18. Maddie
CHAPTER 18
MADDIE
“ I need to speak to you.”
Eli looked up from his computer. “Now?”
“Yes, now.” Maddie had spent the last twenty minutes trying to summon the courage to come into the office and talk to him. She wasn’t about to wait any longer than necessary.
“I thought you didn’t like talking to me late at night.” He looked pointedly at the clock, which read eleven forty-five.
“And you also know that I would happily talk to you in the middle of the day if you were ever around then, but you’re not. It’s got to be eleven forty-five.”
He let out a sigh.
Maddie felt awful. This wasn’t at all the way she had wanted this to go. “I don’t want us to fight,” she said. “I want to have a conversation with you without it turning into a fight. Can’t we do that?”
“I don’t know if we can. It hasn’t seemed like it lately.”
“Eli, please. I just want to have a conversation with you. Surely we can do that.” They were in for a rough time if they couldn’t, Maddie thought. This was going to be one of the most important conversations of her life. She had imagined it many times before walking in here, and she had envisioned several possible outcomes, but one thing she hadn’t allowed herself to think was that the two of them might spend the whole time sniping at one another. God, wouldn’t that be miserable?
“Sit down,” Eli suggested.
“So we can talk like normal people?”
“Yes, yes.”
She lowered herself into a seat, feeling anxious and uncertain. She wouldn’t have known how to begin a conversation like this one with her most trusted friend, let alone this man she could barely stand to talk about the weather with.
“What’s on your mind?” Eli asked her.
Maddie swallowed hard. Maybe the best thing to do was simply to jump into it. “I have to tell you something,” she said.
Suddenly, she found she had his attention. He was looking right at her, an expression of concern on his face. “Is this about Charlie?”
“About Charlie? No.”
“You seemed so serious. I just thought it must be about him.”
That made sense, she supposed. “Everything’s fine with Charlie.”
“Then what’s going on? It can’t be that big a deal, if things with Charlie are okay.”
If only that were true.
If only she could simply agree that it wasn’t a very big deal, get up, and walk out of here without any more damage to either one of them.
If only she didn’t have to tell him.
But she did. It had been a surprisingly quick decision, once she’d begun to think about it. It would be wrong to keep this from him. If the shoe had been on the other foot — not that a shoe like this ever could be on the other foot, of course, but if it had been — she would consider it the ultimate betrayal if someone was having her baby and didn’t bother to tell her about it. It would be far worse than anything he had ever done to her.
And she wanted to give him a chance to do the right thing. She wanted to give him a chance to realize that this baby — this family — needed him to thrive, and that he needed them in order to be his best self.
Maybe she would tell him what had happened and it would change everything. She knew it was a long shot. But if it was even possible…
She took a deep breath and said the words. “I’m pregnant, Eli.”
She watched his face as understanding dawned slowly. At first, he didn’t seem to quite process what she’d said. He looked confused — his eyebrows pulled together, and he frowned — as if he understood the words, but maybe not the reason she was choosing to tell him about it.
She waited for it to sink in.
His eyes widened, and then she knew that he had it. Her stomach churned. Waiting for his response seemed to take a lifetime.
“Pregnant?” he said at last. “You’re pregnant?”
“I just found out earlier today.”
“How—” He shook his head, dismissing the question he had clearly been about to ask, for which Maddie was grateful — they both knew how it had happened, of course.
He swallowed hard.
He hadn’t asked her if he was the father. She was grateful for that too. In her imaginings, the worst-case scenario had always been that that might be the first thing out of his mouth. She could tell him honestly that she knew he was the father — there were no other candidates — but it felt like such an ugly conversation to need to have. She was glad he had intuited that information.
He drew a deep breath. “All right,” he said.
Now it was Maddie’s turn to try to synthesize the information at her disposal. “All right?” she repeated.
“You’re going to need… what? An expense account, I suppose. To provide for the baby. I’ll set it up. You’ll be fully covered — everything you and the baby need.”
“That’s what you have to say? You’re going to start a bank account?”
Maddie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It wasn’t the worst thing she had imagined — it was somehow even worse than that. He was throwing money at the problem? He was treating her as if she was one of his clients, as if she had some kind of business complaint.
The future was suddenly abundantly clear to Maddie — this was probably the last conversation the two of them would ever have about this child. If they spoke again, it would only be about the finances. She would reach out to him when she needed money for a doctor’s appointment, for school supplies or a college fund. She saw it all as if she had already lived it, and she could hardly believe she had dared to hope for anything better. Of course this was the man he was. He had never tried to hide his character from her. He had never suggested that he might be anyone else.
She got to her feet.
He watched her. “You’re going?”
“You’re going to start a bank account,” she repeated. Was there more to say? “I suppose you’ll let me know when that’s done so that I can start using it.”
He looked a little taken aback, possibly by her quick acceptance of the situation. “I’ll make sure you get a bank card and all the account information, yes,” he said.
“Great. Perfect. Then I don’t think we have anything else to talk about here.”
Eli had the decency to look a little uncomfortable. “Maddie, maybe we should discuss this.”
For a moment she was tempted to sit back down, to give him a second chance — but she resisted the temptation. It wouldn’t change anything. He would tell her again that he intended to provide for her — he would try to frame it in a way that made him feel as if he was doing the right thing. He wanted to keep talking for the sake of his own guilt about the situation, but that wasn’t Maddie’s job, and she didn’t think she could stand to continue this conversation for another moment.
No one had ever broken her heart quite like this.
If Eli didn’t want to be with her, that was fine. She could accept that. But how could the man reject his own child?
She wanted nothing more to do with him.
“I think it’s best if I leave,” she said.
“All right,” he agreed. “We can talk later.”
“No,” Maddie said. “I mean, I think it’s best if I leave this house altogether. Stop working for you. This hasn’t been a good situation for either one of us for a while now, and for me to carry this pregnancy in front of Charlie… that’s not a good idea. I should go now.”
She held her breath, wondering how Eli would respond. Surely he would try to convince her to stay?
But he didn’t. He returned his eyes to the computer screen. “If that’s what you think is best,” he said, his voice devoid of emotion.
The shock of realizing how little he cared, in the end, rocked Maddie to her core. She was stunned and frustrated, too, to realize that she cared deeply for him. It would hurt her badly to leave.
But it was what needed to be done.
“I just can’t thank you enough for this,” Maddie said, settling on the bed that had once been hers.
Tess sat down beside her and handed her a cup of tea. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you’d like,” she said gently.
“I appreciate you not saying ‘I told you so.’”
“Well, even I couldn’t have predicted this.” Tess put an arm around Maddie’s shoulders. “How are you feeling?”
“Oh, all kinds of ways.” Maddie sighed. “I wish it was simple. I wish I could just be angry with him and resent everything that happened between us, but I can’t. The truth is that a lot of it makes me really happy.”
“I can’t believe you’re going to have a baby.”
“Neither can I. I’m being completely irresponsible by going ahead with this. I don’t even have a place to live!”
“But you will,” Tess assured her. “Once that bank account is ready to go, you’ll be able to find a perfect home for yourself and the baby. Not that I want you to rush into moving out. You should make sure the place you choose is exactly what you want. We’ll help you look — me and Damian.”
“Thank you, Tess. I can’t tell you how much that means to me. I don’t know what I would do without the support of friends at a time like this.”
“You’re not going to have to find out. We’ve got your back. You’ll let me throw you a baby shower, won’t you?”
“Oh, God. Do you think that’s a good idea?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“I just feel like people might think this isn’t something to celebrate. Accidentally getting knocked up by my boss.”
“Maddie, you’re going to be a mother,” Tess said. “You’re taking the biggest step forward in life that I can possibly imagine. And I know it isn’t happening in the most conventional way, and I understand that you have doubts about it because of that, but everyone is going to want to be by your side. All of our friends are going to be as excited as I am to support you in this. Trust me.”
“I trust you.” Maddie smiled. “And you’re right. This is a big deal, isn’t it?”
“You’re having trouble feeling how special it is right now because of how that jackass reacted when you told him, that’s all.”
“He’s not a jackass.”
“Of course he is! What kind of man hears that he’s going to have a baby and says okay, I’ll set you up a bank account ? What would you think if you heard that Damian had done that to me?”
“Damian would never.”
“No, exactly, he wouldn’t. And the fact that Eli would tells me everything I need to know about him. He’s selfish and heartless and frankly not the kind of man anyone would want to raise a child with.”
“I know you’ve never liked him, based on those articles you read about him.”
“I would have let him prove me wrong if he had handled this situation well,” Tess said. “But he didn’t. And you just don’t get unlimited chances when it comes to my best friend. We don’t need him. We can do this without him. You can do this without him.”
Maddie nodded sadly. “You’re right,” she said. “And it’s probably for the best. At the end of the day, I don’t know that I can trust him as a father. Not after seeing the way he was with Charlie. He broke that poor boy’s heart, and I’d never want that to happen to my kid. I can hardly stand the idea that I left Charlie to that.”
“It was the right thing. Like you said before, you couldn’t live in that house, have a baby that’s technically going to be Charlie’s sibling, and keep their relationship a secret. Charlie might be just a little kid now, but if he ever figures out what happened…”
“It would destroy his relationship with his father.”
“It was the kindest thing you could do for him to leave that house when you did, even though it might be hard on him in the short term.”
“You’re right,” Maddie agreed. “It’s just that I care about him. It’s tough to leave him behind. All of this is very hard.”
“You’re making all the right choices,” Tess reassured her. “I know it’s hard to have faith in that, but you are. And I’ll be beside you the whole way. You’re not going to be alone.”
“Thank you, Tess,” Maddie said. “You’re a true friend.”
“Make yourself at home,” Tess told her. “I want you to stay here until you have a plan that makes you happy for the future. And until that day comes, I’ll be right with you every step of the way.”
Maddie nodded gratefully. She knew she was lucky to have people supporting her. Some expectant mothers didn’t even have that.
But she knew that she would never stop wishing Eli had been the one to stand up and do the right thing for her and for her baby.
Her child would never have a father. She would be the best mother she knew how to be, of course, and she had faith that she would do well, but even so…
She thought of the relationship she’d shared with her own father when he was alive — of all he had meant to her.
It broke her heart that her baby wasn’t going to have that.
But Eli Sinclair simply wasn’t that kind of man. He never had been, and she should never have expected him to be.