บททั้งหมดของ Pregnant by Her Best Friend Brother : บทที่ 31 - บทที่ 40

The dry cleaner three blocks from the Sterling building had done it in forty minutes, which the woman behind the counter had announced with the particular pride of someone who knew they were saving a situation. Victoria had thanked her twice, which was once more than necessary, and carried the suit back in its plastic sleeve with both hands like it was something breakable.She had asked around the office quietly — where do you take things, if something needs pressing urgently — and Olly had given her an address without looking up from her monitor, which was the closest thing to warmth Olly had yet offered and which Victoria had accepted gratefully.She pushed the office door open with her shoulder.Alexander was in the chair behind the desk, finishing the last of what appeared to have been a considerable stack of files, his jacket gone, his sleeves rolled to the elbow, his collar open at the top button. The desk looked like it had been in an argument with itself and lost. He looked up

The Dinner TableThe dining room was the kind of quiet that happened when three people were sitting together and none of them wanted to be.Vanessa moved her food around her plate. The fork scraped the porcelain at intervals — a small, repetitive sound that filled the silence because nothing else was filling it. Across from her Victor ate steadily and without looking up. At the head of the table Luther sat with the composed stillness of a man who had learned decades ago that stillness made people nervous and had decided he preferred it that way.He looked at Vanessa."What is the progress with Alexander?" he said.Not a question. A prompt.Vanessa set her fork down and looked up and smiled the smile she kept ready for this specific person. "Everything is fine. We spoke this week. He is settling into Aldenvale well.""Mm." Luther lifted his wine glass. "You have been going out quite often."A pause that lasted one beat too long."I have friends—""I am not interested in your friends."

VictoriaI threw my bag at the couch the moment the door closed and it bounced off the cushion and knocked a pillow to the floor and I left it there because it felt appropriate."What," I said to the empty apartment, "is wrong with that man."I sat down hard on the couch and pressed my palms against my face and breathed.He could not think for himself. That was the problem. He had decided what kind of person I was based on one incident at a bar — one incident, one time, when I had been broke and desperate and had asked a stranger to cover my bill at a place I should never have gone into in the first place — and he had been filing everything I did ever since under that same heading. Opportunistic. Strategic. A type.And Vanessa. Vanessa who had spent years making my life quietly horrible was now whispering in the ear of the one person whose opinion I had spent my entire life caring about against my own better judgment and he was just — absorbing it. Taking it in. Deciding she was right

The steering wheel took the third hit before he made himself stop.He was driving with no particular destination and his jaw was tight and the image that kept arriving uninvited was Victoria's eyes going bright at the rims before she looked away and said I understand what you think of me in a voice that was completely level and that was somehow the worst version of it — not broken, not angry, just quiet and unsurprised, like she had always known this was coming from him specifically and had simply been waiting for it to arrive.He tried Lucas's number.Voicemail.He tried again. Voicemail.He hit the wheel one more time, lighter this time, and made a right turn toward Lucas's building because sitting in his own apartment with this feeling was not something he was willing to do and Lucas was the only person he could currently tolerate and he needed someone to tell him he was not losing his mind even though he was fairly certain he was.The annoyance would go away once she was out of hi

The Morning AfterThe kitchen was quiet at six in the morning and I stood at the counter with a glass of water and watched the city come into focus through the window and told myself I had slept fine.I had not slept fine.The ultrasound had been in my head all night in the particular way of things you cannot think around — appearing every time I got close to actual sleep, pulling me back. Lucas's face when he had taken it from Alexander. The nod he had given me in the doorway. The second paper I still hadn't seen.I heard footsteps and turned.Lucas came into the kitchen in a fresh shirt, looking considerably more functional than he had twelve hours ago. He stopped when he saw me."You're up early.""Couldn't sleep.""Was there a problem with the bed?""No. It's just a new place." I looked at my water glass. "New sounds."He accepted this without pushing and moved to the counter and opened the refrigerator and stood looking into it with the focused attention of someone taking invento