Page 193 of Say My Name

“Thursday was seventeen days after we were together. You looked sick, approached my office three times, and then requested leave.”

“Daniel had just appeared on a screen.”

“Which is why I treated it as a possibility, not an answer.”

I keep both hands flat on the table instead of reaching for her.

“The acquisition stays dead if you aren’t pregnant. It stays dead if you reject me or resign from Rowe Holdings. I won’t use a corporate decision to buy access to you.”

Her gaze shifts to the open laptop.

“You don’t owe me anything because I came here,” I say. “I needed you to know that before I asked for an answer.”

There are a dozen things I want from her. Forgiveness. Honesty. A life I haven’t been able to stop imagining since she first opened that damned donor binder.

None of them can be the price of what I chose this morning.

Her eyes find the laptop. “I was going to come home.”

The words hit me with enough force that my hand clenches on the edge of the table, the wood biting into my palm. Every prepared speech, every defense, evaporates.

My voice is a rough rasp. “What?”

“That’s what I was doing when you knocked.” She turns the screen toward me.

A flight search fills the browser window. The destination field says Chicago.

“You decided before I arrived?”

“Yes.”

Relief leaves me lightheaded.

Elena watches me, tears shining in her eyes. “I told you that you could come because I wanted to talk to you. But I didn’t know when you’d get here, and I wasn’t going to wait. I planned to take the first flight tomorrow.”

I close my eyes for a second.

She made the decision without me. I came here to meet her choice, exactly as I promised I would.

When I look at the laptop again, I notice another browser tab. Only part of the title is visible, but the name of an obstetrics practice is clear.

My pulse pounds once, hard enough to make me hear it.

Elena follows my eyes to the screen.

I force myself to remain seated. “Was that search for an appointment you thought you might need?”

Her fingers twist together in her lap.

“Or one you already know you need?” I ask.

She swallows, and her gaze holds mine. “One I know I need.”

My hands find my knees under the table, gripping them to stay seated. The air leaves my lungs. This is it. The question I flew across the country for, the one that changes everything.

“Tell me.”

Her eyes fill completely. “I’m pregnant.”