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All Chapters of Pregnant for My Ex’s Ruthless Boss: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

58 Chapters

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

DOMINIC'S POVSomething came up. Can we reschedule the meeting to tomorrow?I read it three times, typed back Understood. Tomorrow, ten sharp. Take care of yourself, and sat there longer than either message warranted."You're doing the thing again," Jorah said from the doorway, not looking up from his own phone."What thing.""The reading-a-text-like-it's-a-ransom-note thing." He finally glanced over. "Reservation's at seven. Table's confirmed.""Fine.""You don't sound fine.""I'm fine, Jorah."He shrugged, unconvinced, and left it there — which was worse, somehow, than if he'd pushed.Charlotte.I'd nearly forgotten, which said something about the state of my head I wasn't in a hurry to examine.The restaurant was one I used for business more than pleasure. Private booths, low light. She arrived twelve minutes after I did, unhurried, dark hair, sharp cheekbones, eyes that caught the light in a shade of blue I'd told myself meant nothing the first time Jorah showed me her photo.It st

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

ARIA'S POVYesterday hadn't given me much beyond a name I couldn't stop turning over, a name that apparently belonged to this company's past in a way nobody wanted to explain. I'd granted Jensen bail myself, against every instinct that told me not to, and asked him straight out whether he knew anything about an Ashford connection to my parents.He hadn't. Or he'd looked genuinely blindsided enough that I believed him, for now.I'd suspended him indefinitely instead of firing him outright — for helping a man who'd used him, whether he'd meant to or not. I wasn't ready to discard him completely. Whatever else he was, he was one of the few people left who'd actually known my parents, and I had a feeling I was going to need people like that before this was over.There was clearly a lot I didn't know about my own family. I didn't intend to sit quietly and wait to be told.I got to the office two hours before I needed to, before the elevators even filled with the usual morning crowd, and wen

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

ARIA'S POVStill unsettled by the conversation that had ended so abruptly, and more than a little annoyed about it. Oddly aware, too, of the extra attention Dominic seemed to pay my whole presence the moment I stepped in.He stood immediately when he saw me, moving away from his chair like he was trying to welcome me into his own office."Miss Cole!" He called it out awkwardly, clearing his throat almost too loudly. "You came…"I frowned slightly, making my way to stand before him, trying to decide whether I was imagining the nerves or whether he simply had a lot to hide. I didn't have the energy to notice much else about him. Whatever else he was, right now he was just one more thing I needed to get through.His eyes lingered on me a beat longer than the greeting required, like he was assessing me for some kind of injury. "You look better than yesterday.""I feel better." A lie, but a smaller one than most I'd told this week. He offered me a seat, and I was pulled almost immediately i

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

ARIA'S POVThe nausea hit before I made it past the lobby bathroom door. Sharp and sudden, no warning the way it usually gave me at least a little.I barely made the stall in time.The tile was cold enough to feel through my knees even with my dress between us, and I knelt there afterward with my forehead pressed against my wrist, listening to my own breathing even out one ragged pull at a time. Somewhere above me a vent hummed, too loud in the quiet, and the fluorescent light buzzed faintly in a way I'd never noticed before today.I flushed, pushed myself up slowly, and braced both hands against the stall door before I trusted my legs with the rest of it.Then the main door swung open, followed by the sharp click of heels crossing the tile."You alright in there?"I didn't answer right away. My pride was winning out over the obvious fact that I'd just been violently sick in a building full of people who already whispered about me enough."I'm fine." My voice came out thin, betraying m

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE ARIA'S POVI counted the bricks on Jensen's front steps to keep from counting the minutes instead. Five across, four up. I'd been sitting there long enough to count them twice.Leave, I told myself. You came for answers. You're not getting any today. Go home.My hand found the gearshift. I almost moved it.That was when the front door opened.Jensen came out first, and for half a second, I let myself hope it was only him — that whatever conversation had happened inside had ended the way these things were supposed to, quiet and contained. Then Ryan stepped out behind him, close enough that their shoulders nearly brushed, and whatever hope I'd had curdled into something cold and immediate.They weren't arguing. That was the part that scared me. They walked out together like men who'd settled something, not men who'd fought about it. What kind of partnership could be going on?Ryan saw my car before I could decide whether to duck or simply floor it, and his whole fac

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

ARIA'S POV"Let go of me!" My own voice tore out of me, raw, cracking in the middle. "Ryan…. I'll call the police, I swear to God….""Shut up." His hand closed around my wrist, bone against bone, dragging me closer no matter how hard I pulled back. "You think I don't know who you slept with? Whore. Got yourself knocked up the second the ring came off, and you think you get to keep it?""Please." The word came out broken, nothing left of the woman who was fiercely facing him before. I curled around my stomach instead, arms locked tight, trying to make myself small enough to disappear. "Please, don't hurt my baby…."He laughed. Cold, delighted, a sound with nothing human left in it.Then his foot connected, and the air left me in one violent gasp, pain blooming white and total through my middle, and I screamed until the scream had nowhere left to go…"No…"I jolted upright, heart slamming so hard it hurt, the dark bedroom swimming into focus one unsteady piece at a time. My own ceiling.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

DOMINIC'S POVI was in the middle of an early morning call with my grandfather's lawyer, half-listening to the long list of reasons my proposed bride was apparently the wrong choice.I stayed quiet through most of it, my mind somewhere else entirely — on the conversation I'd deliberately been postponing, and my grandfather's reaction the one time I'd pushed him on old company partnerships. He'd flared up instantly, shutting the whole thing down by pivoting to how unimpressive he found Charlotte, as if that settled anything.My phone buzzed against the desk, jolting me out of the grip of thoughts I'd been circling for days — a blue-eyed woman who'd had my attention since the night she'd spent in my bed and never fully let go of it since.Charles. I almost rolled my eyes and tossed the phone back down, not in the mood for his banter.It rang again immediately. I frowned, raised a hand toward the lawyer still talking on the laptop screen, and picked up."This better be good," I said the m

MARRY ME!

DOMINIC'S POVI opened my mouth to start explaining, but nothing came out.She was watching me with the same flat, exhausted patience I imagined she'd given every executive who'd disappointed her this week, and for the first time in longer than I could remember, I had absolutely no idea what to say first.My eyes caught the blanket slipping toward the floor, and I reached for it, mostly to have something to do with my hands while I gathered whatever was left of my thoughts. I pulled it back over her legs. She went very still, then took it from me herself, holding my gaze like I'd grown a second head in the process."What are you doing here, Mr. Ashford?""How are you feeling?" I asked, adjusting in the chair, uncomfortably aware of how little the question actually belonged in this room."Do I look fine?" She raised an eyebrow, then let her head fall back against the pillow, eyes closing briefly before opening again, weak but sharp, her dark hair framing a face that even here — pale, ex

Rehire Ryan

RYAN'S POV"You're sure it's his?" I paced the length of Vanessa's living room, the scotch in my hand doing nothing to steady the thoughts spinning through my head."I'm not sure of anything yet." She stayed curled on the couch, entirely too relaxed for a conversation this important. "I saw her sick in a bathroom and did the math. Could be Ashford. Could be someone else, for all either of us actually knows.""It's him." More certainty in my voice than I had any real right to. "The timing. The way he's been hovering over her like a dog since the partnership started. It's him.""Careful." She examined her nails, bored, not even bothering to look up. "Jealousy makes men stupid, Ryan. And you're already running low on options you can afford to waste.""I'm not jealous."I was. We both knew it. Neither of us said so."I'll look into it," she said finally, standing, smoothing her dress with the particular efficiency of a woman already thinking three steps past this conversation. "I have ways

CHAPTER THIRTY

ARIA'S POVOf all the ways he could've chosen to get back at me, this was the last one I'd have guessed. I rescheduled the termination appointment while Claire left to find Tyler, the two of them already working the media escalation before I'd even made it through the lobby.Dominic had gone strangely quiet since Claire showed me the headline. No calls. No message. Nothing. I got into my car, hands shaking too badly to find the ignition on the first try."What am I supposed to do?" I murmured, biting down on my lower lip until I tasted copper, my mind already running through everything this could cost me.Claire was waiting at the office by the time I arrived, several guards posted at the entrance that told me exactly how bad it had already become before I'd even parked."Don't get out yet." She was at my window before the engine had fully died, phone in hand, scrolling fast. "There's thirty of them out there. Maybe more.""Reporters?" My stomach dropped further. The last time this hap

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