What doesthatmean? What I am to him?
I clear my throat, eager to end the conversation. “If there’s one thing I want you to know after this, it’s that you don’t own me. You give me a paycheck; I give you good work. And if you think it’s anything more than this, I’ll walk as soon as this proposal is in.”
“Easy for you to say when you don’t own the risk like I do.”
Another laugh shoots out of me. “You don’t get to run my life.”
Those obsidian slits return. I can sense I’m really testing his patience.
“If your life affects mine and my company, then yes—I get to run your life.”
Something in me snaps. All of the exhaustion, the fear, the humiliation of being shadowed and ordered around—everything boils up at once.
“You don’t get to treat me like this!” I fire back, my voice shaking. “I’m a grown woman, a professional, a mother…”
Shit.
The words rip free before I can stop them, and they came out way louder than I’d intended. There’s no taking them back.
Silence detonates between us. The city outside seems to hush.
Sasha’s expression doesn’t change right away, as if what I said is taking a second to land. And then it does. He looks at me like the floor’s about to drop out from underneath him. No sound, no movement. Just that black, unblinking stare. My own pulse won’t slow. I’m trembling, more scared than I’ve ever been in my life.
All this work I’ve done to keep the secret, and now it’s out, just like that.
Something flickers in his eyes, and he slowly stands. The chair rolls back. He comes around the desk, and he takes three long steps, closing the distance between us and looming over me in that way I hate and love at the same time.
“Say it again.” His voice is deeper, calmer.
I take a deep breath, then raise my eyes to him. “I’m pregnant,” I say. “I’ve been going to the clinic. Not a bar.”
Silence.
“A… baby.”
Then he does something I’m not expecting at all. He drops to his knees.
It’s not graceful. It’s the sight of a man brought down by something bigger than he knows how to carry. One of his hands lifts like it takes great effort. Then his palm settles, lightly, on my belly through my blouse.
His eyes close.
I’ve never seen him like this before. I don’t know how to feel. Sasha, this man, this titan, on his knees in front of me, his hand on the child growing inside my belly. Calling it surreal would be the understatement of the goddamn century.
The silence becomes too much.
“Sasha, say something.”
When he speaks, his voice isn’t smooth. It’s rough with some emotion I don’t understand. “You’re both mine. Forever.”
Relief rushes up hot, because hiding this secret has been a hell of a weight to carry, and now it’s over. And he’s happy. Then fear comes in next, sharp, tinged with worry for the future.
Andfinally, anger.
Mine, like we’re property.
Then there’s this terrible aching tenderness I don’t have a name for.
I step back. His hand falls away.
