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I wanted her to start feeling at home in my life.
“This place is amazing,” Rena said, still looking around. “Did you do this?”
I shook my head. “No, I paid someone. The only things I chose myself are the paintings.”
Rena studied the few art pieces on the walls. “I’m impressed. I didn’t know you had an eye for art.”
I shrugged. “It’s not an eye for art. It’s an eye for expression. At least, that’s what one of the curators at an art gallery once told me.”
Rena smiled.
We walked through the kitchen and to the bar area where I made her a drink. Nothing alcoholic because she was pregnant. I put together a virgin cocktail, and she took it from me.
“Fancy,” she said.
I nodded. “I work as hard as I do so I can have the best. So why not?”
“Right,” Rena said and took a sip. I poured myself three fingers of whiskey. I needed a stiff drink after the last couple of days. And I needed to have another serious conversation with Rena tonight. I wanted her to move in with me so we could raise the baby here. I had space, and I wanted Rena to be comfortable.
We sat at the bar together, and it was a little awkward. I hated that it had come to this. I wasn’t sure where this thing between us had broken, but it wasn’t how it used to be with Rena. I wanted it back, and I didn’t know how to get there.
“I’m sorry about today,” I said. “I shouldn’t have ambushed you in the office like that.”
Rena shrugged. “I don’t think I would have listened if you did it differently. Next time I’ll take you up on your offer to talk somewhere privately.” She smiled at me, and I chuckled. It wasn’t easy to look back and laugh about what had happened yet, but we would get there eventually.
“Where did you see yourself in five or ten years’ time?” I asked.
Rena thought about it. “Not with a husband and kids, if that’s what you’re asking. To be honest, I never had a long-term plan. I was happy with my job, and I focused on that. Now that so much has changed, with you and me and with my sister, I will have to reevaluate, anyway.”
I nodded. She had a lot going on.
“What about you?” she asked.
“I never envisioned something like this,” I admitted. “Once upon a time I considered marriage. But that ship sailed long ago, and since then I only focused on my career, building my company bigger and stronger.”
“You thought about getting married?”
I nodded. “I was engaged. I was very young, and it didn’t last. I realized she was only with me because of the lifestyle I could offer her. I broke up with her when I realized it had nothing to do with me as a person.”
“She was after your money,” Rena said. She was starting to see where I was coming from. “I never wanted your money.”
“I know,” I admitted. “And I couldn’t understand it. It made me nervous. To me, spoiling you is a way of showing affection. I don’t know anything else. It was how my father showed us affection, too.”
Rena frowned. “That sounds cold.”
“It was. My parents were very distant from each other since I could remember. When they got divorced, my father stopped giving us money to survive. It was why I started working so hard to have my own money.”
I didn’t know why I told Rena all of that. I hadn’t talked about it in years. My father had been heartless and cold, and my mother had been unable to look after us emotionally because she had been so broken herself. But telling someone else about it all had seemed out of the question.
It flowed with Rena, and her reaction after I told her—understanding but not pitying—didn’t make me regret it.
“I want to do it right this time,” I said. “If we’re going to have a family I want to give my kids everything I needed but never had.”
I watched Rena’s face as she took in what I was saying. My stomach was bunched into a fist of nerves. I still didn’t know if she would rather get rid of the child. I was terrified that as soon as I had managed to open up and care about something, she would rip it all away from me. I had worked so hard to be invincible. When I wasn’t attached, I couldn’t get hurt. But I was very vulnerable now.
