Chapter 9
Chapter nine
~EMMA~
Early Tuesday morning—the morning after what will forever be known as the ‘the Night of the Sexiest Damn Kiss of My Life’, I wake up with a mission…
Survive the week ahead without thinking about Donovan Mitchell Titan.
Simple, right?
I have a plan. A good plan.
An Emma-gets-her-shit-together plan.
Step one: Sleep in until seven. (I deserve it after this week.)
Step two: Go for a run. (Clear my head, burn off the nervous energy from last night's kiss.)
Step three: Meal prep for the week. (Be a functional adult who doesn't survive on vending machine snacks.)
Step four: Absolutely, under no circumstances, replay the feeling of Donovan's mouth on mine.
It's a solid plan.
And it lasts approximately seven minutes.
Because at five AM—two hours before my intended wake-up time—I'm jolted awake by a wave of nausea so violent I barely make it to the bathroom before I'm hunched over the toilet, throwing up everything I've eaten in the past twelve hours.
Which, given that I skipped lunch yesterday, isn't much.
"Okay," I gasp, sitting back against the tub. "New plan. Survive the next five minutes without dying."
The nausea subsides slightly, and I try to stand.
Big mistake.
The room spins, my stomach lurches, and I’m back on the floor, face pressed against cold tile, seriously recounting every single move I’ve made this last week that led me here.
The kiss.
Donovan's hands in my hair.
The way he steely gray eyes turned into liquid fire when they trailed to my mouth.
"Stupid," I mutter to the tile. "So stupid."
My stomach churns again, and I barely make it to the toilet before everything comes up.
When I'm finally empty—or as empty as I'm going to get—I sit back against the tub and try to remember the last time I felt normal.
It's been weeks.
The exhaustion. The random nausea.
The weird emotional volatility where I cried last Tuesday because the coffee machine was broken.
I blamed it on stress.
New job. New city. New everything.
But now, sitting here on my bathroom floor with my head spinning and my stomach in revolt, a different possibility creeps in.
A possibility that makes my blood run cold.
My period.
When was my last period?
I do the mental math, counting back through May, through Miami, through—
"No," I whisper. "No, no, no, no."
It was before Miami. Early May, definitely. Which means...
"Fuck." The word echoes in my tiny bathroom. "FUCK."
I lunge for my phone on the counter, frantically pulling up my period tracker app with shaking hands.
Last period: May 4th.
Today: June 14th.
Six weeks.
I'm two weeks late.
"No." I'm shaking now, full-body tremors that have nothing to do with being sick. "This isn't happening. This can't be happening."
My original plan—survive the week without thinking about Donovan—has officially been replaced by a new, more urgent goal…
Find out the improbable—no, the impossible…
Find out if I'm pregnant before I completely lose my mind.
I call Sasha.
Voicemail.
Riley.
Voicemail.
"Of course," I say to my empty bathroom. "Of course you're both unavailable during my actual crisis."
I try to stand, planning to walk to the drugstore myself, but another wave of nausea hits and I'm back on the floor, dry-heaving into the toilet because there's nothing left to throw up.
When it passes, I just sit there, forehead pressed against the cool porcelain, trying to breathe.
Pregnant.
I might be pregnant.
With Donovan Titan’s baby.
My boss's baby.
The CEO of Titan Industries' baby.
"I'm going to throw up again," I moan, and then I do.
By seven AM, I've managed to drag myself off the bathroom floor and into the shower, where I stand under lukewarm water—because the hot water still doesn't work properly—trying to formulate a new plan.
Goal: Get a pregnancy test. Find out for sure.
Obstacle: Can barely stand without feeling like I'm going to pass out.
I'm pulling on clothes—yoga pants and an oversized sweatshirt because anything else feels impossible right now—when there's a knock at my door.
"Emma? It's Carmen. I brought victory bagels. They’re to celebrate you absolutely wowing Richard Castellano last night. Girl, you killed it!”
Oh God.
Carmen.
I can't face Carmen right now. Not when I'm pretty sure I'm about to have a breakdown.
"Just a second!" I call out, then immediately regret it because my voice sounds strangled.
Another knock, more insistent this time. "Emma, are you okay? You sound weird."
"I'm fine! Just—"
But she's already pushing open the door with a concerned expression and a bag of bagels. “Did you know your door is unlocked?” She takes one look at me, immediately taking in my appearance. “Whoa. Are you green? It’s…gnarly.”
"Thanks. That's exactly what every girl wants to hear."
"I'm serious." She sets the bagels on my non-existent counter. "You're pale. And you're sweating. Are you sick?"
"Maybe." I sink onto my air mattress, my plan to get to the drugstore completely derailed. "I've been throwing up all morning."
Carmen's expression shifts from concerned to alarmed. "All morning? Emma, you need to see a doctor."
"It's probably just a stomach bug."
"Or food poisoning. Or—" She stops, studying me with those sharp analytical eyes that make her excellent at her job. "When was your last period?"
My stomach twists. "What?"
"Your last period. When was it?"
"I don't—why would you—"
"Because I had a friend who spent three weeks thinking she had a stomach bug before she realized she was pregnant." Carmen sits next to me. "So I'm asking. When was your last period?"
I could lie. Should lie.
Instead, I say, "Six weeks ago."
Silence.
Then: "Oh."
"Yeah. Oh."
"Do you have a test?"
"No. I was going to go buy one, but then I started throwing up again, and—" My voice cracks. "Carmen, I can't be pregnant. I just started this job. Everyone will think I can’t—"
"Stop." Carmen's voice is firm. "Nobody's going to think that. You earned this position. You're brilliant. And if you are pregnant, that doesn't change anything about your qualifications."
"It changes everything."
"It changes some things," she corrects. "But not the important ones." She stands, grabbing her purse. "Come on."
"Where are we going?"
"Drugstore. You need a test. You need to know for sure before you go off the deep end."
"I won’t. I’m firmly in the shallow end, I promise.”
Carmen gives me a look. "You're sitting on an air mattress in yoga pants, looking like you're about to cry. You’re definitely about to go over an edge.”
She's not wrong.
"Okay," I say quietly. "Okay. Let's go."
Twenty minutes later, we're back in my apartment with three different pregnancy tests because Carmen believes in being thorough.
"All three?" I ask, staring at the boxes.
"All three. Different brands, different sensitivities. We want definitive results."
"You sound like you're conducting a research study."
"I'm applying strategic thinking to a crisis situation." She hands me the tests. "Now go. I'll wait here."
The bathroom feels smaller than usual as I open the first box with shaking hands.
My goal was simple…
Find out if I'm pregnant.
What I didn't plan for was how absolutely terrifying the answer might be.
I pee on all three sticks—which is harder than it sounds when your hands won't stop shaking—and set them on the counter.
"Three minutes," Carmen calls through the door. "Do you want me to time it?"
"Sure. Why not. Let's make this even more stressful."
"Deep breaths, Emma. Whatever the result is, we'll figure it out."
I sit on the closed toilet lid and stare at the three tests lined up on my sink like tiny plastic judges about to determine my fate.
What if it's positive?
And what the hell do I tell Donovan?
"Hey, remember that one night in Miami when we agreed it was just a one-time thing with no complications? Well, funny story..."
What do I tell work?
"Sorry, I know I just started, but I'm going to need maternity leave in about seven months. Hope that's cool."
What do I tell my parents? My sisters? Sasha and Riley?
What do I tell myself when I look in the mirror and see a woman who's about to become a mother when she can barely afford her rent?
"Time's up," Carmen says gently through the door.
I close my eyes. Take a breath. Stand up.
And look at the tests.
Two pink lines.
Two pink lines.
Two pink lines.
All three tests. All positive.
"Oh my God," I whisper. "Oh my God."
"Emma?" Carmen's voice is cautious. "What does it say?"
I open the bathroom door on shaking legs, holding out the tests like evidence at a trial.
Carmen takes one look and pulls me into a hug.
That's when I start crying.
Not delicate, pretty crying.
Full-on, ugly, snotty sobbing into Carmen's shoulder while she rubs my back and makes soothing noises.
"I can't do this," I gasp between sobs. "I can't be pregnant. I can't afford a baby. I just started this job. I don't even have real furniture."
"You can do this," Carmen says firmly. "You're one of the strongest women I’ve ever met. And you're not alone."
"But everyone's going to think—"
"Who cares what people think? You know the truth. That's what matters."
I pull back, wiping my eyes. "The father is... it's complicated."
"Is he a good guy?"
I think about Donovan.
About the way he made sure I ate when I was working too late. The way he orders a car for me every night.
The way he kissed me last night, holding onto me like he never wanted to let go.
"Yeah," I say quietly. "He's a good guy. But we're not... we're not together. It was one night. In Miami. And now I work for—" I stop, catching myself.
Carmen's too smart not to notice.
Her eyes widen slightly. "Emma. Please tell me the father isn't—"
"I can't talk about it yet." The words tumble out—hurried. Rushed. "I need to process. I need to figure out what I'm going to do before I—" I press my hands to my face. "Can we just... can we not talk about who it is right now?"
Carmen watches me for a long moment, and I can practically see her putting pieces together. But she just nods.
"Okay. But Emma? Whoever he is, he has a right to know."
"I know." My hand drifts to my stomach, still flat, showing no sign of the chaos happening inside. "But not yet. Not until after the product launch."
"That's four weeks away."
"I know. But I need to prove myself first. I need to show that I earned this job, that I deserve to be here. If I tell him now—if people find out now—they'll assume I got hired because of... because of personal reasons."
"Nobody will assume that."
"They will. You know they will." I sit back down on the air mattress. "Please, Carmen. Four weeks. Just give me four weeks to prove myself. Then I'll tell him. I'll deal with all of it. But right now, I need to focus on my work."
Carmen looks like she wants to argue, but finally she sighs. “Four weeks. But Emma? You need to see a doctor. Get checked out. Make sure everything's okay."
"I will. I promise."
"And you need to take care of yourself. No more seventy-hour weeks. No more skipping meals."
"Okay."
"I'm serious, Emma. You're not just taking care of yourself anymore."
The words send a ball of anxiety to the pit of my stomach.
Because I'm not just taking care of myself anymore.
I'm going to be a mother.
I touch my stomach again, and this time, underneath the panic and the fear and the overwhelming sense that my life is spinning out of control, there's something else.
Something that feels almost like... possibility.
"Carmen?" My voice is small. "What if I want to keep it?"
"Then you keep it." She sits next to me. "And we figure out the rest as we go."
"Just like that?"
"Just like that." She bumps my shoulder with hers. "You're not alone in this, Emma. Whatever you decide, however this goes, you've got people in your corner."
I lean my head on her shoulder, exhausted and terrified and somehow, impossibly, the tiniest bit hopeful.
"Thank you," I whisper.
"That's what new friends are for."
We sit there in my shoebox apartment, surrounded by positive pregnancy tests and half-eaten bagels, and I let myself feel everything.
The fear. The panic.
The overwhelming sense that nothing will ever be the same.
But also—buried deep under all of that—a tiny spark of something that might, eventually…become joy.
Because in seven and a half months, I'm going to be a mother.
And Donovan Mitchell—billionaire CEO, confirmed bachelor, the man I kissed last night outside Ampersand NYC—is going to be a father.
Whether he knows it yet or not.
“Four weeks," I say out loud, making it real. "I'll tell him in one month.”
“One month,” Carmen agrees.
And I pray to whoever's listening that one month will be enough time to figure out how to tell the man I work for—the man I'm maybe starting to have feelings for—that our one night in Miami is about to become infinitely more complicated.
Starting with a baby.
His baby.
Our baby.
"I'm going to throw up again," I moan.
"Morning sickness or panic?"
"Both."
Carmen helps me back to the bathroom, holding my hair while I'm sick, and all I can think is…
This is my life now.
Pregnant. Terrified. Completely unprepared.
And somehow, I'm going to have to find a way to make it work.
Starting with surviving the next four weeks without completely losing my mind.
Or throwing up on my boss.
Whichever comes first.