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I suppose that’s the last hope I can cling to. If it turns out he’s not the father, then I can continue with this pregnancy without the burden of an arrogant, demanding, billionaire baby daddy strapped to my hip for the next eighteen years.
If it turns out he is the father… well, then surely that entitles me to a few extra months of maternity leave, right?
The waitress comes back with our drinks. My Coke on the rocks is offered without so much as a glance in my direction. But Dmitri’s vodka is set down with a smile that makes me want to roll my eyes until they never come back down.
“There you go, sir. Anything else I can get you?”
Those silver eyes slide to me. “Are you hungry, Wren?”
“N-no,” I stutter out of pure panic. I was mentally prepared for drinks with a stranger, not a whole meal with my boss. My survival instincts have already kicked into flight mode. Run far away and never return, they’re screaming. I just want to get back home to solidify my butt imprint on the sofa and finish up the half-eaten tub of Häagen-Dazs that’s calling out to me from the freezer.
I might have to take it easy on the fancy ice cream now that I’m with child, though. Babies are expensive.
“I’m good,” I add so as not to be rude. Then, reluctantly, “… Thanks.”
His face ripples with what I can only assume is relief. I try not to take that personally. Just because he handles curveballs with an immaculate poker face doesn’t mean he isn’t just as worried and uncomfortable as I am.
“This is why you seemed off this morning.” There it is again: that softness in his face, same as I saw earlier today.
Just like then, it makes me terrifyingly uncomfortable.
My stomach twists. “Yes… I had just found out.”
For a moment, I consider telling him about everything that brought us here. About how this pregnancy was never meant to be about me. It was all for them: the last two people in the world that I could call family.
But I clamp my mouth shut at the final moment and reach for my Coke instead. There’s no point in sharing the personal shitshow that is my life with Dmitri Egorov.
For one, he definitely doesn’t care.
For another, he’s still my boss.
And whichever way this paternity result goes, I need to keep this job.
“Hand me your phone,” Dmitri commands abruptly.
“Excuse me?”
“I’m giving you my personal number. If anything comes up—and I mean anything at all—you call me.”
“Um, I thought you wanted a paternity test first?” I say, blinking stupidly. “We don’t know if the baby is yours yet.”
He lets out a little sigh that has my nether regions tingling. “Until we do, I’m working under the assumption that it’s mine. And I always take care of what is mine.”
Mine. What a word. It morphs into something more and more terrifying every time one of us says it.
That tingle spreads slowly until it blankets all of me and sinks lower, lower, lower. It’s a dangerous feeling. But what’s even more dangerous is the thought that comes with it. As I stare at this infuriating, gorgeous, bossy, protective, rich, arrogant, too-full-of-contradictions-to-be-summed-up-in-one-adjective man, all my mind can conjure up is…
As far as baby daddies go, I could have done a lot worse.
4
DMITRI
“Mr. Egorov.”
My mood is bad enough as it is. Seeing this human tracking device lurking in the foyer of my penthouse does not help at all.
“Dante,” I spit at him. “Is there a reason you’re here?”
