CEO'S Secret Baby: A Standalone Surprise Pregnancy Romance - Iona Rose (which ebook reader .txt) 📗

in my haste, my ankle twisted on the heel of the shoes I had on, and I went down.

I landed on my knees, barely managing to break the fall, though my hand shot out to the wall for support. I glanced back in alarm, and saw that they had both turned their attention towards me. In the near darkness I met Carter’s hooded, green gaze.

He just watched me quietly as though viewing a spectacle. There was absolutely no emotion, not fear, or shock or remorse.

“Was she coming over here?” the woman asked.

“I have no idea,” he said.

She smacked him on his chest.

“Hey!” He protested.

“Who the fuck is she?”

“How the hell would I know?” he shot back.

I got up and wished so badly that I could throw something at him, but I couldn't give up my shoes or purse. So I got my things together, and faced him. “I don’t ever want to hear from you again!” With that, I turned around and ran as quickly as my sprained ankle would let me.

I felt myself disintegrating inside, and could only pray I would be able to hold it together until I at least found a taxi to take me back to the airport.

I pounded on the elevator’s button as I reached it, terrified that he would come after me. It was the next most devastating thing in the world that could happen at this moment, because if he did, I wasn't sure what I would do to him. But a damage free ending for either of us was not going to be among the options.

The car arrived and I jumped into it.

Someone arrived in a taxi just as I ran out of the building, and I was grateful for that bit of favor.

I got in, and was soon on my way back to the airport. I tried to push away the barrage of sorrow and confusion, but it seemed as though a thousand nails had been hammered and lodged into my heart.

I kept my eyes on my phone as I prayed over and over again that there would be a flight out of the town tonight. The only one I was able to find, a few minutes later, was scheduled to depart in an hour, and was at an exorbitant, business class price.

Without any further thought, I booked it and mentioned to the driver that a heavier tip would be in the cards if he doubled his speed, and brought me to the airport in time for the flight.

I rolled the window down, and tried for my own sake to remember how to breathe.

I broke down midway through the flight.

And I shouldn’t have. I told myself that there was no need to be so overtaken with despair, but as I thought of the baby growing innocently inside of me, I couldn’t hold back anymore.

Tears poured from my eyes… and my throat closed up until I had to run to the bathroom to keep from waking up the entire cabin. In there, I crumbled onto the seat, and refused to come out. Not until I could get myself in order, but as I stared at my sunken eyes, I wondered if this was the ‘after’ that people spoke about.

The defining moments that split your life into two. The desirable before‒ and the tragic, never able to recover from‒after.

A loud, impatient knock sounded on the door again, the perhaps hundredth in the last hour but this time I didn’t respond with a vicious, “I’m not fucking done.”

Because this time around, I truly was.

I rinsed my face, straightened my clothes, and returned to my seat.

The pain began just as I landed back in Indianapolis.

As I got into the taxi, the pressure in my pelvis seemed to compound, forcing me to wrap my hands around my stomach.

At first, it was manageable, my mind unable to focus too much on the pangs that were hitting me at increasingly frequent intervals, but then just before I arrived home, one came along and it was as though someone had kicked me squarely in the gut.

I doubled over, to the driver’s alarm, and could barely meet his gaze in the rearview mirror.

“Are you alright ma’am?” He asked, concerned, and I managed to respond with a wave, that I would be okay.

The episode of pain lessened enough for me to get into the house. I limped to my bedroom, and immediately went to bed.

Chapter 37

Carter

I returned to the apartment at a little past midnight, to meet it in disarray, yet again.

The pillows that were once arranged on the couch were now littered all over the floor, and on the heavy glass coffee table, were empty bags and wrappers of what seemed to be every snack known to man. His clothes were on the ground, and I could see that the refrigerator’s door had been left wide open.

For his sake, and especially given the day that I’d had, I prayed to God he was behind it.

I waited, my briefcase in hand until he emerged from behind the tall steel door with a bowl of cereal in hand.

He slurped a spoonful into his mouth, most of the milk making its way back into the bowl as he shut the door. At first, he was a bit startled to see me, but then he quickly recovered, a wide smile stretching across his face. “You’re back,” he said. “It’s already past midnight. I thought you’d be staying over at the office again. Oh, and before I forget, we’ve run out of berries. All of them. I like to have them with the cereal, but now the fridge is empty. Perhaps you could remind your cleaning lady to get some the next time she delivers groceries to you.”

I ignored him and continued on my way towards the bedroom on the top floor. I had just gotten in and was taking off my clothes when he appeared at the door, his bowl in hand.

“Can’t you eat properly?” I asked,