She tips her head to the side. “You’re acting as if you’re powerless, but you’re not. You keep acting as if you have no choices, Maddie, but every time you avoid a decision, you still make one. I say this only because I love you, but you need to stop being so passive. You chose not to tell Caesar you knew who he was at the ball. You chose not to tell him you were pregnant. You chose silence because you were afraid. Now you have to choose what kind of life you want. For example, are you going to keep the baby? Because you don’t have to. Fuck everyone else. It’s your body. Your decision. If you want to… you know… I’ll come with you.”
I rest my hand on my stomach. “No. I’m going to keep it.”
She frowns. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but why? Mistakes happen, and it’s always the women who have to suffer.”
“It was an accident,” I say fiercely, “but it wasn’t a mistake.”
She looks into my eyes. Then she murmurs, “Okay.”
I look down, imagining my body swelling as the baby grows. “He said he wants to be involved with the baby.”
“Oh?”
“But not with me.”
She tips her head from side to side. “Give him time, and maybe he’ll come around.”
“I don’t think so,” I say sadly. “He thinks sleeping with me was a mistake. He assumes I tried to trap him, and I think he hates me a little for it.”
“Men don’t storm into office buildings and make scenes because they don’t care,” she says.
My mouth opens, but no words come out.
“He’s hurt,” she says softly. “He feels manipulated, and understandably so. If he didn’t love you, this would all be much simpler.”
“What? He doesn’t love me.”
“If you say so.” But her expression tells me she thinks I’m wrong.
Is it true? Caesar and I hardly know each other. Love’s something that grows over time.
But even as I think it, it dawns on me. I’min lovewith him. I have no doubt about that at all. I fell for him at the ball, maybe even before we slept together.
Is it possible he’s in love with me, too? If he is, it completely reframes his actions.
“He thought you were pregnant with another man’s baby,” Brielle says. “No wonder he tore through the office like a tornado. You belong to him, in his eyes.”
I think of his words, almost straight after I confirmed I was pregnant. He didn’t call me names or tell me I was despicable for lying. He said, “I could have hurt you.”
Ohhh shit. I’ve been a complete and utter idiot.Again.
Chapter Twenty
Caesar
“Bro? You okay?”
I turn my swivel chair from where I’m looking out of the window at the view across Waitemata Harbour. It’s Marcus, and he closes my office door behind him, then comes up to my desk and plonks a takeaway coffee cup in front of me. Taking the seat on the other side of my desk, he stretches out his legs and waits for me to answer.
“I’m fine,” I reply curtly.
Marcus sips from his cup and says, “You don’t look fine. And you didn’t look fine when you stormed out of the boardroom.” He fixes me with a direct gaze. “I called Rutherfords and they said there’d been some kind of nuclear explosion that had blown through the building. Did you manage to see her before their security wrestled you to the floor?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Tough.” He hesitates, and his brows draw together. “I know what Aurelia said hurt your feelings. I can only imagine how it felt to know the girl you loved is pregnant by someone else. But there’s more at stake here than your love life.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” I glare at him. “That’s the whole issue. Tom Rutherford is behind everything, and I’m so angry I could spit.”
