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“You know you need to tell him, honey,” she said to me.
I shook my head, adamant. “He wants nothing to do with me. He left the bar with that blonde. The same day we’d hooked up. He was out picking up women at a bar, hours later. Does that sound like a man who wants to co-parent with me and act mature and considerate of my needs? No. It does not. It sounds like a man who wants to get off with anyone that moves, and it sounds like I’m an idiot who slept with him even though I knew his reputation.”
“He’s not a bad guy,” Michelle said. “And I know you’re hurt by the way he acted. But that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t stand up and be a dad and be involved in his kid’s life.”
“Oh, and another thing. I could be an unemployed single mom if word gets out that I’m carrying his baby. Because it would look like I gave him the bid on the community center in exchange for sexual favors. I would be fired so fast, not to mention the fact I could be charged with corruption over favoritism in hiring. It’s a shit show. I have made an entire shit show of my life. It’s all my own fault. I’m not blaming him. I just made a series of really bad choices that could ruin my career and put my baby’s future in jeopardy.”
I started crying again. I felt so ashamed, so guilty for everything I’d done, how careless I’d been. I knew better than to hook up with a contractor working for my organization. I knew better than to catch feelings for some playboy alpha male. But here I was, pregnant and alone and with my job hanging in the balance. They both sat down by me and hugged me while I cried. Every time I thought I could calm down and catch my breath, I just started sobbing again. I was a puffy, snotty mess. And so, so thankful for my best friends who were here to help me get through this.
“Noah won the bidding for the build before you were ever with him,” Michelle said. “So there was no favoritism.”
“Yeah,” I sniffed, “but no one can prove we didn’t start seeing each other before that. It looks bad. I can’t tell him, and let word get out that we were together. I’ve made more than enough mistakes already. I can’t put my career on the line for a man I mean so little to. Not when telling him I’m pregnant is going to cost me my job and my professional reputation. No one else is going to hire the city planner who screwed an employee and got pregnant and got fired over the corruption scandal.”
“Do you really think he would tell everyone?” Trix asked. “He isn’t the monster you think he is. I know it’s the hurt talking, and the anxiety. But the guy isn’t going to go brag to everybody that he knocked you up. You can tell him it has to be kept quiet till after the center is built. He’d keep your secret.”
“You say that, but you didn’t let him fuck you in your office during working hours and then watch him follow another woman out of the bar that night to go do God knows what with. Forgive me if my impression of his loyalty is a little skewed by that experience,” I spat hotly. I started to cry again. “Why am I so stupid? Why did I do this to myself?”
Michelle put her arms around me again and let me sob.
23
Noah
She’d made herself pretty clear. Nicole had been back in the office for three days and I hadn’t so much as seen her face. She didn’t come to the job site to breathe down my neck and make her bossy suggestions and make me rock hard and distracted anymore.
She sent some guy, an office intern, out every day to check on the progress, and once to deliver a message for me. It was just a sticky note that said I could give my reports to Justin the intern from now on and contact him if there were any issues. I had been downgraded from enemy and fuck buddy to you-can-report-to-my-underling. She was treating me like garbage on her shoe, like a peasant. I wasn’t worth her crossing the goddamn street to check out the progress on the build that had supposedly been a pet project of hers. She didn’t seem very attached to it now, and she sure as hell didn’t act like she gave a damn about me.
I wanted to storm into her office, make her look me in the face. I wanted to kiss her until all that ice melted, until her frosty attitude burned up in all that passion. I was aching for her. I missed how excited I was when I saw her and when we sparred verbally over the budget or the schedule. The way my heart pounded, and the adrenaline rush I got from going head-to-head with someone who could keep up with me, who was clever enough and tough enough to give it right back to me. She thrilled me, and I was irritated that I missed her so bad.
