“It’s impressive that you kept it under wraps for as long as you did, darling, but the truth will come out eventually. We can’t have an escort sitting at the head table.”
“She’s not an escort,” I bit off.
My mother made a soft hum, her disagreement more than clear.
“Forget about me coming as well, then,” I said, mind racing.
“Jared!”
I stomped away, waving off the butler who tried to accost me and direct me to the dining room. I cut through the backyard to the helipad, blood boiling, wanting only one thing.
To see Iris.
I needed to hold her in my arms, because my world felt like it was crumbling around me. My best friend had found a new job. My family… I was seeing my family for who they really were. Callous, cold people who cared more about appearances than they did about their own people.
And how did my mother know? How could she possibly have found out? Did she have a spy on my legal team? Cole?
No, not Cole. He wouldn’t. Would he?
I’d figure this out, and I’d fix it. I wouldn’t let my mother’s callousness ruin the biggest business deal my company had ever made. I wanted to believe she wouldn’t do that, but how could I be sure?
She and my father had shipped me off to a top-rated boarding school because they didn’t have time for me. My brother was treated completely differently, the little prince of the family who could do no wrong. Those people didn’t love me. They didn’t care about me. None of them did.
The only person in my life who did was Iris. She had the ability to make me soften with nothing more than a look. She made me feel like I wasn’t raging against the storm on my own. She was my shelter. My woman. My rock.
And she’d finally sent me a text message. I’m beat, she wrote. Going to bed. Can I get a rain check on the snuggles?
Clipped into the helicopter as it took off, I read and reread the message a dozen or so times. Then I dropped my hands between my knees and let my head sink down, defeated.
Iris’s POV
It was a lie, of course. I wasn’t going to bed. I was pacing my apartment, staring at boxes, looking at my bed, opening the fridge, and trying to distract my mind from running circles around me.
Five minutes after telling Jared not to come over, I stared at another text message I’d typed out telling him to come over anyway. But my finger hovered over the “send” button, and I couldn’t make myself press down.
What was I doing?
Me, the placeholder, the stepping stone, the woman that no one really wanted. Did I honestly think that a handsome, successful, wealthy, charismatic man would choose me? Did I really think this was anything more than convenience?
I was a special kind of delusional.
Frustrated with myself, I stripped my shirt off and looked at myself in the mirror. I knew it was weeks and weeks too early to see a bump, but I still studied my reflection from all angles.
Maybe I’d made the whole pregnancy thing up. Maybe the tests I’d taken were faulty. And yes, I’d bought a new pack of three and taken them all today, and all of them proclaimed me well and truly pregnant.
There were probably things I should be doing-doctors’ appointments, vitamins, ultrasounds, and whatnot. I didn’t even know.
But doing them would require admitting to myself that I was pregnant. And it still didn’t feel quite real.
Or maybe it felt a little too real. Every little twinge, every slight wave of nausea that I normally would have dismissed as a strange quirk of my body was a reminder that there was an embryo inside me, and it was growing with every minute that passed.
And a little niggling thought made itself at home in my brain. If I was so replaceable, what would happen when Jared found out about the baby? Would I just be an incubator? Someone to carry his child, who was then tossed aside?
I put a hand against my bare stomach, a rejection screaming through me. I wouldn’t let him do that. I couldn’t.
Meeting my own gaze in the mirror, I realized what that meant.
I wanted this child.
But-that was crazy. I couldn’t?-
Points of pain peppered my scalp as I pulled at my hair, letting out a noise of frustration. It was better that I’d told Jared not to come; I didn’t want anyone seeing me like this.
My phone ringing made me jump. I turned it over to look at the screen, heart sinking at the sight of my mother’s name.
Two deep breaths later, I was reasonably sure my voice would come out okay. “Hi, Mom.”
“Honey! How’s my favorite girl?”
I leaned a hip against the bathroom vanity, arching my brows. Typically we sent each other holiday and birthday texts, and then let the guilt push us into a bi-yearly phone call that both of us hated. There was no favorite about it.
“I’m good,” I lied. “What’s up? Is everything okay?” I didn’t add, because it’s weird that you’re calling me, but based on my mother’s answering snort, I guessed she heard it anyway.
“Everything is great. I just made plans with the Williamses for the holidays. We’re going on a cruise!”
“Oh,” I said, surprised. “Right.”
“I assumed you’d be doing something fancy with those girlfriends of yours, which is why I didn’t ask if you were coming home for the holidays this year.”
“Yeah,” I said noncommittally. My girlfriends were all shopping ’til they dropped in Paris without me, so I most definitely was not spending the holidays with them.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.