43. Addy
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Addy
By the time Ethan comes home, I've already had three separate emotional breakdowns and one argument with a saucepan.
The saucepan won.
So the sound of the elevator makes me jump.
The door opens, and Ethan steps inside.
He looks exhausted.
Beautiful, because apparently life is cruel, but exhausted. His suit jacket's open, his tie loosened, and his eyes go straight to me like the rest of the room is irrelevant.
For one second, my heart lifts.
Then his phone buzzes. He glances down. His jaw tightens at whatever he reads, and then his expression closes.
The familiar distance settles over his expression almost immediately.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
He looks up. “Yes.”
Lie.
Not a full lie, maybe. An Ethan lie. The kind where technically nobody is bleeding in front of him, so he classifies it as manageable.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
Luci makes a choking sound.
Ethan’s gaze flicks to her.
She smiles brightly. “Pasta?”
“No, thank you.”
“Shame.”
I push myself off the stool. “Oliver’s asleep.”
“Good.”
“Captain stole Luci’s boot again.”
He smiles faintly. “I’ll address it in the morning.”
“Great. Can’t wait for the disciplinary hearing.”
Then his phone buzzes again.
“I need to take this in my office,” he says quietly. “I’ll be ten minutes.”
“Okay.”
He goes to his office, and as the door closes, my stomach sinks into iciness.
Luci sets down her fork. “You okay?”
“No.”
“Good. Honesty. Progress.”
The fears I’ve been trying to compartmentalize since the hospital refuse to stay contained anymore.
I don’t know what I am here anymore.
Not really.
I came into this apartment as Oliver’s nanny. Then Ethan became Ethan, and somewhere along the way the lines dissolved without either of us stopping to redraw them.
Now I’m pregnant with his children, sleeping down the hall from his bedroom, emotionally attached to his son, and still somehow existing in a role that no longer fits anywhere cleanly.
Not while Oliver loves me with his whole little heart, and I’m one decision away from breaking something I can’t fix.
I walk to my room before I can change my mind.
Luci follows. “Addy.”
“I need to think.”
“You’re not thinking. You’re fleeing in slow motion.”
“Still counts.”
Inside my room, my suitcases sit against the wall.
I hate that I never fully unpacked emotionally, even if my sweaters are in Ethan’s drawers now and my shampoo is in his shower, and my heart has made itself embarrassingly comfortable in places it has no legal right to occupy.
I sit on the edge of the bed.
“I can’t be his nanny anymore,” I say. “Every part of the arrangement feels blurred beyond repair now. Not while trying to figure out whether we’re building a family or surviving a crisis.”
Luci’s face softens. “No. Probably not.”
That makes me cry immediately.
“Oh, come on,” I say, wiping under my eyes. “You’re supposed to tell me I’m being dramatic.”
“You are being dramatic. You’re also not wrong.”
“Unhelpful combination.”
She sits beside me. “You can’t be the live-in nanny while pregnant with his triplets and trying to figure out if you’re in love with him.”
“I didn't say love.”
“No, but your face did. Loudly.”
“I also have no job now. No apartment. No plan. I’m pregnant with three babies, and the father is a billionaire with a tragic past and an empire collapsing around him.”
Luci gives me a look. “His empire isn't collapsing.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Fine. Mildly wobbling.”
She rests a hand on my shoulder. “But you do need to talk to him before you do anything drastic.”
“I’m afraid he’ll talk me out of leaving.”
“Would that be bad?”
“Yes.” A pause. “No. I don’t know.”
She nods. “Exactly.”
I wipe my face again. “I hate this.”
“I know.”
“I hate that part of me wants him to say, ‘Stay, you’re mine, I’ll fix everything.’”
“That’s not unreasonable.”
“It is. Because I’d resent him if he actually tried to fix everything.”
“Also true.”
I sigh. “I’m impossible.”
“You’re pregnant with triplets. You’re allowed a little impossible.”
From Ethan’s office, I hear his voice.
Hearing his voice through the office door makes the separation between our worlds feel suddenly impossible to ignore.
He has a whole world I’m not part of.
A world of board members and legal teams and corrupted code and Megan’s crash and Bryce’s betrayal.
And I have my body, my fear, and three babies.
I stand. “Okay.”
Luci looks up. “Okay?”
“I’m talking to him.”
“Now?”
“If I wait, I’ll either lose courage or start alphabetizing my panic.”
“Fair.”
I walk out before I can change my mind.
Ethan’s office door is slightly open. His voice stops as I approach. Then he says, “Send it to Jeffrey. Nothing goes live until I approve it.” A pause. “No, Sara. Not tonight.” Another pause. “I understand what Malden wants. Malden can want quietly.”
Despite everything, my mouth almost twitches.
Then he ends the call.
I knock lightly.
He looks up, and the exhaustion on his face eases. “Addy.”
“I need to talk to you.”
Immediately, he stands. That almost makes me cry again. “Are you all right?”
“No.”
His whole body stills. “Physically?”
“Yes.”
The relief is visible, brief, then buried. “Come in.”
I do, but I don’t sit. If I sit, I might fold. “I can’t work for you anymore.”
The words come out fast.
Too fast.
His expression doesn’t change immediately. Then stress tightens around his eyes. “I know.”
That derails me. “You know?”
“Yes. I knew you’d say that.”
“Oh.” I frown. “Well, I had a speech.”
“You can still give it.”
I shake my head. “That’s not the point.”
“What is?”
“That you’re supposed to argue poorly so I can feel firm and adult.”
His mouth moves faintly. “I’m sorry to disappoint.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “This is serious.”
“I know.”
“I mean it. I can’t be Oliver’s nanny while I’m pregnant with your babies.”
“No.”
The agreement hurts, even though I said it first.
“I love him,” I say. “Oliver. I love him, and that makes this worse.”
Ethan’s face softens. “I know.”
“But I’m not his mother, and I’m not your wife.”
“Addy—”
“I’m not even really your girlfriend.”
His jaw tightens. “We haven’t defined it.”
“No,” I say. “We haven’t. Because everything keeps exploding before we can have a normal conversation like normal people who don’t conceive triplets between corporate sabotage attempts.”
“That's… accurate.”
“Don’t be dry right now. I’ll cry.”
His expression softens further. “I’m listening.”
I inhale shakily. “I think I should go back with Luci for a while.”
Ethan becomes very still. “For a while?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
His hands rest lightly on the edge of the desk. Controlled. Always controlled. “Why?”
“I… need to be near my family.”
His eyes stay on mine. “And?”
“I need space.”
Ethan’s expression doesn’t change immediately, but something guarded settles deeper behind his eyes. “And?”
“I need to figure out doctors and money and—”
“Money isn't an issue.”
“It is for me.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
I look away. “That’s easy for you to say.”
“Yes,” he says quietly. “It is.”
That disarms me for half a second. “I don’t want to be dependent on you.”
“I’m not asking you to be.”
“You kind of are by existing as the only person in this situation who can afford triplet specialists without having a nervous breakdown.”
“I can provide care without owning your choices.”
“I don’t want to be a burden,” I say.
His voice changes. “You're not.”
“You don’t know that yet.”
“I do.”
“No, you don’t.” My eyes fill. “You don’t know what this is going to be like.
I don’t know what this is going to be like.
Three babies, Ethan. Three. High-risk appointments and bed rest maybe and hormones and complications, and then newborns times three.
You already have Oliver. You already have a company.
You already have Megan’s case reopening in whatever terrifying way that's happening.”
His gaze sharpens, but I keep going.
“I can see you disappearing into all of it. Work. Her. The truth. The babies. Me. I can see you trying to manage it until there’s nothing left of you, and I can’t stand around waiting to see which part of your life gets your attention that day.”
Silence.
My stomach drops. Because that sounded harsher than I meant it. But maybe I did mean it.
Ethan looks down briefly. When he looks up again, his face is controlled, but hurt sits underneath it. “You think I’m being cold because of the pregnancy.”
The hurt underneath the question catches me off guard.
I swallow. “Aren’t you?”
“No.”
The answer is immediate.
“I’m being pulled in too many directions,” he says. “That isn’t an excuse. It’s an explanation.”
“I know there’s work stuff.”
“You know pieces.”
“Because you don’t tell me the rest.”
“I’m trying not to put more weight on you.”
“I'm already under the weight, Ethan. I’m pregnant with three babies, and somehow Bryce is involved in your company and Megan’s crash, and I don’t know what any of it means.”
He flinches at Megan’s name.
My voice softens despite myself. “See? That. You go somewhere I can’t follow. And that’s what I need space from.” I start to back away, needing space already before the breath leads my body completely. “I think this will be best for both of us.”
I don’t give him a chance to answer. I can’t stand to hear it.