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I feel my eyes beginning to fill with tears and only faintly hear Melanie saying my name.
“Amber,” she says softly. “Amber, is everything okay between you two?”
I try to swallow away the pain, the racing thoughts about Kaden likely erupting with rage the moment he finds out about the pregnancy. It looks, judging by the way the woman is clinging to his arm, that he is entirely ready to move on from our agreement. The pregnancy will be the final death blow.
“Yes, yes, sorry,” I say, wiping my eyes carefully with the back of my hand. “Melanie, who is that woman over there with Kaden?”
She turns lazily, the straw of her drink still lingering in her mouth as she regards Kaden and the mystery woman.
“Oh,” she says with a laugh. “That’s Kaden’s ex, Anna. She has big pull with a few of the clients. Rust has been trying to get them together again for years.”
My eyes fill with tears again, and I decide that I can no longer take this. I begin to move away from the bar, but Melanie catches my wrist.
“Amber, you are acting strange,” she says sincerely. “Kaden keeps looking over at you. Are you sure you’re okay?”
My emotions are a shaken bottle of champagne, ready to pop at any given moment. I don’t want to reveal the secret, so I simply nod, snatching my arm away from Melanie and turning away from the bar.
She may have been calling me, I have no idea. I just have to get away from everyone right now and get my shit together.
I zip past Kaden, not wanting him to see him, and try to find somewhere to hide. I go back around the property, thinking that it was the entryway, and come up to a spectacular botanical garden, with an iron gate and all.
Enter to encounter the magic of your own dreams, a sign reads.
I scoff and push through the gate. The garden is actually incredibly immaculate, a kaleidoscope of colors dim in the darkness, curves of a few petals lit softly by the gleam of the moon. I could appreciate it more if I wasn’t feeling so damn frazzled.
I move through the vast garden and find a bench at the center of it, along a glowing path lit by solar lights. I sit down and let my body go limp, my face falling into my hands to weep.
“What the hell am I doing?” I say to myself.
I can no longer see any way out of this conundrum. Kaden doesn’t want children. I can’t picture him changing his mind for the one that is half him and half me currently growing in my womb.
He will likely start the divorce proceedings early, encourage me to get an abortion, or simply abandon me. Though he doesn’t seem like he has the character for that, I have seen men do far worse. Even in the case of something they are genetically linked to.
I cry into my hands, no longer caring about the streak of makeup likely staining my face. Here I have gone and fallen for someone who had helped me drastically years before, made an absurd deal with, and now, I am carrying his child. Why in God’s name did I think this was going to work outwell?
The tears continue to flow. In between them, I hear the crunch of footsteps along the pathway. I am startled when I look up to see Kaden, handsome in his lilac and gray suit, looking down at me with concern and surprise.
“Amber, what is going on?”
36
KADEN
When my grandfather pulls me away from Amber, I instantly feel distant from her and irritated. I was planning on talking to her, perhaps later that night, about what has been going on. I was hoping even at the party we could have a moment. Maybe not to talk seriously, but at least to connect.
To be honest, I should have known better. These events are for business, and business only.
He talks to me about his retirement, which he is going to announce tonight. In another world, I would have been ecstatic to chat all about this. Right now, all I can do is shift my eyes over, quickly and subtly, to where I can see Amber and Melanie leaning up against the bar.
I nod along to my grandfather, which is often all he needs to see. It is then that I feel someone tugging at my arm, tucking their own underneath it like we had done it a thousand times before.
“Fancy meeting you here.”
I glance down, and my stomach turns to see who it is. It is Morine, though she publicly goes by her middle name of Anna. She is my ex-girlfriend and from a very influential family. My grandfather has been trying to get us back together for months, all to no avail.
I look at him scornfully, curious if he was the one who had encouraged her to catch me off guard. I thought he liked Amber. He ignores my look and claps his hands together jovially.
“Oh, it is a small world, indeed!” he exclaims. “It is wonderful to see you again, Morine. Isn’t it, Kaden?”
