Page 119 of Diego

I press one hand against it beneath the desk and stare at the closing statement on my monitor, willing the numbers to hold my attention. Purchase price, prorations, fees, credits. All wonderfully ordinary things that can't seem to keep my mind off the fact that I am pregnant with my client’s baby.

My former client’s baby, technically, once the papers are signed this afternoon.

It's not quite the distinction Diego seems to think it is.

I drag my attention back to the document and check another figure against Martin’s email. Everything matches. Of course it does. I have checked it three times already.

Keeping busy has worked remarkably well until now.

There has always been another email to answer, another document to review, another person to call. I have been able to keep moving and shove everything else into some distant corner of my brain where it cannot interfere with the work directly in front of me.

But the closer two o’clock gets, the harder that becomes.

Because I have to tell him.

I have known that from the moment I stared down at those two lines.

The doctor confirmed it afterward, removing whatever tiny irrational hope I might have had that the test was wrong. Pregnant. No ambiguity left to hide behind.

And Diego deserves to know.

I have turned over when and how to tell him so many times that I am sick of hearing my own arguments.

I considered waiting until tomorrow.

Today is a big day for him. He has been waiting weeks for this closing. He has complained about the delays every chance he got. He wants out of his nephews’ house, wants his own space again, wants the penthouse he chose and fought through five weeks of repairs to finally own.

So what am I supposed to do? Stand there while he gets the keys and then tell him, congratulations on the penthouse, also I’m pregnant?

My stomach churns harder.

Maybe I should let him have one day.

One evening.

One night where he gets to enjoy the thing he has been waiting for without me detonating a bomb in the middle of it.

The thought is tempting enough that I almost accept it.

Then I recognize it for what it is. An excuse.

A very convenient, very cowardly excuse.

There will always be another reason to wait. The day after closing, he will be moving. Then he will be settling in. Then there will be work. Family. Some dinner. Some meeting. Some perfectly legitimate reason why telling him tomorrow seems easier than telling him today.

And meanwhile, I will know. He will not.

That is not fair.

I lean back in my chair and slowly breathe in through my nose, hoping no one nearby notices that I am suddenly concentrating very hard on my next breath.

Diego is a family man.

That thought has been one of the few things keeping me from completely losing my mind.

Not family man in the married-with-two-kids sense, obviously. He is very much not that.

But family matters to him. I knew that before I even met him because it came through in everything I found during my research. Then I saw it myself while showing him houses. Every time I talked about space for his brothers, nephews, nieces, babies, future gatherings, he paid attention. The lake house almost convinced him because he could picture all of them there.