7~Hannah

It was the weekend and I was taking a walk outside the mansion. The nausea was getting to me really and I needed some air to help dampen it.

I waved at Louis as he wiped the cars clean of the morning dew that had settled on them. Shockingly, Zachary's favorite car was one of them. I was surprised that he was even in but of course I had been avoiding him ever since..

I had been speaking to James who had been trying to convince me to not go through with the divorce for now because if Zachary did not want to sign, we would have to go to court and the whole back and forth, according to him, would be too stressful for me in my condition. I laughed at all of that.

Screw me for picking Zachary's best friend as my divorce lawyer.

"Madam!"

I turned as Louis called out to me.

"Miss Malia said to call you in for breakfast." He said.

"I'll be there in a minute. Thank you." I said to him before he turned to leave.

With one last breath of fresh air, I turned back around to head into the house.

Zach was seated at the head of the table in the dining room when I walked in.

"Uhm Malia? Could you please bring my meal upstairs later? I said, taking a step back.

"Hannah wait, we need to talk." Zach spoke up immediately.

"There's nothing to talk about." I said clippedly.

He got on his feet and advanced towards me while I took my steps away.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there for you okay? I didn't mean to hurt you." He apologized.

I stepped forward and though I had to strain my neck to look up at him, I met his eyes and asked, "Why are you lying, Zach?"

"Why would I?" He said, looking offended.

"Why wouldn't you?" I questioned back. "Now you're sorry? Now you want to make it up to me?" I let out a humourless chuckle.

Then I poked at his rock hard chest and said, "You categorically stated that I'd never mean anything to you. Why now?"

"You're carrying my child." He pointed at my belly for emphasis.

"Of course." I grinned. Of course he didn't care about anything else.

"You know when this all started, I wanted to give you a baby so bad cause I wanted you to finally treat me like I matter." I found myself walking around, sounding like a villain reiterating her master plan to the hero. Only I wasn't the villain and Zach wasn't the hero. We were nothing to each other.

"Now that it's happened, I've finally realized, it doesn't matter what I do but I'd never be happy as long as I'm with you."

"Hannah-"

"I do the talking around here now, Zach. Let me finish." I sternly told him. His shocked face was priceless to see. It took a lot to not grin.

"You think you're so good at being so mean and uncaring. You my darling, are about to get a taste of your own medicine.'' It wasn't a threat, it was a promise that I was certainly going to fulfil.

I left him stunned. Too stunned to speak.

~~~

"You did what?" Marv's hazel eyes sparkled with excitement when I told her everything.

"Who are you and what have you done to my friend?" She said hardly able to keep her mouth closed.

"Marv I'm tired of his bullshit. I can't believe I was willing to take all that for more than a year. What was I thinking?!" I huffed in annoyance.

"Wow. I think you're going to be one mean pregnant woman." She faked a shudder, "I can't wait for nice Hannah to return."

"What? Pregnancy doesn't change people," I laughed nervously although my sudden change of disposition seemed weird even to me.

"You said?" She gave me a doubtful side eye.

"Okay maybe it does sometimes but I'm not being mean. I'm just giving him a taste of his own medicine." I said.

"He deserves it though." She finally concurred.

"He does." I raised my glass of juice, "Cheers to that."

I could tell how astonished she was. I surprised myself too. But this was just the beginning.

After a hectic day at work, I found myself home wanting nothing more than laying my head to sleep until the next morning. Unfortunately and fortunately, I had to hold that thought the moment I got in.

"Surprise!"

I stumbled backwards, holding my tongue from screaming how terrified I was.

"But it's not my birthday," I softly said looking around.

"Of course it's not, I'm the surprise."

It was then it clicked. My mom was here. Wait, my mom's here?

"Mama!" I jumped straight into her arms. "Why didn't you tell me you were coming? I would have gotten you from the airport? Why are you even here on such short notice?" I asked her so many questions at once in a breath.

"I told you I'll come when you're pregnant." She cheekily said.

I held back my frown. This had Zachary written all over it.

"Can I have my daughter in-law now? You're hoarding her all to yourself?" Zach’s mother came forward.

"Hi Mom." I said over her shoulder as she embraced me.

"We were so excited when we heard the news, we couldn't wait to see you both." She grinned.

I forced a smile. "Zach told you, didn't he?"

"Of course he did. He said you were too shy to break the news to us." She giggled.

"Where is he?" I asked her.

"He's in his home office. Jeremy's there with him, I'm sure they're discussing business as always."

I barely listened to her after the first sentence. I had to speak some sense into that man.

"Excuse me, I need to change and get a little more comfy." I told both of them.

"Of course darling, take it easy okay?"

I nodded and stalked off like a woman with a mission. Of course I had a mission, to whoop Zachary's ass if I could.

I pushed the study's door open without knocking, interrupting the conversation between the two men.

"Hi Dad." I smiled warmly at him.

"There's my beautiful daughter." He got up and pulled me into a typical father-daughter hug.

"Congratulations to both of you." He said as we broke the hug.

"Thank you Dad. You're looking especially dashing tonight." I complimented him, he sure loved it when I did that.

"As a man who's about to become a grandfather, of course I have to look how I feel." He shrugged. We all laughed at that. Then I turned to the reason why I was there in the first place.

"Zach, can I talk to you for a minute?" I said, my smile unwavering.

"Sure." He was unmoving.

"In private." I emphatically stated, tilting my head towards the door. I went over and took his hand. "We'll be back in a moment Dad."

I took him over to his bedroom.

"How dare you?" I said as soon as the door shut behind us.

"What did I do?" He acted oblivious.

"How could you go behind my back and tell my mother about this? What's worse is that you brought her here without telling me!"

"I wanted to surprise you."

"You did this on purpose. I know you did." I accused him rightly.

"Okay fine, I admit it."

I was ready to rain fire and brimstone after that.

"I know you want to kill me but wait a minute, I have a proposal." He said quickly before I could open my mouth.

"A proposal?" I stepped back.

"Yeah. I know you don't want your mother to know how odd our relationship is." His euphemism for the silly excuse of a marriage was hilarious.

"What's your point?" I gave him my ears.

"Let's pretend. She's going to be here for a pretty long while and I know you don't want to break her heart so let's at least try to make this work. For her and the baby." He offered.

"And if we can't keep up the act?" I asked.

"We'll decide what we're going to do after the baby is born. If we're going through with the divorce, we'll decide that later. But for now, let's just stick with each other." He offered.

I thought about it for a second. The pros seemed to be more than the cons. I still wasn't sure though.

"I have rules though and we'll have to stick by them." I mentioned just so he would not start getting funny ideas.

"Is that a yes? He eagerly asked.

"Yes."

"You'll put the divorce on hold?" He hopped.

"What did I just say?" I irritatedly asked him.

"Yes?"

"Yes for goodness sake!" I exclaimed in exasperation.

"Your mood swings might end my life." He muttered to my hearing.

"You'll be lucky if they don't." I deadpanned.