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“I got fired. Again.” I close my eyes against the hot sting of fresh tears.
“Wait, Cole’s dad can do that? Is this because of the dumb board vote or whatever? I’m sure if you tell Cole, he’ll go to bat for you, he won’t let his dad treat you like this—”
“Colefired me,” I say. “And I’m pregnant.” I burst out crying again, my shoulders shaking.
“Tell me where you are. I’m coming to get you,” Maddy orders. “And then I’ve got a billionaire to murder.”
Two hourslater I’m swaddled in blankets on Maddy’s couch, clutching a mug of hot chocolate. Her husband appeared about an hour ago with two grocery bags full of comfort food, then he quickly made himself scarce.
I told Maddy the whole sorry story. Including the part where I was all set to tell him I loved him and ask him for a real relationship.
“It just doesn’t make sense,” Maddy says, shaking her head over her own hot chocolate. She’s sitting on the other end of the couch, facing me.
“Of course it makes sense,” I say bitterly. “I’m cursed. Any time I let myself care for a guy, for a job, instant heartbreak. It’s the pattern of my fucking life. I cared about him, so he broke my fucking heart.”
“No, but this was different. You didn’t care for him. Youlovedhim. You said it yourself—he was different.”
I glare. “Salt in the wound, Maddy.”
“Sorry, I just mean, you’ve got pretty good people instincts. Even when you dated assholes before, you always held some part of yourself back.” She looks at me intently. “This time you didn’t. So I’m asking, what if you weren’t wrong? What if he doesn’t know you’re pregnant?”
“Oh, so he just fired me for some other imaginary cause,” I snort. “How is that any better?”
She sighs. “I guess it’s not.” She slumps down into the couch. “I just wanted a happy ending for you, for once. You deserve it.”
I don’t say anything. I think if I do, I’ll start crying again. I’m too worn out for that.
“At least you got the money,” Maddy offers, half-heartedly. “There’s more than enough to start your company and cover the costs of having a kid. And when you eventually run out, you can sue his billionaire ass for child support.”
I give a broken laugh.
“I’m serious,” Maddy says. “You’ve always wanted a kid. And you’ve always wanted to run your own business. Now you have the money to do both.”
“I know.” My heart aches. I look away, setting down my hot chocolate. “But I didn’t want to do either of those things alone. And for a moment there, I thought I wasn’t going to have to.”
Maddy sets down her own mug. She crawls to my end of the couch, wrapping her arms around me in a giant hug. “You’re not alone,” she says. “You have me.”
I know what she means. But it’s not the same.
Still, it’s what I have now. So I hug her back and say, “I love you.”
She holds me until I’m ready to let go.
25
COLE
Everyone at work is an idiot. My clients, my employees, our board members. Everyone. They’ve all been idiots since three days ago, when I found out about Amelia’s betrayal.
I cracked and called Amelia last night. Just like I called her the night before that, and the night before that. I just want an explanation. Something to help me understandwhyshe did it. Because once I was home alone, without my dad or the board to distract me, I started realizing it didn’t make any sense.
Amelia wouldn’t do something like that. Not without a good reason.
But I have no way of finding out what that reason is since she’s not answering my calls.
Maybe my dad’s right. Maybe the reason is that she found my love abhorrent. After all, I let her see all the ugliest parts of me. Even when I did nice things for—making her breakfast, calling a company snow day, commissioning those earrings—I did my best to make it seem like they didn’t mean anything.
I’m shit at loving people. She saw it firsthand and didn’t want any part of it.
