2

He freezes and the words die on his tongue. The only sound in the room is the irritating fluorescents—my God, I wish they’d just shut up already!—and the sound of his gulp.

“Don’t you dare suggest I get rid of this baby,” I continue. I jab a finger in his direction. “My sister is gone. I buried her, Dr. Saeder. She and her husband are ashes six feet under the ground right now—and you want me to get rid of the only piece of them I have left? You want me to put this baby there, too? I. Don’t. Fucking. Think. So.”

He gulps again. His throat is so scrawny that I can see every inch of the motion. “V-very well, Ms. Turner. I only meant to explain your opt⁠—”

I hold up a hand and he stops talking once again. My head suddenly hurts so, so badly. And the fluorescent lights just will not stop. “There are no options, okay? I’m having this baby. I just—fuck, my head is pounding—I just want to know one thing. One thing, okay? And you’re going to answer me—because if you don’t, I’m going to leave this clinic and I’m going to go straight to a lawyer’s office and I’m going to drop a lawsuit on your head so heavy that your great-great-great-great-grandchildren will feel the weight of it crushing them flat. Are you ready for the question? Nod if you understand.”

I feel drunk. I feel high. I feel asleep. I feel insane.

Dr. Saeder nods.

“Wonderful. Tell me this: Whose. Baby. Am. I. Carrying?”

He gulps one last time. “I’m afraid you are not going to like this answer, Ms. Turner.”

WREN

I go back to work shaking and nauseous. Despite me subjecting him to my modern-day Spanish Inquisition, Dr. Saeder stood his ground on refusing to divulge the name of the donor whose sperm is currently fertilizing an egg inside my body.

He did, however, agree to communicate an invitation to the man in question to meet me at 5:00 P.M. tonight at Lifelines Bistro, a local bar just down the street from the Egorov Industries skyscraper where I work.

No promises on if the guy will agree—but a girl can dream of actually meeting her own baby daddy, right?

… she said sarcastically.

Jennae at the front desk lets me in with a dazzling smile, just like always. It takes every ounce of willpower I have to return it and swipe my badge at the turnstile. The elevator ride up, clustered with men in suits wearing too much cologne or not enough at all, doesn’t do my stomach any favors.

When the doors open on the twenty-seventh floor, they deposit me into the offices of Egorov Industries. In case any visitors are ever uncertain where they are, there’s a sign over the receptionist area that has EGOROV in absolutely massive letters.

That’s par for the course.

Because the man who lent his name to this company has an ego to match.

Right on cue, when I reach my desk, the door to his office opens… and Dmitri Egorov emerges.

Let no one say he’s not a looker. He is—even I can’t deny that. Windswept hair, almost black but with a mesmerizing hint of auburn to it. Chin chiseled out of marble. Eyes light gray, piercing, observant, arrogant.

Unlike the stinky men on the elevator, his mint-and-cedar cologne is perfectly calibrated to seduce and intimidate—and unfortunately for me, it’s pretty good at both tasks.

Because I know he’s an egotistical maniac and yet I still find myself wondering what his body looks like beneath the Brioni suit he’s wearing.

And if I’m a sucker for it, you already know that the rest of the women in this office—or really, in this entire zip code—have been reeled in hook, line, and sinker. Half a dozen perfectly coiffed heads are popping up over the cubicles at the mere sound of Dmitri’s office door opening.

They’re all hoping for a glance, a smile, a kind word from him.

Keep on hoping, sisters, I wanna tell them. Dmitri Egorov doesn’t know the meaning of “kind.”

But my God, if there were ever a day for him to give me a break, it’d be today, right? I just don’t know how much more I can take.

The look in his eyes, though, says “mercy” is not high on his to-do list.

“Ms. Turner,” he drawls icily. He flips up his wrist and checks the gleaming Patek Philippe watch he chose today. The embroidered initials on his tailored shirt cuff—D.E. in a villainous red thread—flash at me like a wink. “I wasn’t aware that work began at 10:07 A.M. on Tuesdays.”

“And I wasn’t aware that ‘D.E.’ stood for ‘Douchebag Extraordinaire,” I mumble under my breath.

“What was that?” he asks as I get closer.

I sling my bag into the chair behind my desk and paste on a smile. “Nothing, Mr. Egorov. I’m sorry I was late this morning. I had a doctor’s appointment. I did request time off…” Peeking down at my planner, I look at the date and finish, “three and a half months ago.”

He pauses. His cologne is stronger up close. Mint and cedar, like a winter forest. I do prefer it to Dr. Saeder’s cloying aftershave, though I’d never admit that to Dmitri’s face.

“It’s a bad day to be insubordinate, Ms. Turner.”

My smile stays plastered in place. It’s one of those smiles that, if he paid any attention at all, he’d see is hiding a barely-closed box of screams and violent fantasies about wiping that smug smirk right off his face.

But luckily for me, Dmitri doesn’t care about silly things like “other people’s emotions.” That would just be a very big waste of his very important time.

“Insubordinate? Who, me? I don’t even know the meaning of the word.”

“You apparently don’t know the meaning of the word ‘timely,’ either. Should we step into my office and practice reading a clock together?”