“I can’t help it.” I shrugged.
Her expression changed back to serious. “But I’m serious, Jeremiah. This is going to come out.”
“They don’t have to know it’smine,” I said thoughtfully.
Her brows pulled together as a look of hurt washed over her. I knew I had said the wrong thing. Something I had proved to be good at with her. I wasn’t trying to hurt her though. I was just trying to protect us. Well,me.I was trying to protect everything I had built and the reputation I had earned.
“What’s your plan exactly?” she asked, her gaze narrowing. The hurt now replaced with irritation.
“I don’t know…I thought we had a plan. To keep this a secret.”
“And once the baby is here, we are still to keep this secret?”
“I hadn’t really thought that far, but yeah. Maybe. I don’t know.”
She sat back in her chair and crossed her arms. I knew what I was saying was probably unrealistic, but we could at least try. I thought we had been on the same page.
“So you’re never going to hold your baby out in public?” she asked.
Before I could say anything, she asked more questions.
“You’re never going to have a picture of him or her in your office? You’re never going to tell your friends you’re a father? You’re never going to let me tell anyone about you?”
She was challenging me, and her questions were legitimate, but I needed time to think. I thought we had time.
“I have to be sensible about this,” I said, running a hand through my hair.
“Sensible?” Sadie laughed. “Nothing about us has beensensible.But I don’t care. I’m so happy with how everything has turned out. Sure, it’s not traditional. And it’s not what we had planned, but we’re here now. Being sensible is kind of out the window at this point.”
“Not for me, it’s not.”
“God,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re so twisted up inside. Soscaredof what everyone else will think.”
“Of course, I am,” my voice rose. “Look around you. Look at what I’ve built. It can be taken away because of what people think.”
“No, it won’t,” she said. “People will talk for a little bit, and then another scandal will come out for them to care about. Then this will all blow over.”
She seemed so confident, but she didn’t know the business world like I did. A scandal like this could ruin people. Affairs in the office are a one-way ticket to your stocks taking a dive and clients second-guessing their business.
“You don’t get it,” I said with a sigh.
“Maybe not, but I do know you have trust issues. And I get them. I do. After everything you’ve told me, it makes sense. But at what point do you move on from your past?”
“I don’t know if I can…”
“Well, you’re going to have to sort yourself out,” she said sternly. “If we are having this baby together, you have to work on yourself. I refuse to raise a child with a jaded father, passing his own traumas onto his child. And I refused to be a doom and gloom mother, scared of the world because you shield us from it. I believe most people are good. If you opened your eyes, you’d see that.”
“And if I don’t…” I said, challenging her. “Sort myself out?”
She hesitated, taking a breath as she searched my eyes. “Then I’ll walk.”
I let out a small laugh through my nose. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t.
“I can do this on my own,” she said, lifting her chin proudly.
She was digging her heels in and it pissed me off. I didn’t like being threatened like this. I clenched my jaw, biting back the seething anger that was creeping up.
“No, you can’t,” I said. “You’re living undermyroof. You’re acceptingmymoney. You’re takingmygifts without questions. The crib, the changing table, the dresser. Everything right down to the burp cloths and onesies. You wouldn’t have any of it without me.”
