by Lexi Wilson
“My new girlfriend is pregnant, and I want to marry her before the kid is born. I don’t think that’s such a bad thing. I honestly thought you’d be thrilled to be free of me.”
A harsh laugh escaped my lips. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
Blaine winced. “Morgan, I don’t—what? Don’t you want a divorce? You have to know we’re never getting back together. Is that what this is about? Were you lying earlier?”
My eyes narrowed. “Oh, don’t worry. I don’t want to get back together with you, and yes, I want a divorce. I’ll sign your stupid papers. It’s like you said, it’s not like we have anything to split up at this point.”
“Then why are you so angry?” A look of genuine confusion lay on his face.
“Why am I so angry?” I shook my head. “You don’t remember me begging and pleading to try for another baby? You don’t remember how you told me no, how you weren’t going to ever go through that again, and how you’d come to terms with not ever having kids? Apparently, that was all bullshit, and you just didn’t want to have another child with me.”
Blaine shrugged. “Times change, Morgan. People change. This is a good thing for both of us. You shouldn’t be so hung up on the past.”
My husband had helped concentrate the pain of my son’s death into something deeper, more terrible. I found that even my hands itched to slap him for his nonchalant attitude. He’d helped rip my heart out and now acted like it was no big deal.
“I can’t believe your gall,” I all but yelled.
When Daniel had come in, it’d been obvious that he’d made up an excuse to intrude. I didn’t think he’d overheard all the details, but I also couldn’t deal with him at that moment. I could see the anger in his eyes when I’d sent him off.
My hands shook as I held the divorce papers in my hand, my heart still racing, and my stomach tight. I’d spent two years destroyed over our child, and Blaine had moved on effortlessly.
I threw the papers on my desk and marched over to Daniel’s door. I threw it open.
He blinked and looked up from his desk. “Morgan?”
“I need to go. Now.” I spun on my heel and marched toward the hallway.
“Morgan, where are you going?” he called.
“Out,” I yelled back, “and I won’t be back today.”
I made it out into the hall and half-expected Daniel to grab my arm and pull me back in, but he didn’t. I continued on to the elevator, trembling. Damn it, Blaine had ruined everything,
I stared down at the simple gravestone that read BRANDON LANNISTER. I fell to my knees, tears streaming down my cheeks.
The tears turned into sobs wracking my body. It was unfair, so damn unfair. My son hadn’t been allowed a real life, and my marriage had snapped under the strain. I’d thought we’d both felt it, but now I realized that Blaine had moved on.
Of course he had, right to another woman to get her pregnant. I continued to sob. I was the one who had been denied her dreams of being a mom and had been made to suffer and feel selfish and guilty for the idea.
I lifted my head. I’d not been to the graveyard since my baby was buried.
“I’m so sorry,” I cried. “So sorry for everything.”
I collapsed fully to the cold ground, continuing to cry, completely overwhelmed. The seconds turned into minutes, and as they ticked by, my tears began to dry. As they did, I realized something.
My heart felt lighter, as if the pain had drained away with my tears.
I sat up and brushed some dirt off my clothes. The last two years I’d been living a half-life, still stuck on my poor baby.
Maybe I couldn’t forgive Blaine for being so selfish and making my pain so much worse, but it didn’t matter. I still could seize back my life and move on.
With a sigh, I got to my feet. I wondered now about Daniel and Sasha, and how authentic my feelings were for them. Did I truly care for them, or were they simply filling the hole in my heart?
Still feeling weak, I walked toward my car. I had a lot to think about.
Chapter 31
Daniel
My heavy eyelids lifted, and I found myself staring up at a still ceiling fan. My aching back suggested I’d not slept all that comfortably. I shook my groggy head in a feeble attempt to clear it.
I wasn’t in my bedroom. It took me several seconds to realize I was on a couch in the living room. I sat up, and the blanket over me fell to the ground.
The memories came back. Sasha wouldn’t fall asleep in her room for some reason, so I’d hit on the idea of having her sleep downstairs. I’d hoped the change of scenery would get her to calm down. What a disaster of a plan.
Of course, now that it was morning, Sasha slept soundly in her playpen, just a few feet from the couch. I shook my head, trying to be grateful for the little sleep I’d managed to get, for both myself and the baby.
At least she’d slept for a couple hours, from what I could remember from the night before anyway. In truth, it’d been our worst night in a while. Sasha didn’t want to go to sleep for more than a few minutes at a time. I’d tried everything I’d learned since she was born, but she just didn’t want to do anything but cry and scream.
I wasn’t all that surprised. Honestly, I’d even kind of expected it. After all, there was one major difference between the night before and our recent nights that had been more peaceful. One big difference—Morgan hadn’t been there. Sasha had missed her. I knew I certainly did.
With a sigh, I stood from the couch. Morgan had never gotten in touch with me after she took off from work, and the sting of that still lingered. That said, I could be angry as her boss, but I didn’t really have much of a leg to stand on otherwise.
We’d never talked about any sort of relationship and convincing her to stay with me for a few nights wasn’t the same thing as telling her I loved her and wanted an actual relationship with her. I’d convinced myself that she felt the same way I did, but I’d not heard her say that.
The whole thing was nothing more than assumptions driven by my fear of being honest with her. I snorted at the thought. I could negotiate billion-dollar deals, but I was afraid to tell a woman I loved her. Weak. Pathetic. No wonder she didn’t come back.
For all I knew, Morgan might think of me as a guy who wanted a convenient nanny who would also bang him on the side. Obviously, I’d have to be more open and direct about what I wanted and what I felt. Otherwise, I wasn’t going to have any chance of keeping her.
I still had no idea what Blaine had said to her, but it had obviously re-opened old wounds. Maybe it had been something about their child. I couldn’t be angry with Morgan for not being prepared for an ambush by her husband. Or the torrent of emotion that must have stirred up, no matter what he’d had to say.
Hell, I’d failed her. I should have protected her by tossing his ass out of the office the minute he’d shown up. I’d let my own insecurities brush over my duties as a man to my woman, and now we were both paying the price.
I’d thought about calling her after her abrupt departure from work, but I also understood that she needed time to process whatever Blaine had said to her. I doubted she would have run off like that if he’d been trying to reconcile, but that might have just been the self-delusion of a jealous man.
I stared down at the sleeping baby in the playpen. Whatever was going on with Morgan didn’t change my responsibilities. I still had a company to run and a baby to take care of. I couldn’t sit on my couch all day pouting about what I should have done the day before.
That left the next step undecided.
Furrowing my brow, I considered staying home but then decided against it. I had some meetings at the building today, and I didn’t want to disrupt the momentum I’d re-established at the company. Plus, since Morgan hadn’t bothered contacting me, the only chance I might have of talking to her about what had happened was at work.
If she hadn’t been planning to come in, she would have texted me. Whatever was going on between us wa
s one thing, but the woman was nothing if not professional.
I spared one last glance at the sleeping baby and headed for the stairs. I needed to shower before the baby woke up.
An hour later, I stepped from the elevator into the hallway, infant seat in hand. Sasha wasn’t asleep, but at least she wasn’t fussy. Instead, she just looked around, as if taking in the smallest details of the environment.
I was a jaded middle-aged man who had experienced the world, but Sasha was still a new baby. Almost everything was new to her, even the most common colors, sounds, and smells.
I marched down the hall as I thought that over.
As I opened the door to the office area, I stepped inside. The light was already on, and Morgan sat at her desk, looking poised and professional, tapping away at her computer like nothing had ever happened.
Relief washed over me at first. Deep down I’d been worried if she’d show up at work, but then my stomach twisted as I realized something. It wasn’t like she was just acting like nothing had happened with Blaine, but like nothing had happened between us. Like she hadn’t run out of the office and never bothered to call me. Like I wasn’t important at all.
Fear and anger warred inside me, paralyzing me for a moment. I loved Morgan, but I had no idea if she loved me. It was hard to know when she would go through something so upsetting but not tell me anything about it, or even to call me later to let me know she was okay.
It all came down to the same question. What the hell were we? I felt like if we didn’t establish that in the next hour or so, then everything was lost, and I’d have to give up on us ever being together.
Maybe that was paranoia. I couldn’t be sure. All I knew was that I wasn’t ready to let go of Morgan. Not yet, anyway.
“Good morning,” I said.
“Good morning,” Morgan said, but she didn’t even take her eyes off her computer.
I managed not to frown at the polite but simple reply. I couldn’t believe she would run out of the office like that, then not even offer an apology.
Maybe it was just me she didn’t care about. I doubted she’d be so cold to my niece.
I set the infant seat next to the playpen and pulled Sasha out of it. She gurgled a bit but didn’t start fussing. I lowered her into the playpen and headed toward my desk, watching Morgan the whole way.
Once I entered my office, I didn’t close the door. I wanted to see what Morgan would do. I found it hard to believe she wouldn’t say anything more after the dramatic way she’d left the day before. Even if she didn’t want to do anything right away, she’d break down. It’d be too awkward otherwise.
Fifteen seconds passed. Thirty. A minute. Five minutes.
The entire time, Morgan didn’t pull her attention from her computer. She didn’t come and talk to me, which stung, but she also didn’t even check on Sasha, even though she loved to play with the baby for at least a few minutes each morning. Instead, she just sat at her desk, tapping away.
The phone rang, and she picked up and had a short conversation, but it was like Sasha and I didn’t even exist, or even if we did, we were nothing more than furniture that could be safely ignored.
I took several deep breaths as my pulse pounded in my ears. The evidence pointed toward a painful conclusion. Had Morgan decided to cut us out of her life? It would probably hurt me more than her.
She could easily argue that she should continue her job, and it wasn’t like I could fire her for not wanting to sleep with me or take care of my niece anymore. Not that I’d want to continue working with her, but I also didn’t want to punish her for the whole thing.
I scrubbed a hand over my face. This is why it was a bad idea to date people who worked for you, and why it was an even more terrible idea to get them involved in your personal family business.
My fingers curled into fists atop my desk as my mind raced in several panicked directions all at once. The whole thing was driving me crazy.
If things were going to be over, I deserved to know up front, rather than her pretending like nothing had happened the day before. Even if I hadn’t confessed my feelings, I also wasn’t Blaine, and I didn’t deserve to be pushed away like nothing because of another man.
Damn it. The wait and see approach just wasn’t working.
I stood, my hands still in fists, and headed toward her desk, my heart pounding. If Morgan wasn’t going to approach me, then I’d need to drag the truth out of her, no matter how uncomfortable it was.
She looked up as I moved in front of her desk. I pulled a chair from the side and dropped into it, heaving a great sigh.
“We need to talk,” I said. “And I don’t think it can wait.”
“About what?”
Her face held no indication of concern, which made anger flare in me. I didn’t like the idea that I was suffering so much, but she didn’t even care.
“Come on, you know about what,” I said, keeping my voice calm. The last thing I wanted to do was yell at her or be loud around the baby.
Morgan shook her head. “There’s a lot going on, so you’ll need to be way more specific if you want to have a conversation about any of it.”
I gritted my teeth. “Maybe I’ve screwed this up by being a coward. Maybe I’ve screwed this up by not being honest about my feelings.” I shook my head. “But that ends here and ends now. I know what I feel for you.”
“And what is that?”
“I’m in love with you.”
Morgan’s face twitched, but she mostly kept a neutral expression.
“And I can’t sit in my office not knowing what’s going on with you, especially if you’re thinking about cutting me and Sasha out of your life. I’m tired of running or waiting. So I need to know what’s going on with you. And with us.”
I slumped back in my chair and let out a long sigh. It was time to wait and see if my personal life had been destroyed.
Chapter 32
Morgan
Daniel had made his feelings clear. He loved me, and I knew I loved him. At least now I knew how each of us felt.
Fear was etched deeply in Daniel’s face, like he thought I was about to tell him I was done with him and Sasha.
I’d been a bitch really. Daniel wasn’t Blaine. He wasn’t the one that had hurt me, yet I’d been cold and unfeeling to him.
Even if I’d been trying to work out whether I should have left, it wasn’t fair to him. All night I’d tossed and turned, thinking about quitting my job and maybe even moving away in order to escape all the dark memories, but then I realized how stupid that was.
Soon, everything would be over with Blaine, and I could move on. I shouldn’t have taken my frustration out on Daniel, but at the same time, I couldn’t help but be afraid. All the old wounds being reopened made me not want to trust him, and by the time I’d gotten to work, I’d half-convinced myself that I was nothing more than a convenient office fantasy for Daniel, and someone he’d toss to the side the minute he could catch his breath and hire another nanny.
But he’d changed everything and made his feelings clear, and I needed to stop letting my ex-husband tether me to the past.
Blaine was right about one thing. I did deserve a chance with someone new.
I smiled at Daniel and shook my head. “I’m sorry, I had some things I had to figure out. I shouldn’t have run off like that. It wasn’t fair to you.”
Daniel let out a huge sigh of relief, and I almost laughed.
“I—” This time I was the one sighing. “I love you, too.”
“What hap—”
Sasha’s cry cut him off. We both rushed over to her. Red-faced she kicked her little legs. I picked her up, and she didn’t smell.
“She’s hungry,” I said.
Daniel headed into his office to fish out a bottle from the little mini-fridge he kept in there. He headed to the breakroom to warm it up in the microwave. While I waited for him, I wondered if we should put a little microwave here in the office.
He returned with t
he warmed formula, and I offered it to Sasha. The baby greedily started slurping her meal down, and I chuckled.
“So what happened with Blaine?” Daniel asked.
I sighed, “He showed up with divorce papers.”
His brow lifted. “And that upset you? I would have thought that was a good thing.”
I shifted Sasha in my arms to make both of us more comfortable. “He only wanted the divorce because he got another woman pregnant.”
Daniel’s face darkened. “Oh, and how are you feeling about everything?”
“I think that Blaine’s a selfish bastard, but that doesn’t change the fact that our marriage ended years ago, and I should have already been divorced. I’d been keeping myself stuck in the past, with things like the ring and not filing divorce paperwork.” I sighed and looked down at Sasha as she slowed her sucking, a sleepy and contented look settling over her face. “But now I can move on. I haven’t been handling everything well, and I made a mistake. I almost pushed you two away, even though you’re the reasons I’ve been able to pull myself out of the pain I’d been stuck in.”
Daniel leaned forward to give me a kiss on the forehead. “Then let’s make our relationship a bit more official. Morgan, I don’t want you to just stay over a few nights here and there for convenience. I want you to move in with me.”
I nodded slowly and glanced down at Sasha. She’d drained her bottle and already fallen back to sleep after I had burped her. I gently laid her back down in her playpen.
“Okay. I’ll move in with you.”
Daniel wrapped his arms around me and pulled me in for a deep kiss.
Later, we both decided not to worry about me moving much over for a couple of weeks. With Hunter and Jacy’s wedding coming up, it’s not like I had a lot of free time, and Daniel was still trying to catch up at work.
