29. CHRIS
29
CHRIS
T he notification pinged on my phone, and I frowned when I swiped it open. A formal appointment on my calendar.
With Bella.
Why the hell was she booking time with me like this? Why not just come find me or call me? My stomach twisted.
Bella never did things by the book, especially not with me. Hell, we weren’t like that. She wasn’t just my employee, she was… everything.
This felt cold. Distant.
My gut twisted again and I drummed my fingers on the edge of the desk. What was this about? Had she decided that taking it slow wasn’t working out? Maybe she realized she didn’t want me anymore. Maybe she didn’t want the whole messy package that came with me—the damage, the history, the broken pieces.
Fuck, I wouldn’t blame her.
But another part of me totally would.
Who the hell did she think she was playing fast and loose with me like this?
Keep it together, man. Control. You’re a fucking Blackwood.
Not that that meant I was in any kind of control over my emotions better than I would have been if I wasn’t. I hadn’t always been a Blackwood. I still had all the mess from before, tied up in a neat package and shoved in the back of a closet filled with skeletons.
The knot in my chest tightened. The office suddenly felt too small, the air too thin.
I needed to get out and breathe.
Hell, I needed a drink.
But her appointment would be soon. I still had a moment to get out and breathe.
When I walked into my office a couple of hours later, Bella was already there. She was sat in one of the chairs across from my desk, her hands fidgeting in her lap, her eyes flicking up to meet mine. There was tension in the air, thick and heavy, crackling between us the moment I stepped inside.
I closed the door behind me, trying to keep my expression neutral as I took a seat across from her. She wanted to be fucking professional, then that was what she was going to get.
My office on the yacht was polished—sleek lines, dark wood, and glass that showed off the view of the water. Normally, it made me feel like I had things together. Today, it felt like a goddamn trap, a glass box, and I was on show for the world to ogle at.
Except no one’s out there to watch. I was being an idiot.
Modus operandi much?
“What’s this all about, Bella?” I leaned back in my chair, crossing my arms over my chest. I tried to sound casual, but the unease was gnawing at me, making my voice tighter than I wanted. “It’s a very formal meeting request when I didn’t think that was… exactly where we were.”
Understatement of the fucking century.
She took a deep breath, and I noticed the way her fingers tightened around each other, her knuckles turning white. “I wanted to make sure there were no distractions,” she said, her voice strained like she was trying to be just as professional as I was. “I need you to hear me out. Fully. This is… important.”
My stomach sank. Important. The kind of word that didn’t leave any room for good news. “Alright,” I said, trying to ignore the way my pulse had picked up, the way I already felt sick to my stomach that she was probably going to dump me. “You’ve got my attention.”
She hesitated, her eyes meeting mine, and then she finally spoke, her voice trembling slightly. “Chris, I’m pregnant.”
I stared at her. I had no idea what she was saying.
Pregnant.
I mean, I knew what the word meant. But I didn’t understand it in this context—Bella, my employee and my long-lost-girlfriend. Our cruise fling, so to speak. Monaco, the place where everything was made of glitter and dreams and so much money most people could only wish they had this life.
Pregnant.
The word hit me like a punch to the gut, knocking the air right out of me as my brain processed the meaning. I stared at her, my thoughts grinding to a halt. Pregnant. Bella. Me. It didn’t make sense. It couldn’t. It was like someone had hit the brakes, and everything around me was frozen in place.
I thought she’d come here to break up with me. That was what I’d prepared for. I couldn’t say that I’d been ready for it, but fuck, I’d been more prepared for that than… this.
Pregnant. A baby.
Me.
A father.
That was about the time the fear kicked in.
It crushed me in a flash, a flood of memories and thoughts I’d spent my whole life trying to bury slamming into me so that I was reeling, I couldn’t think straight, I couldn’t breathe.
My father’s face flashed in my mind, the anger in his eyes, the way he’d lash out at anything and everything. Fists pounding my body until there wasn’t an inch of me that didn’t hurt.
My mother’s back as she walked away, leaving me to deal with the mess alone because she was too fucking pathetic to take me with her.
The way I’d felt as a kid—lost, terrified, fending for myself because the grown-ups who should have been there for me, protecting me, had either hurt me or left me. The idea of being a father—of being responsible for another human being—made me feel like I was drowning.
I couldn’t do it. What kind of a father would I be? What kind of a role model had I had? Sure, the Blackwoods had found me in the end, buried in some children’s home, dying from the inside out, but my start had been a hell of a mess and wasn’t that the type of shit that stayed behind? My roots, my very existence had started in violence and negligence and pain of every kind.
All I could produce was that. Business, which I was fucking good at… and pain.
Look at what I’d done to Bella, after all. I’d hurt her when I’d left. I’d done what both my parents had done simultaneously. To throw a kid into the mix? A little boy or girl who only deserved love.
I looked away from Bella, my jaw clenching as I tried to keep my expression under control. The storm raged inside of me and I gritted my teeth. My foot tapped restlessly, my body unable to stay still under the weight of everything crashing down on me. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think straight, I couldn’t talk. It felt like the walls were closing in, like the air was being sucked out of the room, and I was left gasping, clawing for a way out.
“Chris?” Bella said softly, and I could hear the worry in her voice. She could see it—the way I was shutting down, freaking out, losing my shit all over the place no matter how hard I tried to keep it together. She leaned forward, her eyes searching my face. “Listen to me. We can figure this out together. I know it’s unexpected, and I’m scared, too, but we don’t have to do this alone.”
She reached for my hand, but before she could touch me, I stood up abruptly, putting distance between us. I couldn’t let her get close. Not now. Not with everything roaring in my head.
I paced my office back and forth in front of the large windows, the ocean stretching out in front of me, ready to swallow me whole. I ran a hand through my hair.
I couldn’t do this. Not now. Not ever.
The fear twisted into something else—anger, frustration. I thought of all the ways I could fuck this up, all the ways I could fail. I was already on the verge of screwing up the company reputation with those stupid rumors. And now this?
It was too much. It scared the living shit out of me.
I wasn’t built for this. I was barely holding myself together most days, and now a kid? I heard my father’s voice in my head, the way he’d sneer at me, telling me I’d never be anything more than a screw-up before more of the beatings rained down.
And he’d been fucking right. Not in how he’d treated me, but the rest of it.
I was a screw-up.
I stopped pacing, my eyes finally meeting Bella’s. She was watching me, her eyes wide, her face pale. I forced myself to shut it all off—the fear, the worry, the part of me that wanted to hold on to her. I had to shut it all down.
Bella stood up, too, her eyes filled with worry. She knew me well enough to know what she was seeing, but her eyes were pleading. She needed me to be different this time.
Hell, she needed me. Period.
She was hoping we could figure this out, hoping I’d be the guy she needed me to be. It was just such a fucking shame I couldn’t be that guy.
“I’m not doing this, Bella,” I said, my voice flat, emotionless. “I can’t. I won’t.”
“What?” she asked in a small voice. Her face had turned from worried to shocked. “What do you mean, you won’t?”
“I’m not cut out to be a father. This was never a part of the deal.”
“Deal!” she cried out. “Is that what this was?”
Fuck, it had come out wrong. But it was better to have her angry at me. That way, it would hurt less when I did the same thing my mom had done and turned my back on her.
“I’m not doing this,” I said again, my voice harder. I’d managed to shut down the emotional part of myself and all that was left was the business side—hard as nails, straight to the point.
That was what she wanted with a business meeting, right?
A little voice in the back of my mind screamed at me that I was being a total jerk, that I knew full well I was just looking for justification when I knew that I was fucking up.
I didn’t listen.
“Chris, don’t do this,” she pleaded, her voice cracking when she finally got the picture. “We can handle this. I know it’s a lot, and it won’t be easy, but… We’ve been through so much already.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m not going to pretend I can be something I’m not. I’m not going to let you think I can be that guy. I have a business to run, a life to live that doesn’t allow for children. We don’t want the same thing.”
“Don’t say that,” she pleaded. “You said you didn’t want to do a life without me. How can you say that now?”
I crossed my arms over my chest, my expression hardening further. I didn’t know how to answer her. I just knew that this wasn’t going to work. I had to protect her from me—from all the ways I could fuck this up, all the ways I could hurt her and this baby.
She was better off. Maybe one day, she would see it, too.
I turned away from her, every muscle in my body tense, bracing for what was coming as I looked out over the water, stretching calm and blue away from me toward the horizon.
There was a long silence, and I could feel her eyes on me, burning into my back. The weight of her heartbreak hung in the air. When she spoke, her voice was so quiet I barely heard it.
“Chris, please. Don’t push me away. I know you’re scared. I’m scared, too, but that’s okay. We don’t have to have it all figured out right now. We just need to know we have each other.”
It was a compelling argument. Hell, if I was half the man she needed, I would have jumped at the chance. A family with Bella? It was the stuff dreams were made of. It was just a pity that the other half—being with me—would be a nightmare.
I turned back to her, forcing myself to keep my expression cold. “I’m not scared, Bella. I’m just being realistic. You’re better off without me, without thinking I can be something I’m not. I’m not doing this with you.”
She stared at me and I held my poker face. When her face crumpled, it felt like someone had taken a knife to my chest, twisting it, but I couldn’t let it show.
There was another silence, long and heavy, filled with everything we weren’t saying. I turned away again. I couldn’t bear to look at her pain anymore. I heard her sniffle, and then the sound of her footsteps as she walked to the door.
I kept my back to her, my hands clenched into fists at my sides. I listened as the door opened, then closed behind her, and I was left alone in the silence of the office, the weight of my fears pressing down on me like a lead blanket.
I wanted to chase after her. I wanted to take it all back. But I couldn’t. Because deep down, I knew she deserved better. And until I figured out how to be better, I wasn’t going to drag her down with me.