Chapter 3
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Sloane walked out through the lobby doors with her blazer rumpled and her badge still clipped on crooked, the morning sun hitting her like something physical after the dim quiet of the clinic room.
Priya had walked her as far as the front desk, gently insisting she go home and rest, that HR would mark the day excused and they’d see her whenever she felt ready.
Sloane had nodded along without really hearing it, her mind stuck on a loop she couldn’t shake loose no matter how hard she tried.
She thought about the months after the wedding that never happened, the weeks she’d spent barely able to get out of bed, let alone remember a pill at the same time every morning.
She’d missed days here and there without telling anyone, too numb most mornings to care about anything beyond getting through the next hour.
She hadn’t thought about any of it the night on the rooftop, hadn’t thought about much of anything except the way he’d looked at her like she was the only person in the building worth seeing.
She had an STD test booked for next week, a sensible appointment she’d made the morning after out of guilt more than fear, and now there was an entirely different appointment waiting for her that she hadn’t let herself fully look at yet.
Her throat tightened as she crossed the plaza outside the building, palm trees throwing thin shade across the pavement, her vision blurring at the edges before she’d even registered she was about to cry.
She stopped walking and pressed the back of her hand hard to her mouth, standing there in the middle of a busy sidewalk in her work clothes, completely undone by something she still couldn’t make herself believe was real.
“Sloane.”
She turned at the sound of her name and found him there, a few feet away, dressed in the same suit from his office, his expression unreadable in a way that still somehow told her he’d been watching her come apart from the moment she stepped outside.
She swiped quickly at her eyes, embarrassed to be caught like this by anyone, least of all him.
“I’m fine. I just need to get to my car.” Her voice came out thinner than she wanted, betraying exactly how not fine she was.
“You’re not driving anywhere right now.” He said it simply, no room left in it for argument, already stepping closer. “I’ll take you home.”
“You don’t need to do that. I have a car. I can drive myself.” She wiped at her face again, frustrated at how useless the gesture was against the tears that kept coming. “I just need a minute.”
“You fainted in my office an hour ago.” His eyes held hers, steady, unwilling to back down. “We clearly have something to talk about, and you are not getting behind a wheel in this state to do it alone.”
She opened her mouth to argue, some reflex toward independence rising up out of habit, but the fight drained out of her almost as fast as it came.
He was right, and some small, relieved part of her was grateful she didn’t have to manage the rest of this morning by herself. She exhaled, shaky, and nodded once.
“There’s a cafe two blocks from here. Quiet, not a lot of people this time of day.
” She gestured vaguely down the street, needing somewhere that wasn’t his office or a moving car, somewhere with light and noise and other people to keep whatever came next from feeling too enormous. “Can we go there instead?”
“Wherever you need.” He fell into step beside her, his hand settling light at her elbow, not gripping, just there, and she let herself lean into the steadiness of it, too tired to do anything else, the silence between them heavy with everything neither of them had said yet.
The cafe was quiet the way she’d promised, a handful of tables near a window with morning light pooling across the wood floors, the smell of espresso and warm bread thick in the air.
Draven ordered for both of them without asking, something simple, toast and eggs and a pot of tea instead of coffee, and she didn’t have the energy left to object.
They sat across from each other in a corner booth, and for a while neither of them said much, the quiet stretched thin between the hiss of the espresso machine and the low murmur of other tables.
Sloane wrapped both hands around her mug and stared into it like the tea might offer some kind of script.
She’d rehearsed nothing on the walk over, too overwhelmed to plan words, and now that the moment was here she just said it, blunt and fast, like ripping off something that would only hurt worse the longer she let it sit.
“I’m pregnant.” She kept it low, glancing once around the cafe to be sure no one could hear.
“And before you say anything, I’m keeping the baby and yes, its yours.
I have no reason to lie to you. I’ve always wanted to be a mother, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise just because the timing is a disaster.
” She made herself keep going, faster now, before the words could lose their nerve.
“If you don’t want any part of this, that’s fine.
You can sign away your rights once the baby’s born and I’ll never ask you for anything. I can do this alone.”
She hadn’t imagined doing it this way, not once, not in any version of motherhood she’d pictured for herself growing up. She pushed the thought down before it could fully take root and made herself look at the man across from her, who hadn’t moved or spoken since the words left her mouth.
Draven set his fork down slowly, his eyes steady on hers in a way that made her stomach tighten despite everything else crowding her chest. He didn’t look shocked.
He didn’t look like a man hunting for an exit either, which was somehow more unsettling than if he had.
“I’m not signing anything.” He said it plainly, like the idea hadn’t cost him more than a second to dismiss. “I’m not going anywhere, Sloane.”
“You don’t have to say that just to be polite.” She tightened her hands around the mug, aware of how warm his attention felt even now, even with her whole life upended in the space of a morning. “I’m giving you a real way out. You don’t owe me anything.”
“I know exactly what I owe and don’t owe.” He leaned in slightly, his voice dropping, deliberate. “Do you think we met again by accident?”
The question landed sideways, and for a moment she just stared at him, certain she’d misheard. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means nothing about this was an accident.” He held her gaze, unflinching, while the words settled over her slow and then all at once.
“I found out who you were three weeks ago. I made sure the contract landed on your desk. I made sure the offer was good enough you wouldn’t think twice about taking it. ”
Heat rushed up her neck, fast and furious, her chair scraping back an inch before she caught herself.
“You orchestrated my job.” Her voice came out tighter than she meant, a couple of other diners glancing over before she lowered it.
“You had me investigated, and then you what, bought my way into your own building so you could keep tabs on me?”
“Wait.” He said it firm, not raising his voice, but with enough authority in the single word that she actually stopped.
“There’s a clause in your contract. You can walk away from Mercer Enterprises any time you want, no penalty, no repayment of the bonus, no consequences of any kind.
I built that in specifically because I didn’t want you trapped by anything I’d set in motion.
” He let it sit a beat. “I got you here. I never intended to trap you.”
She sat with that, anger and something far more complicated tangled together in her chest, unable to fully pull one from the other while he watched her work through it without looking away. “That doesn’t make it not insane.”
“I never said it wasn’t insane.” The corner of his mouth lifted, though his eyes stayed serious.
“When I want something, I go after it. That’s not new information about me, and I’m not going to apologize for it now.
” He reached across the table, not quite touching her, just close enough that she felt the pull of it anyway.
“This isn’t a trap, Sloane. It’s a chance for us to actually know each other, the way we didn’t let ourselves the first time. ”
She wanted to be angrier than she was. She sat there hunting for the fury that should have been simple, the only reasonable response to learning a man had quietly rearranged her entire life without asking, and found it tangled instead with something warmer, something that had been tugging at her since the moment he turned around in that office.
She hated how much she still wanted him sitting across from her like this, steady and certain, even now.
He drove her home afterward, the car quiet but for the low hum of the radio, her mind too full to make conversation for most of the ride.
When he pulled up outside her building he came around to open her door himself, walking her to the entrance with one hand resting light at the small of her back.
She turned to say something, some half-formed protest about needing space to think, and he kissed her instead, slow and certain, his hand sliding into her hair like he had every right to it.
She felt the words die in her throat, her fingers curling into the front of his shirt before she’d decided to let them.
He pulled back first, his thumb brushing once along her jaw. “I’ll be back tonight with food. You’re not cooking for yourself in this state.”
“You don’t have to do that.” She said it weakly, the protest already losing whatever conviction it might have had a few minutes ago.
“It’s not a question of having to.” His eyes held hers, warm and unyielding at once. “It’s mine to do. Let me.”