Chapter 18
Emma
I'm sitting on my couch the next morning, watching Grant pace around my apartment. He’s worked himself up again about what happened at my parents’ last night.
"He doesn't know," Grant says for the third time in ten minutes. "If he knew, he would have come straight out and asked you."
"You didn't see his face when he touched my stomach." I wrap my arms around myself, the memory making me want to curl up in a ball.
He stops pacing, coming to stand in front of me. His hands find my knees, warm and grounding. "Emma, we're okay. Obviously, we’re going to have to tell him, but it’s going to be okay."
I want to believe him. But there's a tightness in my chest that won't release, a certainty that we're standing on the edge of a cliff and the ground is crumbling beneath our feet.
"What if Victoria tells him?" The question escapes before I can stop it. "She knows about the pregnancy. She could—"
"Victoria has known about us for awhile and she hasn’t said anything." His thumbs stroke small circles above my knees. "At this point, she’s probably not going to."
He's right. Logically, he's right. I just can’t stop my brain from spiraling right now. Last night was just too much…
"Come here." Grant sits down next to me and pulls me into his arms, and I let myself sink into the embrace. His heart beats steady against my ear, a counterpoint to my racing pulse. "We're going to be fine. We’ll tell them on our terms and, eventually, they'll have to accept it."
Eventually. That word carries so much uncertainty.
I press my face into Grant's chest, breathing in the scent of his cologne that I've come to associate with safety.
"I wish we could just—" I start, but I don't know how to finish. Run away? Hide? Pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist?
"What?" His hand slides up my back, settling between my shoulder blades.
"Never mind. It's stupid."
"Tell me anyway."
I pull back enough to look at him. "I wish we could just exist in a bubble. You, me, the babies. No Victoria, no parents, no complications. Just... us."
His expression softens. "That doesn't sound stupid at all."
"It's not realistic, though."
"No." He brushes a strand of hair behind my ear. "But we can have moments. Like this one. Just us together, stealing time before the world crashes in."
The words should be comforting. Instead, they feel prophetic.
A shiver runs through me, and Grant frowns. "You're cold. Should I adjust the heat?"
"No, I'm—"
The door to my apartment slams open with a bang that makes us both jump apart.
My father stands in the doorway.
His face is a color I've only seen a handful of times in my life—a deep, mottled purple that speaks of rage so consuming it's become physical. His chest heaves with each breath. His hands are clenched into fists at his sides.
And his eyes. God, his eyes are wild with a fury from me to Grant and back again. He shakes his head and barks out a dry laugh.
"Dad—" The word comes out strangled.
He doesn't speak. Just strides into my apartment and slams his phone down on my coffee table.
"Explain this."
His voice is deadly quiet. Controlled in a way that's somehow more terrifying than shouting.
The phone screen is lit, displaying a photo.
It's us. Grant and me. In the park last week, sitting on a bench in a quiet area with very few people around. His arm is around me, and I'm leaning into his side, my face turned up toward his. He's kissing me—a soft, sweet kiss that made me feel cherished and safe.
His other hand is resting on my stomach—on the small, unmistakable swell.
Adrenaline rushes through my body while I try to think of what to say.
"Well?" My father's voice cracks like a whip. "I'm waiting for an explanation, Emma. Tell me this isn't what it looks like."
I can't speak. Can't breathe. Can't do anything but stare at the proof of everything I've been hiding.
"David—" Grant starts, his hand finding the small of my back.
"Don't." My father's finger jabs toward Grant, shaking with rage. "Don't you dare say a fucking word. Not yet. I want to hear it from her."
His eyes pin me in place. "Tell me you're not sleeping with my best friend. Tell me you're not pregnant with his child. Tell me something that makes this photo make sense."
The words won’t come. "I—we—"
"The truth, Emma." His voice drops even lower. "Right now. The truth."
I force myself to stand straighter. To meet his eyes even though every instinct I have screams to look away. "We were on the same plane to Florence. It was—we didn't plan it. It just happened."
"What happened?" Each word is enunciated with knife-edge precision.
"We—" Heat floods my face. "We spent one night together."
The silence that follows is suffocating.
Then my father laughs again. It's a horrible sound, devoid of any humor. "One night. One night, and now you're what? Pregnant?"
"Yes." My hand moves instinctively to my stomach.
"How far along are you?"
"Sixteen weeks."
Another laugh, sharper this time. "Sixteen weeks. Four months you've been lying to me. Four months you've been sneaking around behind my back with—" He whirls on Grant. "With this fucking asshole."
"David—" Grant's voice is measured, careful. "I understand you're angry, but if you'd just let me explain—"
"Explain?" My father's control finally snaps.
His voice rises to a roar that makes me flinch.
"Explain what, exactly? Explain how you fucked my daughter?
How you got her pregnant? How you've been lying to my face for months while you—" He breaks off, his hands clenching and unclenching.
"All these years of friendship, and this is how you repay me? "
"It wasn't like that." Grant's jaw is tight, but he doesn't back down. "What happened between Emma and me, it wasn't some calculated betrayal. We connected. We fell in—"
"Don't you dare say you fell in love." My father's tone is vicious. "She's twenty-four years old, Grant. Twenty-four. You have scotch older than her."
"I'm well aware of her age."
"Are you?” He steps closer to Grant, his posture aggressive. "Or were you too busy thinking with your dick to think about it?"
"Dad, stop." I move between them. "Don't talk to him like that."
"Don't talk to him—" My father stares at me like I've grown a second head. "Are you defending him? After what he did to you?"
"He didn't do anything to me. I wanted—"
"You wanted?" His laugh is cruel. "Emma, sweetheart, you don't know what you want. You're a child playing at being an adult, and he took advantage of that."
The condescension in his voice ignites something in me and I want to punch him in the face. "I'm not a child."
"No? Then explain to me how a smart, sensible daughter of mine ends up pregnant by a man twice her age. A man who's supposed to be my friend, who I trusted—" His voice cracks.
"David, please." Grant's voice is strained. "Let me explain what happened. How we—"
"I don't want to hear it." My father's eyes are bright with rage and something that might be tears. "I don't want to hear how you seduced my daughter. How you used your money and your experience and your—" He gestures wildly. "Whatever the fuck you used to get her into bed."
"It wasn't like that," I say desperately. "Dad, he didn't seduce me. It was completely mutual—"
"Stop." The word is a command. "I don't need the sordid details of how this happened. What I need is for both of you to understand the magnitude of what you've done."
He turns to Grant, and the look in his eyes is pure hatred.
"You were my brother. My best friend. When my business almost went under, you were the one who helped me restructure.
When Helen was sick five years ago, you were at the hospital every day.
You were at Emma's high school graduation, her twenty-first birthday, every major event in her life.
And now—" His voice breaks. "Now you're the father of her child? "
"Children," Grant says quietly. "She's carrying twins."
The correction seems to rob my father of speech. He stares at Grant, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly. Then his gaze swings to me, and the disgust I see there makes me want to disappear.
"Twins." He says it like a curse. "You got my daughter pregnant with twins."
"We got pregnant," I correct, my voice trembling. "It wasn't something he did to me. It was mutual. We both—"
"Mutual." My father's laugh is broken. "You think this was mutual? Emma, he has decades of experience manipulating people, closing deals, getting exactly what he wants. You never stood a chance."
"Dad, that's not—"
"And you." He rounds on Grant again. "I want to hear you say it. I want to hear you admit what you did."
Grant straightens, his expression carved from stone. "I fell in love with your daughter. And yes, I got her pregnant. But David, I swear to you, I never meant—"
"You fell in love." My father's voice drips with scorn. "How convenient. How very convenient that you fell in love with a girl young enough to be your daughter. A girl who happens to be the daughter of your best friend. Tell me, Grant, did that make it more exciting? More forbidden?"
"No." Grant's voice is hard. "It made it more complicated. Because I knew exactly how you'd react, and I did it anyway because I couldn’t not fall in love with her."
My father takes a step closer, his face inches from Grant's. "You love her enough to destroy her reputation? To make her the subject of gossip and speculation?”
"Stop it." My voice comes out stronger than I feel. "Stop talking about me like I'm not here. Like I don't get a say in my own life."
My father's attention snaps back to me. "Your life? Emma, you threw your life away the moment you got into bed with him."
The words hit like a slap. "That's not fair."
"Fair?" His voice rises again. "You want to talk about fair? Is it fair that I have to find out my daughter is pregnant from a photograph? That I had to hear from Victoria Cross—of all people—that my best friend has been fucking my daughter behind my back?"