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“What the fuck are you talking about?” I hissed.
“I’m pregnant,” she said again. “Eight weeks according to the ultrasound I had this morning. And you’re the father.”
“I can’t—you’re on—” I couldn’t grasp a single thought and speak it with any sort of coherence. This day…it had been too much. I needed to sit Amara down, somewhere far more private than this board room, where I was sure her family waited outside, eavesdropping on our conversation. We needed to have a frank conversation, discuss next steps,fixthis fucking shitstorm we’d found ourselves in the middle of.
“Birth control is fallible,” she said simply.
I knew she was right, that nothing was one hundred percent save abstinence. It’s not like we’d used condoms after that first time, and while I knew Amara was on the pill, I’d never stopped to consider the effectiveness of it.
As a man, I’d never considered that my job.
I should’ve been smarter.
Because now, this woman who clearly felt strongly for me—and not in a good way at the moment—was pregnant with my child.
As though all of my thoughts were being openly broadcast on my face like a sports ticker across the bottom of a television screen, Amara gave me a sad smile, the lone bit of sympathy she’d shown me since I walked into this room. She’d already come to terms with this, and knowing her, already had a plan in place for the future. Meanwhile, I was lost at sea, grappling for purchase as the waves crashed and crashed over my head.
While I drowned, Amara began gathering her things and took a step toward the door.
“No!” I shouted suddenly, shooting from my chair and halting her progress across the room.
Amara turned to me slowly, her family rallying at her back. “No, what?”
“You pull the pin on a grenade and launch it at my face and you expect me to just, what? Take that lying down? Absolutely fucking not. Sit down and talk to me like a grown up.”
“You have treated me like some vapid figurehead with one foot out the door since the moment the company got signed over to me, Calvin. You have gone behind my back to my sistersandmy parents, trying to stage some fucking coup, and you’re lecturingmeabout acting like a grown up? Fuck you. We’ll talk when you’ve had a chance to get your head on straight.”
And with that, Amara stormed from the room, leaving me standing in the middle of the wreckage of my life.
Once Amara left, Imoved to the conference table and leaned my hands against it, blankly staring out the windows at the vineyard beyond, the words of the last hour looping endlessly in my mind.
When I’d walked into the offices this morning, I’d known something was wrong, but I’d never anticipatedthis.I’d never expected my whole life to be upended and ripped to shreds in the span of sixty minutes.
Without my job, I was listless, floating in space. But there were other jobs. I could easily move away, move back out west to California, Oregon, or Washington. My winery experience would get me in the door at a number of places out that way. And if I wanted to leave wine altogether and enter an entirely new industry? Well, I could kiss a letter of recommendation from either of my former Delatou, Inc. bosses goodbye, but I had five and a half years of experience to draw from, and I was confident that would speak for itself.
But without Amara? I was untethered, on a hairpin trigger, the slightest pressure away from snapping completely.
I was just replaying the part when Lena spoke up that my attention snagged on her words.
Have you ever bothered to study our international distribution?
At the time, it hadn’t made any sense. There was absolutely no context to the question. But now, cycling it back, and knowing Lena the way I did, I realized—she’d said it for a reason. Most likely because she knew I hadn’t studied the international distribution as closely as I’d studied the statewide and national numbers since Amara had taken over. The international distribution numbers were solid, and had been for the last few years. Sure, I’d noticed a steady increase in sales in the last three or four, but I’d never given it a second thought. I figured it was a product of international consumers trying our wines and requesting them at new bars and restaurants.
But now, I wondered…
With a renewed sense of purpose, I rose from my chair and stalked down the hall to my office. Surprisingly, Jeff was MIA, so I pushed into the room, closing and locking the door behind me. I settled myself behind my desk and a few keystrokes had the international distribution reports from the last five years pulled up on my screen alongside the program I used to keep record of all receipts and credit card statements.
Amara’s receipts and company credit card.
It didn’t take me long to recognize the pattern, the realization drawing an uncharacteristic gasp from me.
Time and time again, every member of the Delatou family—hell, even Amara herself—had told me Amara wasn’t who I thought she was, had implored me to let go of my preconceived notions about her and see her for who she truly was. And here I’d been, moving along with the wool pulled over my eyes like a fucking putz.
Every single weekend, every “bender” I’d accused Amara of going on in all those old European cities? Each one directly corresponded to a large shipment of Chateau Delatou product being shipped out to various bars and restaurants in that area within a week of her visit.
The entire time I’d called her “party princess” and gave her shit for fucking around for five years, she’d been…working. Expanding the company’s reach, growing our distribution to include the hottest spots in the hottest cities across the European continent. Even after I’d found out about her MBA, hell even after I’d fallen in love with her, I’d still never considered she was capable ofthis.
I wasn’t big on social media. For a numbers guy, I’d never given a fuck about increasing my following, of broadcasting my entire life on the internet for strangers, of monetizing it. I loved my job—and I was good at it. I loved living in Traverse City, my dog, my friends.
