5

WREN

This can’t be it, can it? He can’t possibly be my baby’s father? That would just be too cruel for words and fate can’t be that vindictive a bitch. I mean, surely I’ve maxed out my quota of bad luck for one lifetime.

Dmitri probably just walked into Lifelines, saw me, and decided to fuck with my head like he usually does. A little after-work entertainment.

I mean, why not? He’s a god amongst men and deities tend to pursue their own twisted pastimes. Torturing mortals being one.

“‘Discuss’?” I repeat in a croaky, pipsqueak voice that makes me sound like Elmer Fudd. “Did I miss something in the board meeting today? I took extensive notes. I even⁠—”

“Why are you here?” he interrupts impatiently.

“I’m, er… meeting someone.”

One eyebrow arches gracefully as he slides into the table I was just attempting to vacate. “Sit back down.”

I stare at him uncertainly. “I really can’t⁠—”

“Your meeting has begun.” His gaze flickers over my chest. “Red is eye-catching, but green is more your color.”

I stiffen instinctively. Oh, God. I fall into the booth opposite him and reach for my empty glass, wishing that it was full of something other than virgin anything. This situation requires hard freaking liquor and lots of it.

I stand corrected: Fate? Yeah, she’s a cruel bitch.

And apparently, she’s not done with me yet.

“You are my sperm donor.” It feels weird saying the words out loud to Dmitri. It’s like talking to your mother about sex.

His expression is a cross between annoyance and discomfort. He puts his forearms on the table and clasps his hands together. Why do I feel like I’m being judged? “I’m no donor, Ms. Turner. It seems that I was subjected to the same spectacular incompetence that you were.”

My hands keep skirting around the table, looking for something to hold onto. Stop fidgeting, for Christ’s sake! Act cool! “I didn’t peg you for the kind of man who wanted to be a father.”

Shit. Did I just say that?

Out loud, no less?

He leans forward on his elbows, his lips curling into a half-sneer. “And I didn’t peg you for the type of woman who was capable of being a mother.”

It’s like he’s just poured a bucket of ice cubes down my back. That piercing gaze of his skewers me unapologetically, waiting for a reaction.

Well, screw him—I’m not gonna give him the satisfaction.

“I handle your bullshit all day long. Compared to that, a baby’s gonna be a piece of cake.”

His upper lip stiffens and he leans back. I’d like to consider that a retreat, but if there’s anything I’ve learned about Dmitri Egorov in the last fourteen months that I’ve worked for him, it’s that the man never backs down.

You don’t amass a billion-dollar company at the ripe old age of thirty-six by being nice and deferential. At this point, I’m starting to think that no one gets anywhere by being nice and deferential.

It certainly hasn’t done me a damn bit of good.

“Just because some of my DNA has inadvertently found its way into your womb, Ms. Turner, doesn’t make you any less my employee. It doesn’t make me any less your boss.”

My jaw clenches. “I’m off the clock.”

“I told you when I hired you: this job is twenty-four-seven. Much like this second job you’ve decided to take on.” He tilts his chin toward my belly just in case I was unclear on what this “second job” might consist of.

My heart is thrumming hard against my chest. I’m so sick of playing it cool. I’ve got a breakdown percolating in the center of my chest and the pressure to release is building. His presence is not helping matters whatsoever.

Of all the men in the world, why did it have to be him?

“What are we going to do?”

I want to cry, but those sterling silver eyes of his leave zero room for vulnerability. “Let me make one thing clear, Ms. Turner: there is no we. There is you. There is me. And then there’s the fetus.”

The word makes me flinch. Fetus. It’s cold and clinical; it doesn’t capture even a fraction of all the emotions bound up in this little bundle inside of me. “Let me make one thing clear, Mr. Egorov: I’m keeping this baby.”

His lips twitch. “Why?”

“‘Why’? Is that a real question?”

He presses forward, sending a fresh wave of his scent wafting toward me. “That sorry excuse for a doctor made a stupid mistake. This is not the route that either one of us was planning into parenthood. So why continue with it?”

For the first time since my pregnancy was confirmed, my hand lands on my stomach. “Because, mistake or not, this baby is mine.”

My forearms erupt in goosebumps. Mine: it’s not a thought I had at all in the months preceding Rose and Jared’s deaths. It was always their baby, never mine. There was never a moment when I felt any sense of possession over the child I’d agreed to carry for my sister and brother-in-law.

Then again—back in those days, I wasn’t pregnant yet.

And they were still alive.

Things have changed.

“Wren.” My eyes snap to Dmitri’s. It throws me for a loop any time he says my first name, and now, it’s happened twice in one day. “Be reasonable. You can have another baby under better circumstances. I’d pay for the procedure myself, if that’s what it takes.”

Hot color rushes to my cheeks. I’m undecided on if I’m more shocked or insulted by the offer. “I presume that, since you were using the same fertility clinic as me, you wanted to have a baby, too.” He says nothing apart from flattening his lips into a thin line. I take that as a yes but with caveats. “And yet you seem intent on trying to convince me to get rid of this baby. Am I to assume that this is not about the baby at all? This is about me?”

He reclines in his chair and starts tapping the table with one finger. In the quiet of the cafe, it feels unnerving. I can only assume that’s intentional.

“I’m not good enough to carry your baby?” I press. “Is that it?”

His eyebrows cave inwards in a deep scowl. “If it were solely a biological question of carrying my baby, I’d tolerate—” Tolerate, jeez, what a gentleman. “—having you as my surrogate. But I’m guessing you’re not willing to relinquish your maternal rights.”

“No,” I snap forcefully. “I’m not.”