22. Cici
CICI
"Idon't know how that got there." My voice cracked on the last word, and I hated it. I hated that I sounded exactly how I felt. Scared. Cornered. Desperate. "Why would I lie about this?"
Todd stood on the other side of the kitchen island with one hand braced against the counter and the other still resting near my laptop, like he didn't trust himself to touch it again.
"I don't know, Cici." His voice was low. Too low. "You are certainly acting like someone who could be lying."
I flinched.
He looked at me, and there was nothing soft in his expression. Nothing warm. Nothing that looked like the man who had kissed me in Chicago like I was something he had been waiting for.
"You seem nervous as hell," he said.
"Todd..."
He cut me off. "Look at you. Your hands are shaking. You're pale. You look like you could pass out at any moment."
Everything inside me went still.
The room tilted a little, or maybe I did. My fingers curled around the edge of the counter, and I pulled in a breath that didn't seem to reach my lungs.
Because he was right.
My hands were shaking. I was pale. I did feel like I could pass out at any moment.
But not because I had done something wrong.
Not because of those damn files.
Not because I had lied.
Because I was fucking pregnant.
The word moved through me with such force that I had to close my eyes for half a second.
Pregnant with Todd's baby.
Our baby.
I opened my eyes and found him still watching me, his face hard, his jaw tight, his eyes narrowed like he was trying to solve me like a problem.
And maybe that was what broke me.
"You're right."
The words came out quiet.
Todd froze.
For one awful second, he didn't move at all. He just stared at me.
Then something shifted in his face. His mouth parted slightly. His eyes sharpened. Not with understanding.
With shock.
No.
He thought I was confessing. He thought I was admitting I had done it. I shook my head before he could say anything.
"No. That's not what I mean."
His eyes stayed locked on mine.
"I didn't put those files there," I said, and my voice trembled no matter how hard I tried to stop it. "For the last time, I don't know where they came from."
"Cici."
"But you're right," I said, cutting him off this time. "I am nervous. My hands are shaking. I am pale. I do feel like I could pass out."
His expression didn't change, but his shoulders went still.
I swallowed hard.
This was not how I had planned to tell him.
I had imagined dinner. A quiet moment out by the lake. A chance to breathe before I said the words that would change everything.
Not like this.
Not with my laptop open and his trust shattered across my kitchen floor.
"I took a pregnancy test today."
Todd did not speak.
He didn't blink.
He just stared at me.
The silence stretched until it became something physical. Something that pressed against my ribs and made it harder to stand.
"It was positive," I whispered.
Still nothing.
No question.
No step toward me.
No hand reaching for mine.
Just Todd, standing there like I had hit him with something he couldn't absorb.
I waited for his face to change. For anger. For disbelief. For denial. For anything.
Instead, his gaze dropped.
Not to my stomach.
To my hands.
They were still shaking.
His eyes moved to my face, and I watched the pieces come together.
The way he looked at me when he walked in.
I saw the exact second he realized he might have been wrong about what all of it meant.
His throat worked.
My heart gave one painful, stupid little leap.
Say something. Please. Say something.
But he didn't.
He looked back at the laptop.
At the evidence sitting there like a third person in the room.
Acquisition Strategy.
Executive Travel Schedules.
Private Flight Manifests.
Confidential Client Information.
Neatly organized. Easy to find. Impossible to explain.
The hope inside me curled in on itself.
Because I could see it in his face.
The pregnancy changed what he thought about my symptoms, but it did not erase what he had found.
It did not make the files disappear.
It did not make me innocent in a way he could prove.
Todd took one step back from the island.
Then another.
He looked like he wanted to say something, but instead he turned and walked toward the sliding glass doors. For one wild second, I thought he was leaving through the back.
He didn't.
He stopped beside one of the patio chairs just outside the doors and lowered himself into it like his legs had given out.
Not dramatically.
Not loudly.
He just sat.
His elbows went to his knees. Both hands dragged over his face, then dropped to his thighs. He rubbed his palms down the fabric of his jeans once. Twice. Then his fingers gripped his thighs so tightly his knuckles went pale.
I stood in my kitchen and watched him try to breathe.
His chest rose.
Held.
Fell.
Rose again.
Too measured. Too controlled.
Todd Archer, trying to regain command of a room that had spun completely out of his control.
I wanted to go to him.
I wanted to kneel in front of him and take his hands and make him look at me. I wanted to tell him I was scared too. I wanted to tell him I had found out alone in a bathroom with a pharmacy bag on the floor. And at that moment, my whole life cracked open in my hands.
But I couldn't move.
Because he still hadn't said anything.
And the longer he stayed silent, the more I felt myself disappearing.
"Todd."
He didn't look up.
My voice broke. "Say something."
His hands tightened on his thighs.
A beat passed.
Then another.
He slowly lifted his head.
The man looking back at me was not the one who had made me feel safe. He wasn't the man who had held me while I fell asleep on his couch. He wasn't even the man from Chicago who had looked at me like he was done pretending.
He looked lost. Completely lost.
"I don't know what to say."
The words landed harder than if he had yelled.
I wrapped one arm around my middle, not because there was anything there to hold yet, but because something inside me needed protection.
"Okay," I whispered.
His face tightened, like that hurt him.
Good.
It should.
Fucker!
He stood slowly. For half a second, I thought he was coming toward me.
He wasn't.
He walked to the chair near the front door where he had set his jacket when he arrived. He picked it up and held it in one hand.
I couldn't breathe.
"You're leaving?"
He stopped with his back to me.
His shoulders rose with one deep inhale.
"I need to think."
I let out a sound that was almost a laugh, except there was nothing funny in it.
"About whether I planted confidential files on my own computer? Or about whether you believe me when I tell you I'm pregnant?"
He turned then.
Pain flashed across his face so quickly I almost missed it.
Almost.
"I don't know what I'm supposed to believe right now."
There it was.
The truth.
I stared at him, and something inside me went cold.
"Then go."
His jaw flexed.
"Cici."
"No." My voice steadied, even though everything else in me was falling apart. "You don't get to stand in my kitchen and look at me like I'm guilty, then look at me like I'm fragile, then leave me standing here with both."
He took one step toward me.
I stepped back.
That stopped him.
His eyes dropped to the space I had put between us, and I saw the damage register.
I saw it.
And still, he did not cross it.
"I didn't do this," I said.
His gaze lifted to mine.
"I didn't put those fucking files there. I didn't lie to you. And I didn't plan to tell you about the baby like this."
His face went pale.
Baby.
The word had finally hit him.
I saw it in the way his hand tightened around his coat. I saw it in the way his mouth opened and closed without a sound.
For one second, I thought maybe that would be enough.
One second.
Then he looked toward the laptop again.
And I knew. He couldn't stay. Not because he didn't feel anything. Because he felt too much. Because Todd Archer could handle threats, strategy, danger, and damage control.
But this was me.
This was trust.
This was a baby.
This was a future he had not seen coming.
And I was standing in the middle of it with evidence he could not explain.
He looked back at me.
"I'll call you."
I shook my head. "Don't say that just because you think you're supposed to."
His expression cracked.
It was the first real emotion I had seen since I told him.
"That isn't why I said it."
"Then why are you leaving?"
He had no answer.
Of course not.
The silence gave it to me anyway.
I nodded once and looked away before he could see the tears start.
"Goodnight, Todd."
For a moment, neither of us moved.
Then I heard his footsteps.
The door opened.
Cool air moved through the house.
The door closed.
And he was gone.
I stood there for a long time, staring at the place where he had been.
Dinner sat untouched on the stove.
The laptop was still open.
The files were still there.
My hands were still shaking.
I lowered myself onto the nearest chair before my legs could give out. I pressed one palm flat against my stomach, and finally let the tears come.
I wasn’t loud or dramatic. I was just broken.
I had thought telling Todd about the baby would be terrifying.
I hadn't known the hardest part wouldn't be telling him.
It would be watching him walk away.