Chapter 18
ETHAN
The past few weeks blurred together in therapy sessions, tentative touches in the kitchen, and the slow rebuilding of trust…until the day we heard our baby’s heartbeat.
I’d never been in so many doctors’ offices in my life. Couples therapy twice a week. My own solo sessions, as recommended by the psychologist. But today was different. It was the first real milestone of our child’s life.
The nurse called her name a few minutes before our appointment, and I followed Callie down the hall. Inside the exam room, she climbed onto the table while I took the chair in the corner. The nurse checked her vitals and left so my wife could change into an exam gown.
She didn’t ask me to step out, so I tried not to stare while she changed, but she was beautiful, even vulnerable like this. The gown didn’t cover nearly enough to keep my mind from wandering. I had to shift in my seat to hide my hard-on when Dr. Hennessey rolled a machine into the room.
“Good morning.” The doctor pulled over her stool. “So, we’re doing a dating ultrasound today. Early stage, so I’ll be using a transvaginal probe. Completely normal.”
Callie nodded, her hands clenched in her lap before she shifted positions. My heart hammered harder than it had during any board presentation in my life. The machine beeped softly. And then there was a tiny rhythmic flash on the screen.
My breath left me in a broken rush. I hadn’t expected to hear anything, but a faint, rapid whooshing filled the room, subtle but unmistakable.
Our baby’s heartbeat.
Callie’s hand shot out blindly. I caught it without thinking, our fingers intertwining with the ease of old muscle memory. Her eyes flooded instantly, tears streaming down her cheeks. Mine blurred too, and I didn’t bother hiding it.
“There it is,” Dr. Hennessey murmured. “A strong early heartbeat. Everything looks exactly as it should.”
I didn’t know how to breathe. I’d forgotten how to speak. All I knew was that for a moment, I wasn’t a man trying to fix what he’d broken. I was a father.
I leaned just close enough that my whisper was meant for both of them. “I’ll spend the rest of my life protecting you. Every milestone. I’ll be here. For both of you.”
Callie didn’t reply, but she didn’t let go of my hand. It felt like more forgiveness than I deserved.
Our baby’s heartbeat stayed with me long after we left the clinic. It echoed in my head during the drive to work. While I reviewed financial briefs. When I spoke with my therapist later that morning.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw that tiny flicker on the screen and felt Callie’s fingers tightening around mine. Which was the only reason I made it through the board meeting that afternoon without throwing up from nerves.
Langford Tech’s biggest conference room hummed with the low murmur of board members settling into their seats. I normally commanded this room without effort. Today, my palms leaked sweat and my heart felt like I’d just run a marathon.
Gage sat to my right as he opened the meeting. He was one of the few who knew about my decision. With his divorce decree freshly inked and his own life in upheaval, I’d been surprised by how supportive he’d been. Until he reminded me we were friends first, boss and employee second.
When he turned the discussion over to me and I stood, twelve pairs of eyes landed on me. These were the people who trusted me with billions of dollars. And had never once seen me falter.
They were about to.
My voice was rougher than usual as I started, “Before we begin, I need to address something personally.”
A few brows lifted and phones lowered. The CFO of Langford Tech stepping off script drew attention. But Gage had reminded me that for as big as Westbridge was, it was still a small, Connecticut town when it came to gossip. Especially in our social circle.
Although I hadn’t told anyone other than my therapist and best friend about Callie walking out on me or her being pregnant, my mother had been making the rounds to spread her poison about my wife. I couldn’t let her false narrative stand.
“My family is my priority. I lost sight of that, and it nearly cost me the most important thing in my life.”
Someone shifted in their chair, but the room otherwise remained silent. I forced myself to continue.
“I’m restructuring the financial division. Expanding the leadership beneath me. Effective immediately, I’ll be delegating a significant portion of day-to-day oversight so I can step back from some responsibilities.”
A ripple went around the room. This was the kind of announcement that normally took six months of planning, not a single announcement without any forewarning.
“I will still remain the Langford Tech CFO,” I clarified, lifting my gaze to meet theirs. “But I’m choosing differently from now on. I have a wife. And we’re expecting our first child. They’re my priority, and I need to start acting like it.”
A couple phones buzzed and cameras clicked. Someone even whispered, “Is he crying?”
This moment would probably turn into a viral video, but I didn’t care. For the first time in my life, vulnerability wasn’t a liability. It was a promise.
When the meeting finally adjourned, Gage squeezed my forearm. “You did the right thing, Ethan.”
By the time I reached the elevator, my phone was vibrating nonstop. The news was already spreading faster than wildfire, but the only notification that mattered was the one waiting at the top. A text from my wife.
Callie
I saw the clip.
My pulse skyrocketed.
Her follow-up came seconds later.
Callie
That was a heck of a statement, in actions instead of words.
And another.
Callie
It meant more than you know.
It was a good thing I had nothing else scheduled for the remainder of the day because I wanted to get home to my wife. Now.
But when the elevator doors slid open to our penthouse, they revealed the one person who could shatter everything all over again.
My mother.
Margot stood in the entryway, her immaculate pearls and perfect lipstick making her fury look elegant instead of ridiculous.
“We need to talk,” she said coldly. “Right now. Before you ruin everything else.”
A cold bolt of fury shot through me. “How the hell did you get up here? Your access should’ve been revoked weeks ago.”
She lifted her chin, trying to look impervious, but the strain around her eyes was unmistakable. “It seems the staff still know who actually belongs here.”
Someone was going to lose their job over this, and she wouldn’t spare a moment of concern for whatever employee she’d manipulated to get through the doors.
I stepped fully inside, letting the elevator close behind me. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Oh, please.” She waved a dismissive hand. “You announce to the world that your pregnant wife is your priority, you humiliate yourself in front of the board, and you expect me not to intervene?”
I hated that I was the reason she knew about the baby. Callie’s pregnancy had nothing to do with her. “Mother.”
She ignored the warning in my tone. “I’m here because you are being manipulated. If you weren’t so blinded by lust, you’d see exactly what that girl is doing to you.”
My jaw locked. “That girl is my wife.”
“She is using you,” Margot hissed, stepping closer. “Dangling a pregnancy like—”
“Ethan?”
Callie’s voice floated in from the living room before my mother could finish that sentence.
She stepped into the entryway, and everything inside me went still for one dizzying second.
She somehow looked soft and strong at the same time with her hair pulled up, a faint flush on her cheeks, and something impossibly radiant beneath the exhaustion. A glow.
The venom in my mother’s voice faded beneath something far more powerful—the sight of my wife. Callie was so damn beautiful. And she was carrying our child.
My resolve hardened with brutal clarity. I would burn every ounce of my mother’s influence before I let her touch one hair on Callie’s head.
But I’d gone quiet for too long, and my mother mistook it as permission. She pivoted toward Callie with a venomous glare. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what you’re doing. A well-timed pregnancy is very convenient. Reporters will love it when they hear the truth.”
Callie flinched, taking a tiny step back.
Margot leaned in, her voice growing even colder. “I will tell them you married Ethan for money. Once your reputation is shredded, it won’t take much to have your adjunct contract reconsidered. I have contacts at Westfield University. One call to the dean, and—”
Callie’s breath stuttered, and her hand instinctively drifted toward her belly as though to shield the life growing there. The fear in her eyes ignited something primal in me. I stepped between them so fast my mother actually startled, her heels scraping against the marble floor.
“You have no power over us anymore.” My voice vibrated with a fury I'd never allowed myself to feel toward her before.
My mother’s smile twisted into something brittle and desperate. “Over you? Perhaps not. But over her?” She tilted her head toward Callie. “I can end her entire career in a day.”
Callie gasped behind me, her voice breaking as she whispered, “I can’t do this.”