My way of making sure I wouldn’t lose him.
And when it finally happened—when the test turned positive in the first week of October—I couldn’t stop shaking.
I was terrified. Overwhelmed. But there was also this wild, bright hope blooming in my chest.
I thought,this is it.
This is how I’ll prove I can give him everythingshecan.
How I’ll show him I’m not just the mistake he keeps returning to.
I started planning. I was going to tell him in December—just before Christmas. Safe enough to say it. Special enough to make it mean something.
I pictured his face. The disbelief, then the slow smile when he realized I was carrying his child. I was already certain he would be a beautiful boy, just like his father.
He might have tried to deny it at first… but he would have lovedourbaby.
But nothing,nothing, ever happens the way I want it to.
Even that small dream, that tiny piece of him I thought I could keep, slipped away before I could do anything to stop it.
And now I can’t even try again. That’s what the doctor meant, beneath his careful words and sterile phrasing.
Never again. Never a second chance.
Never a child. Never a piece of Colin that was mine and his.
It was all for nothing.
Colin
If I thought delivering a major acquisition would buy me any goodwill, even a breath of relief, I was a fool.
Closing the Texas deal didn’t buy me time. Didn’t buy me grace. Didn’t buy me a damn thing.
Thirty minutes ago, I sat at that table surrounded by men who now look down on me—men who once wanted to be exactly where I am.
It didn’t matter that I had just secured a nine-figure deal. They weren’t interested in success. They wanted blood.
My blood.
The questions came fast, bullets dressed up as business concerns.
“How can we trust your due-diligence judgment after recent... lapses?”
“Will your personal reputation jeopardize post-merger stability?”
“Is leadership continuity even viable under your current circumstances?”
“If we lose key partners because of your name, what then?”
No applause for the acquisition. No acknowledgment of what I delivered.
Only suspicion.
And I was stupid enough to think the day had started well.
The phone won’t stop vibrating, it’s barely past midnight.
