It was stupid, but I didn’t want the kid to think I’d ever considered an abortion.
Because I hadn’t.
I shrugged. “Never had a family, so this kid is it. Figured we’d stick it out together.”
At that, he pushed past me into the apartment, giving me no option other than to follow him back inside.
“Look, I’m sure you’re going to have a host of legal things for me to sign and stuff,” I said, following after him. “I’m not taking any money, which I’m sure is stupid considering you’re a billionaire, but I’m not letting you tie me up with a bunch of strings. I already talked to Tom…”
He shot me a look over his shoulder. “Tom Daniels knew about my child before I did?”
I rolled my eyes. Did he seriously think I was going to call him?
“Whatever,” he said, reading my expression and quickly getting over it. He was now moving towards my bedroom.
What the heck was he doing?
“I needed to understand my benefits,” I said, following him. “I’ve got six weeks paid maternity leave and I can take up to another six weeks in unpaid leave.”
He pulled something out of my closet and tossed it on the bed. I realized it was the duffel bag. The same one I’d packed that day in the motel room all those months ago. The one that had held all my worldly possessions.
All my worldly possessions and one other thing.
“Pack,” he said, pointing to the duffle bag. “Whatever you need to hold you over a few days. I’ll have someone come by and get the rest of your things.”
I crossed my arms over my chest.
“Hookay, so asking you on a scale of one to ten what kind of Neanderthal you’re going to be about this is probably pointless. We’re talking a solid one thousand?”
He whirled on me. “You’re carrying my child. You’re living in my house. You’re not working. You’re not takingpaid leave. You’re the mother of a future billionaire. Act like it.”
“This blows.” Probably not something the mother of a future billionaire should say, but it was how I felt.
“Tough.”
“So, the plan is straight up kidnapping me? That is youractualplan?”
He blinked. “You’re not packing. Why are you not packing?”
“Because I’m not going anywhere, E.G,” I groaned. “Because I’m staying here. I’m going to work at my new job on Monday, and you need to deal with that. When you’ve had time to think about this, we can talk. Right now, you’re over-reacting.”
He shook his head and sighed. His hands running down his face and looking at the ceiling as if praying to a higher power.
After a beat, he pinned me with his laser green eyes. “Flowers, you can’t win. You can’t even begin to fight me. My resources are endless. You know this. For the next nine monthsyou’re living with me, in my house, until you have my child. Then, and only then, will we have a conversation about our future.”
Our future. There was a time when I might have felt differently about that statement. But he was right. Fighting E.G. was like battling the ocean, or the sky, or outer space.
There was one thing he needed to understand, though. One thing that was non-negotiable.
I felt it, an instinct I didn’t know I had inside me. It felt similar to the emotion I’d felt when I saw the pink lines on the pregnancy test, only sharper. Darker.
More dangerous.
I walked up to E.G., got in his face, gripped his chin in my hand and forced him to look at me.
“You try to take my child, you try to use yourresourcesto separate me from my baby, and I’ll be gone. Into the wind. And you will never,never, find us. Are we clear about that?”
He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, I saw only sincerity.
