"To punish me."
"It looked good on paper, didn't it? Punishing you. Making the whole office think I had given you a woman that you wouldn't fuck or try to ruin. I knew you would have to face the fact that you wanted her, and hoped that in time, you would both find each other."
"You're playing matchmaker now."
"Look at me, son. I've spent my entire life devoted to this office. When my wife couldn't have kids, I was focused on one thing, and that was winning. I have a reputation that is set to be in law books, cases that I won that defied all odds. More money than I could spend in a lifetime. My memories are filled with the courtroom, with victories, with meetings, and constantly surrounded by people who want to beat me, who want to bring me down. The moment I saw you, I saw myself, Rex. I saw where you could end up, and I was watching you. Then it was like a switch went off, and I saw a different you. In this world, you will rarely see someone wanting to make a difference in your life. In fact, they want to screw it every chance they get. I wanted you to have another chance. To have a life that I never had. I've seen the way you look at kids. You have that yearning that you've tried to deny. If Nora comes back here and says that it's a false alarm, will you be happy?"
Sadness consumed him at the thought of her not being pregnant.
"The only think you know how to do is win, and to win you have to fight ugly, Rex. I get it. Nora isn't the kind of girl that you win by being dirty. She's the kind you have to try a different way."
Rex collapsed against his desk, rubbing his eyes. "I love her," he said. He couldn't look up as he said that.
"Then you're going to have to make sure she knows it."
The door to his office opened, and he looked up to find her there. Her hand was shaking where she held the test. She moved toward the desk, and placed the stick on top.
"I quit. Effective immediately." She turned to Frank. "I'm done."
With that, she left the office, and Rex looked at the test. He had memorized the box. Two lines. She was pregnant.
Rushing out of his office, he ran toward the elevator. There was no sign of her on it, or of it going down. Opening the doors, he heard her rushing downstairs, and he heard her tears.
"Nora!" He yelled her name, rushing downstairs trying to catch her. She didn't stop for him, and kept on going. He had hurt her with his words.
He didn't stop though. It didn't take him long to catch up with her. He was faster than she was. He caught her at the bottom just as she was about to leave.
"Please don't leave," he said.
"This was wrong. This was a big mistake. I never should have gotten involved with you, and I should have walked away when I had the chance."
"No, don't say that."
"What do you want me to say?" she asked. "You're a horrible person. I thought you had changed, and you're just the same man."
"We're about to have a baby, Nora."
She shook her head. Tears swimming in her eyes. "No, I'm about to have a baby. You stay the hell away from me. I'm done being bullied by you when you can't handle your own crap."
With that, she pulled away, taking his heart along with her.
He had seriously fucked up, and what was worse, he didn't know if he would ever win her back.
Chapter Nine
Nora didn't stay in her apartment. She couldn't. If she stayed there he'd want to talk, and she didn't want to talk. She wanted nothing to do with him, so she went home. After calling her parents, she let them know she would be staying in their house over the holidays. They warned her she would need to go shopping, which she didn't mind.
There was money in her savings account, so she could afford to feed herself. She'd take one of the job offers in the next couple of days. Frank would be a great reference. She wouldn't take any maternity leave either. No, she would work all the way up until the baby dropped out of her.
Working in a new office she was going to have start all over again, and she hated that. The following morning, she picked up her cell phone to see that it was bombarded with texts, missed calls, and phone messages.
Rex: I am so sorry, baby. Please, call me. I need to hear your voice.
Rex: I need to know you're safe.
Rex: You're not answering at your apartment. Where are you? It's not safe for a woman out there all alone.
Rex: I'm an asshole. I admit it. Frank looks like he wants to kill me.
Rex: I didn't want to do this over text. I love you. I've always loved you.
Rex: I know I'm an asshole, but I'm not always. I was so angry at Carl, and myself. Please call me.
There were a lot of texts. Most of them calling himself an asshole. She didn't need to see it in texts to know he was one. He had been so angry last night, and his words had hurt. It had made her realize that no matter what happened, he was no different than the man she had worked for.
The sex they had, that was all it was.
"You're hating me right now, and I get it. I handled this so wrong. I didn't tell you I never used a condom, and I didn't want to. I want us to be happy. Please let me know you're safe, baby."
"Okay you're not answering anything and I get that. Just let me know you're all right. I don't know if you've read my texts, but I'm going to tell you here, I love you, Nora. I love you, and I want us to be a family. You, me, and the baby."
Tears fell down her cheeks. She wanted to believe it. More than anything did she want to believe that he was capable of love.
"Frank's going to kill me, and this is already killing me. From the first moment I met you, Nora, I wanted you. I don't deserve you, I know that. The past couple of weeks, they have been heaven for me. Being near you, inside you, loving you. It's what I want, and I'm not going anywhere. I will fight for you."
Nora deleted the last of his messages, not wanting to answer anymore. Making her way downstairs, she started to make herself a lemon tea. It was the only thing that she had found settled her stomach. Tea and toast. She had already been sick.
"You know pregnancy is not what I thought it would be, little thing. I don't know if you're a boy or a girl, or maybe both. You could be a boy and girl twins, or boy twins, or girl twins, and even though I'm all alone I'm now rambling at my stomach. You're going to get bored of me." She sighed, and poured her tea before lightly buttering her toast. "I always wanted to have kids. Growing up I wanted a big family. I don't have any brothers or sisters, and I've not been close to my family. This is the first time I've been back home, and no one is here, and I am talking to myself. I don't even think you've grown out of being a little ball of cells. I wasn't great at biology, and I didn't really tune in. As your father said, I guess I'm stupid. Wow, Rex is your dad. That is … surreal." She drank her lemon tea, and ate her toast before cleaning away the dishes. "I'm pregnant, and I'm all alone." She burst out laughing. "I got knocked up by a guy I hate, and yet I fell in love with him. What the hell does that say about me?"
She walked through the house, talking to her stomach, trying to reason in her own head that she was going to have a baby. It was really happening. She was pregnant, and there was going to be a baby.
After an hour of walking around, she sat down in her father's favorite rocking chair, her hands on her stomach. Her thoughts drifted toward Rex.
He would have a part in their baby's upbringing. There was no doubt about it. She wouldn't be able to do this all alone. She wondered what it would be like to have to share a child with him, if he even let her raise him. Rex had the money, the power, and the resources to take her child away from her.
You're thinking the worst.
She had seen him in action. Rex was lethal.
You still fell for him.
She didn't fall in love with the bully. She'd fallen in love with the man. The man that had rocked her world, and left her pregnant.
Her cell phone rang, and she picked it up when she saw it was Frank.
"Hey," she said.
"How are you feeling?"
"I'm okay. I'm tired. I'm really sorry to have been a disappointment to you. I know you wanted me to stop Rex for making mistakes. I can't believe I became one of them." Tears started to fall, but she didn't let him hear her sobs. She did her best to hide them.
"I'm not disappointed, Nora. I'm worried. You ran out of here so fast. You're pregnant, and no matter what, you have a job here. I know you're probably thinking that you can go to any of those other companies, and you can. They'd snatch you up in a heartbeat, but you've got to think long term. They may not want a woman who is pregnant. Your job, if you still want it, will be here."
"I can't work for him."
"Have you talked to him?" he asked.
She shook her head, covering her eyes. "No."
"He's beside himself. He can't find you. Where are you?"