I titled my head slightly, wondering why he was asking. He hardly ever asked about me.
“Since I saw you two days ago?” I asked, raising a brow.
“Yeah, well, we hardly saw you at the golf thing.”
“Charity event,” I corrected him, hating that he was downplaying such a big event for what was now my company.
“Right.” He waved me off and popped a cherry tomato in his mouth, slowly chewing and waiting for some sort of answer from me. I didn’t give him one, though. My mother looked between us awkwardly.
What the hell is going on?
“I think I’m going to get a drink,” I said, looking around for our server, but she was nowhere in sight. I stood from the table to head to the bar. “Does anyone need anything?”
Everyone shook their heads, mouths full. I left the table and found an empty spot at the bar, feeling relieved to get away from whatever awkwardness was going on at the table. I ordered another beer and drummed my fingers on the glossy wood bar top as I waited. Someone came and sat down beside me, and I knew it was Greg without having to look up.
“I could have gotten you something,” I said without looking at him, drowning the last of my beer as I waited for another.
“I’m good. Thanks.”
The bartender slid over my beer, and I handed him a twenty. “Keep the change.”
“I wanted to talk to you,” said Greg as I stood up to return to the table. I let out a breath and sat back down, bracing myself for whatever annoying thing he had a problem with now.
“About?” I asked, leaning my back against the bar top.
“What’s going on with you and that woman, Gabriella?”
I almost choked on my beer. As if it was any of his business what was going on with her, and also, why the hell was he asking? We were nothing but professional at the event, keeping our distance most of the time, until she told me she was pregnant, and no one had been around for that. After I had left her in that room, I had wanted to get the hell out of there. I only stayed because I knew I was the new face of the company, but my head was somewhere else entirely. I assumed she had left because I hadn’t seen her again the rest of the event.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I shrugged.
“I know something is going on between you two,” he said adamantly.
“You’re wrong.” I stood from my seat and made to leave back to the table, not wanting to talk about my private life with Greg. He was the last person I wanted to talk to about anything.
“What are you going to do about the baby?” he called after me.
I stopped in my tracks, my heart jumping to my throat and pounding violently there. I whipped around.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked, my hands shaking.
“We know she’s pregnant…” he said warily.
“We?” I asked, raising a brow, not quite sure I was hearing him right.
“Your mother and me.”
It felt like the room had started spinning and I was at the very center of it, trying to find something to grab onto. I didn’t understand how they knew, but then I remembered Gabriella saying something about them after she told me she was pregnant. I just couldn’t hear her through the waves of my life crashing down around me.
“Shetoldyou?” I asked incredulously, taking a step toward him.
“Your mother guessed,” he said with a nervous shrug. “I want you to know we are here for you. Both of you. Your mother and I. Whatever you decide to do.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I had no intention of telling anyone about Gabriella being pregnant, but it didn’t matter because that opportunity had been ripped away from me and now my business was out there. I hated that Greg knewsuch an intimate part of my life and that he was all of a sudden stepping in to be some sort of “father figure.” It was laughable.
“It’s none of your business what I decide.” I sneered. “The fact that you’re even bringing this up is fucking ridiculous. You’re not my father.”
I looked across the restaurant to where my mother sat, and now I understood what had been weighing heavily on her mind. I just wished she had been the one to talk to me, and not send Greg. It pissed me off.
