Pregnant by the Rival CEO(46)
She shook her head, seeming even more annoyed. “Fine.”
They walked into the building and took the elevator upstairs. He liked feeling like this, almost as if they were a couple again, even if she was mad at him. What would it take for her to want him back? A lot of things, most likely—an absolute guarantee that LangTel was safe from a corporate takeover, a reconciliation with her brother.
“You really want to come in?” she asked once they arrived at her door. She had that icy tone in her voice, as if she were trying to freeze him out.
“I do.” As they walked inside, he couldn’t escape the feeling that this was only half right. He might be clueless about the notion of becoming a father, but he knew that they should be doing this together. If at all possible, this child should arrive with two loving parents, not a mother and a father fighting to remain civil. He didn’t want to upset her, but perhaps it was time to just let her say her piece so they could finally more forward. “Anna, will you please tell me what I can do to make this better? Right now I feel like I’m stepping through a minefield.”
She pursed her lips. “I’m supposed to stay calm.”
“You’re supposed to avoid stress, and walking around with all of this anger welling up inside of you is not good. Just let it out. Let me have it.”
“Right here? Right now?”
“No time like the present.” He took off his coat and slung it over the back of a chair in the living room. He was ready for her to start yelling and he would sit there and take it until she got it all out. “Like I said, let me have it. Tell me every last thing.”
“I don’t want to rehash our problems. It’s not like you don’t already know how I feel. What bothers me more than anything is what happened after I broke up with you.”
He furrowed his brow. “The Sunny Side deal? Mark found a buyer he wanted to work with. I never meant for that to hurt you.”
“It’s not that. It’s that I never heard from you. You didn’t fight it, you just accepted it and moved on. You didn’t fight for me. That hurt more than anything.”
Good God, if only she knew how much he had not moved on after she ended their relationship. He wasn’t sure he could even own up to that. He’d never been so miserable, a shell of a man. He didn’t want to think of himself like that, the hopeless sap ruminating over his litany of mistakes, staring at the engagement ring he wasn’t sure he’d ever have the chance to give her without her throwing it back in his face. “I did fight for you, it was just behind the scenes. I’ve been busting my hump to figure out who the secret LangTel investor is.”
“See? That would have been good information to have, to at least know that you were trying.”
“What kind of man would it make me if I came to you with half-filled promises? Trying and doing are two different things. After everything I did, you deserve better than that.”
Anna sat down on the sofa, seeming deep in thought, but not saying a thing. Was he finally getting somewhere? He had to keep going.
“Anna, darling, I want you back. I think you know that. My feelings for you didn’t go away when you said you were done with me. I still love you.” He drew in a deep breath as he sensed his voice was about to break. Just thinking about today, about the baby, made his heart ache. “Now more than ever.”
She raised her head slowly, her forehead creased with worry. “Because of the baby.”
He took the seat beside her. “Some of it is, of course. There’s no separating the two. But my love for you was there before you got pregnant, and it will be there tomorrow. It’s not going anywhere. I’m not going anywhere.”
“You’re on a high right now from hearing the baby’s heartbeat, from the excitement of what’s new. How are you going to feel when we’re forced to deal with my family? How are you going to feel if we lose the baby?”
Indeed, the road ahead was not getting any easier. He simply needed to know one thing. “Do you have feelings for me?”
She looked at him, scanning his face for what felt like a lifetime. “Part of me does. Part of me wants to punch you for what you did. It’s hard for me to trust you. When I look back at our time together, all I can think about is everything you were keeping from me. That’s hard to get past.”
“Then maybe you need to try harder. I’ll tell you I’m sorry until I’m blue in the face, but we had good times, too. Spectacular times. We had moments where I wasn’t sure another person existed on the planet. Don’t give up on our good memories. We can make more.” He took her hand, relieved that she didn’t fight the gesture. Body warmth traveled so easily between them—why couldn’t everything else between them be so simple? Why couldn’t things go back to the way they’d been at the beginning? So elemental. “I can’t change the past. All I can do is try to build a future, but you hold the key. I can’t do it without you.”