?”
“Ugh.Fine.Fine. So I went in this morning like you said to do,” I start, picking at the skin beside my thumbnail. She’d talked me down for an hour last night after the initial panic, and I’m still indebted to her, but the thought of recounting what happened in Anthony’s office makes me want to crawl out of my goddamn skin. “I thought I was going to be fired. I was convinced. I was a fucking mess, but I did it.”
“Right, I figured as much, but come on.”
“I got in there and the door to his office was already open. I definitely shut it when I left yesterday. He did that on purpose.”
“Is that a problem?”
“He let me think I’d have a second to breathe without him watching me when I didn’t.”
She rolls her eyes and takes a sip of her drink. The scent of it carries on the breeze, some kind of lavender thing that I don’t understand. “Classic Bond villain shit. But that can’t be all of it.”
“I just… I thought it’d be a scolding, or he’d fire me on the spot, or we’d sign some kind of dumb NDA to never talk about it again. But it… It wasn’t any of those,” I exhale. “He offered me a deal.”
Her brows knit as she turns to look at me. “What kind of deal?”
I bite down on my bottom lip.
“April.”
“He… he needs an heir,” I say, the words raspy, the first time I’ve actually spoken them out loud since I stormed out two hours ago. “A child. Something about a family trust. I didn’t catch all of it because I was obviously too busy going into cardiac arrest, but the gist was that he doesn’t want a wife or a relationship or whatever, he just wants someone to… fuck, I don’t know, carry his kid?”
Nicky’s eyes go wide, her brows raising up into her hairline. “You meanyou? He wants you to carry hisbaby?” I pull my glasses off and rub a hand over my face. “Yeah.”
“Jesus fucking—April, no,what?” She leans back on the bench, blinking at me like I’ve grown a second head.
“I walked out,” I continue. “Didn’t let him explain much more. I was… freaked out. Obviously. But he said he’d let me keep my job if I helped him with this.”
“This feels like the plot of a lifetime movie or a really weird porn movie.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” I sigh. I take a sip of my coffee, thanking her with my eyes for the salvation, before lowering it again. “He didn’t say anything about a clinic or IVF or whatever, and he said thatIfit the criteria, so unless I misunderstood, which I’m positive I didn’t, it wouldn’t just behisbaby.”
“This is insane. You’d be the mother?”
“I guess?”
“Shit.”
We sit in silence for too long, the weight of it pressing down in the air. The city keeps moving around us—dogs yapping, kids shrieking, horns honking, office workers speed-walking through their lunch hours like they’re late to just existing, and I’m sitting in the center of it with her, paused and confused.
