She managed to get out of the chair without stumbling. She headed in search of Dev, momentum on her side. Reid would keep him pinned down. She figured she’d listen for the shouting and she’d find them.
She had to sort out her head before she did. Brain freeze wasn’t her friend. She had to convince Dev he was making a mistake, ask him to trust her in that, then explain to him how she’d deceived him in everything else, then tell him she loved him.
That was a sitcom, but it wasn’t funny.
She tracked them down to a service corridor. Found both of them pressed up against the plaster wall as if they’d just been thrown from the romantic fall out ride and felt awful, scared to move in case they were sick.
Reid shifted first. “Thank fuck.” He pushed off the wall and came to stand in front of her, studied her with that intense deliberate unnerving stare of his, but his eyes were soft and the way he rubbed her arm awkwardly was his way of showing concern. It mitigated the, “Better together. Fucking make this right,” he said before he stalked off.
She had to pull herself together to do exactly that. Prevent a critical loss to the company. Save the employee, even if it meant ending the friendship and losing the man.
Because surely she’d already done that.
“We should find a room,” she said. That sounded competent, in control.
“I don’t want to do this.” Dev gestured between the two of them, but his eyes were on the ground. It was worse than she’d thought. If Owen had guessed, Dev would know. He knew her better than she knew herself.
And he hated her enough to quit the work he loved the most.
“This is not about us,” she managed. He didn’t want to leave Plus. He only felt he should to avoid her. Please God, let that be the case.
“I’d agree with you, but Reid is right, I’m a useless liar, but excellent with avoidance, and you know it.” He looked up, but not at her, at the meeting room along the corridor, the one with the beanbags. “But it’s only partly about us.”
“Let’s talk about that then.” The part that wasn’t about them. The part she had a faint hope of influencing. She walked off and he followed. This she could do, convince an employee there was an upside to staying put. It was firm professional ground. Except this year she’d failed to convince a slew of employees to stay. And this employee, who held the rest of them together with his steady manner and easy nature, would have no reason to trust anything she said.
It didn’t get more professionally threatening, more personally terrifying than that.
The walls of the meeting room were papered in jumbo Post-It notes from a planning session, equations and scribbled graphs, symbols that made sense if you knew how to read them. Dev put the width of the room and a beanbag lounge between them and waited for her to start with his arms folded over his chest and his eyes down. She read his posture as defensive. He was cornered and struggling not to show it. And she’d done that to him. She had to give him back his freedom to choose his direction for the right reasons.
“Every year since Plus stopped teetering on going bust you’ve had an offer from a competitor worth considering. Why do you want to leave us now?”
His head came up. His eyes narrowed. She’d asked him to justify himself when she had no way of doing the same with him. But she’d also asked a question in the context of their business he had an onus to answer.
“Because I’d like to run my own show, be on the frontline. Twenty-five year olds are doing it. If I don’t jump now it will be too late.”
They were younger than that when they’d started Plus and everyone had expected them to fail. “And you don’t believe you can do that again here with us?”
“Reid and Owen are the stars here. You and me are supporting cast. I want my own starring role.”
“You know we’re all paid the same, have the same shares, benefits and equal votes.” Dev had long ago ruled out wanting to take a turn as Plus CEO. “Owen’s role calls attention to him. Reid has the ego, not you. Is this about money?”
“No, and you’re going to argue I’m not in Reid’s shadow.”
“I’m going to argue Reid casts a long shadow but he’d be casting it over an unemployment queue without you. Without you, he’d have starved for one thing. The man can barely remember to eat. Without you, he’d never have made the connections he needed to bring an idea to life. Never met Owen, never met me. He’d have flamed out without you. I know he’s told you that. Why don’t you believe him?”
He waved a hand, brushing the magnitude of that off. “All of that is—”
“You’re going to say nothing. It’s not nothing, Dev. It’s been everything to us.” Everything to her: anchor, life raft, lighthouse, hearth. “I’m not going to offer you false flattery and tell you we’ll fall apart without you.” There was a bitter taste in her mouth, making it hard to swallow. “We built a strong business, it will go on.” And she would too, because she’d been the architect of her own failures; cut her anchor, stabbed her life raft, got lost in the fog of unspoken expectations and gave herself no choice. “But it will suffer, just like it did when we fired Reid and when Owen was in hospital.”
Dev rubbed his face, pushed his hand into his hair and made it stand up at an angle she twitched to smooth. He was listening and she’d confused him. “Besides, you really hate the spotlight.”
He regrouped, shook his head. “No, it’s time I was more than a passenger.”
Oh this man, he would break her heart, professionally as well as personally. “You don’t really think you’re a passenger here.”
He nodded. “I do. You can replace me easily. Hundreds like me out there.”
He was irreplaceable, one of kind, and it shocked her to think he didn’t understand that. “How would you write the job brief?”
“Sarina, why are we doing this?” There’d been resignation in his voice till now, but that was a spark of anger.
“Because it’s my job to help you be the best you can and lately I’ve failed miserably.”
He sighed and she let the silence sit until he said, “You’d put all the regular qualifications and experience in it.”
“And apart from that?”
“You built the culture, you know what kind of people we need here.”
“I built the culture, but I based it on you.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets, his shoulders were wedged up near his ears. “I don’t want to play this game.”
“Not a game, Dev. Where do you think our no assholes, no bullshit rule came from? You know that’s why we fired Reid.” He opened his mouth to protest and she rushed on. “Where do you think our motto came from? Better Together. We’re built from people who are curious, who experiment, who commit, who care about others and support them. Who are kind and considerate instead of boastful and arrogant. We’re built by people who are respectful and fun and handle change well, but can be stubborn when they need to be, can dig down and find a reserve of resilience that helps in the tough times. We promote people who’ve checked the skills boxes but who are thoughtful, who put themselves out to do the right thing.”
He gave an annoyed grunt and looked away.
She took a step around the bean lounge. “You really didn’t know that?”
“Yes, I knew that,” he snapped.
“I just described you.” The best man she knew. The only man she loved. “If I could find a hundred of you, I’d employ them immediately.”
She might have run him down with a classic car. He reacted as if he’d been hit, taking a step backward, his hands coming up to cover his face.
“You’re the most steadfast and honorable person I know.” It was the part of Dev she loved the most, but it was also the part of him that hurt now. “If you want acknowledgement, accolades, more external validation, you can get it two ways, leave for somewhere new, or build it here. You love this business. You love our partnership. You believe we’re better together. Why wouldn’t you stay?”
He
took his hands away and let her see his pain. “Because I’m in love with you.”
He was right, they couldn’t talk about them. She had to keep this about work. “We should try to stay—”
“I can’t, Sarina. I’m not all those things you think I am. I’m intolerant and impatient and inflexible. I avoid unpleasantness, can’t deal with conflict. Hate risk. I was fucking gutless where it came to you, never claimed you like I should have, and I made you doubt. It’s my own fault I lost you. I can’t, Sarina, because I love you and you deserve more and the only way I can be more to you and the baby is if you let me leave Plus, because I can’t see you every day and know you’re growing another man’s baby.”
Oh God. He made the ground split under her feet, a wave rise to drown her. “If I have you Dev, I don’t need more.” She’d have the sum total of everything, the full percentage.
He frowned. “That’s not true.”
“I didn’t mean it to happen. I tried to tell you I messed up, that there was a possibility, but you were so angry that night when you were leaving, and when you asked for distance I thought it was best to give it to you, or risk losing you altogether.”
“Messed up? Why aren’t you happy about the baby?”
Owen’s question. “Because of how it happened. It wasn’t fair to you.”
He grunted assent. “Yeah, well, you made it clear what you wanted, a second insemination and other men in your life. It’s not as though I didn’t know. I still took you to bed.”
“Other men.” The words stuck in her throat. “That was before, that was . . .” Why did he still think she wanted other men, after their night together, how could he? “I don’t want other men, Dev.”
“Six weeks ago you were still seeing the cheese man.”
Colby.
“I saw you together. The day we had the emergency meeting about Alternate.”
“He was my source and you think—”
“I saw him kiss you.”
“You saw him saying goodbye.”
He grunted in annoyance. “Because we’d fucked the night before and you felt guilty.”
“No, not that. I felt guilty but not for that reason.”
“You had no other reason. I saw the invoice, so I knew what you’d done.”
“Invoice?”
“Blue clinic logo. You’d had an insemination. I knew you could already be pregnant. I knew you wouldn’t risk having sex with me if it wasn’t safe to.”
No way through this storm but to pray for help. “I didn’t have a second insemination.”
“You paid a clinic invoice. I saw it on your kitchen counter.”
“I scheduled the insemination. I went to the clinic. I couldn’t do it. After you proposed, it felt wrong.” She put her hand over her mouth, needed to do something to stop wanting to scream. He thought she’d slept with him after having an insemination. That she’d calculated it all, used him for pleasure. For six weeks she’d worried he’d feel deceived and he’d worried she was pregnant with a donor baby.
“But you’re pregnant.”
Oh God, this was worse. The truth would drop on him like hate felled good intentions, like she’d misunderstood the best thing in her life and deliberately sabotaged it. “I should’ve stopped us. I should’ve asked you to wear a condom. We should’ve at least discussed it.”
The expression on his face, confusion and loss and a tide of other emotions rolling in too quickly for her to account for.
“I have no excuse, but you crashed my brain circuits when you kissed me, and maybe it was my subconscious wanting your baby so badly that I let it happen, when I knew, I knew there was a risk I could get pregnant.”
He put a hand over his eyes so she couldn’t read him at all except for the tension in his body.
“It was wrong, so wrong to do that to you and I understand how angry you must be.”
“I don’t.” He dropped his hand away. His breathing was strained. “You’re pregnant. And you didn’t get an insemination, and you’re pregnant.” He looked at the ceiling. “Fuck.”
Oh God. He would walk out on her. She would lose him a hundred different ways, a thousand wounds that would never heal.
“Your baby is my baby. I got you pregnant. You’re pregnant right now with my baby.”
He came to her so fast she had a moment of irrational fear until he went to his knees in front of her. “Holy fuck, Sarina. Are you . . . are you happy?”
Happy? She was terrified. “I’m scared.” Dev would leave Plus; he would leave her. She would fail at her job and in her life.
She put her hand out to touch his hair and he pitched forward till he rested his forehead on her stomach. “My baby. Our baby.” He lifted his head and sat back on his heels. “You don’t need to be scared.”
“I can’t help it.” It came out of her in a wail of despair. “I feel sick and it’s horrible, and you’re being kind because you pity me.”
He took her hands and stood. “I’ve got you.”
“But you can’t.” She hiccupped. “I took advantage of you. I deceived you.” He would be kind and generous and supportive because that’s who he was, but she’d never have his love, his body, his heart. She hiccupped again, the ferocity of it shaking her body, tearing at her chest.
“I’ll always have you. I told you that. I said it when I was convinced you were committed to having a donor baby, and seeing other men, that you’d only taken me to bed because there was already a good chance you were already pregnant and you wouldn’t screw with that.”
She gasped another breath and her diaphragm spasmed. He put his hand right where it hurt to hold her together.
“I’ll say it again, Sarina, so it sticks in your head. I love you. I’m in love with you. I crave you.” He smiled, all the way to his eyes. That’s when she heard him. He didn’t hate, he’d already forgiven. She hiccupped. He cupped her chin and she hiccupped again, swallowing hard, her eyes going misty.
“I would kiss the truth into you except you’re already breathless,” he said, taking her hand. “I can’t be all those good things you think I am without you, and if I don’t have to stand in line, don’t have to share you, help you raise another man’s child, then, Sarina.” He faltered; she hiccupped. He had very wet eyes and clumpy lashes. “Then you don’t get to be scared unless I’m scared too.”
“You’re never scared.” Another painful gasp and gulp.
“I was. In love and scared to own it. Scared I’d lose you if I pushed for more. Ridiculous, but that’s the truth. I’m not scared anymore.”
She hiccupped again. This was the singularly most amazing moment of her life. Beat getting her degree, earning her first mil, deciding to start a family, incendiary sex with her best friend, and she could hardly breathe.
“Need to sit.” She needed to have this crystal clear. Dev pulled a bean chair around for her and she fell into it. He went to his knees beside her and she flailed for his hand, brought it to her face and lay her cheek on it. She had carved her need and her desire into his hands. She would do it again and again as long as he could stand it.
“Oh, Dev, I’ve made good decisions for bad reasons, or bad decisions for good ones and I can’t,” hiccup, “tell the difference.” Hiccup. “How could I be hesitant with you and love you to pieces at the same time?”
“According to my mom, it’s a thing,” he said. “Love is complicated. People who are in love don’t get a pass on screwing up and making life unbearable for each other.”
She responded to that with another god-awful, hurtful hiccup.
He stroked her cheek with his thumb. “You know pregnancy can cause hiccups.”
She had no idea. “You’ve been reading.” She hiccupped again. It was as though her body was trying to cough out her heart because it was done with hurting.
He nodded. “For Ana.” He squeezed her hand. “For you. For us now.”
On top of the short, wracking breaths, she was going to cry. “I’ve loved you for the lo
ngest time, Dev.”
“And I was too blind to know the difference between loving and being in love. You had to nearly break me to show me. We lost so much time, but we don’t have to lose any more.”
Hiccup. She’d almost broken herself. She should be the one on her knees. They should be somewhere more romantic than a meeting room with papered walls, and an oniony smell left over from someone’s lunch.
“Will you be my family?” She watched his face, died in his eyes and hiccupped. She was going to hiccup for the rest of her life, but somehow even that would be okay. This, right now, was the romantic fall out thrill ride, but she was buckled in and she no longer feared being spun off.
He tugged her forward. “Let me cure those hiccups.”
His hand went to the back of her neck and his wonderful face came close and she hiccupped. But then he pressed his open lips to hers and all her body knew was the wicked swooping delight of that. She didn’t need to be afraid because Dev had his arms around her. She didn’t need to be alone because he would be her family. She didn’t need to miss out on pleasure because he knew more about how to make her feel good than anyone in the world.
She didn’t even need to breathe because he lent her his breath.
When her diaphragm stopped seizing she broke away to watch his face. “Will you marry me?” She only just pushed the words out before he took her lips again. Now all she could smell was his skin, all she could feel was the shine of his hair under her hands and the addictive heat of his mouth.
“God, yes,” he said, voice digitized into a stop start of rough bits, but everything she needed to hear.
They kissed and held each other, touched like that was a new privilege until someone knocked on the door. “Hello in there, we’ve got this room booked.”
It made them smother laughter on each other’s lips.
“Wait,” Dev called. That lack of a please because he was focused on her was so, oh, so nasty sexy cute. Oh. She wanted more of that, as much of that missing part of them she could get before she was six foot wide and beached and he couldn’t get his arms around her.
Sold Short (Sidelined Book 3) Page 25
