“We’re fine. I’m just...” Liv’s uncharacteristic hesitation hung heavily between them. “God, Kim—is it true? Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”
Kim swallowed, fear fisting her chest. “What are you talking about?”
“You’ve made front page headlines. Not just the scandal rags, like I did, but even the business channels on television.”
“What?”
“It says you’re pregnant. Are you?”
Diego.
Kim closed her eyes and breathed huge gulps of air. Obviously her refusal to have anything to do with him, her refusal even to answer his calls, meant Diego had begun playing dirty.
“Yes.”
“When were you going to tell me? Are you...? I mean, are you okay with this? Does Diego know? What are you planning to do?”
They were all perfectly valid questions. Kim had just shoved them down forcefully.
“I’m perfectly fine, Liv. I don’t have the time right now to process what it means. Once this upcoming milestone for my company has passed I’ll make a list of the things I need to do.” She closed her eyes, fighting for composure. “I’ll even have a few sessions with Mommy Mary.”
“Who is Mommy Mary?”
“The expert on all things maternal on my team.”
“On what?”
“On what I need to learn to be the perfect mother. It’s not like we had a good example, is it?”
“And until then you’re just going to put it on the back burner?”
What else was she supposed to do? Focus on the relentlessly clammy feeling in her stomach every time her thoughts turned to the baby growing in her womb?
The stark contrast between the terrifying emptiness she felt and her newly pregnant CFO’s glorious joy was already a constant distressing reminder that something vital was missing in her own genetic make-up.
“I can’t botch this opportunity for my company by losing my focus.”
“I don’t know what to...” Olivia’s tone rang with the same growing exasperation Kim had sensed in their recent conversations. “Let me know if you need anything, okay?”
Kim tucked her knees close as Liv hung up. She wanted to reach out to Liv. Liv’s love came with no conditions, no judgment.
But Kim—she had always been the strong one. She had had to be in order to protect first her mother and then Liv from their father’s wrath.
She couldn’t confide her fears in anyone. Least of all to her twin, to whom loving and caring and nurturing came so easily.
Whereas Kim had trained herself so hard to not care, not to let herself be touched by emotions. She’d had to after she had learned what her mother had planned...
Only had she accomplished it so well—just as she had everything else in life—that she felt nothing even for the child growing in her womb?
Because even after a week all she felt was utter panic at the thought of the baby. She had spent a fortune buying almost a dozen more pregnancy test kits, hoping that it had been a false positive. And every time the word “pregnant” had appeared her stomach had sunk a little lower.
Or was it because of the man who had fathered her baby? Could her anger for Diego be clouding everything else? Was this how their mother had felt? Beneath her fear of their father, had she felt nothing for her children?
Without crawling out of bed, she pulled her reading glasses on and powered up her iPad. Her heart thumped loudly. She clicked on to one of her favorite websites—one she could count on to provide news objectively.
It was the first time she wasn’t in the news being lauded for one of her accomplishments.
The article, for all its flaming header, didn’t spend time speculating on the answer to either of the questions it posed. But suddenly she wished it did. Because the speculation it did enter into was much more harmful than if they had spawned stuff about her personal life.
The article highlighted the way any woman—especially one who was pregnant and with her personal life in shambles—could expect to expand her company and do it successfully.
Should investors be worried about pouring their money into a company whose CEO’s first priority might not be the company itself? One who has been involved in not one but two major scandals? Could this pregnancy herald the death of the innovative startup The Daily Help and its brilliant CEO Kimberly Stanton’s illustrious career?
She shoved the tablet away and got out of bed, her mind whirling with panic. She ran a hand over her nape, too restless to stay still. It might have been written by Kim herself, for it highlighted every little one of her insecurities— everything she had made a list of herself.
For so long she had poured everything she had into first starting her company and then into making it a financial success. She had never stopped to wonder—never had a moment of doubt when it came to her career.