A Pregnancy Scandal (13 page)

Bitterness rose up in her throat. “Gina is gone, Phillip. You have to get over her and live your life for you and your children.”

He froze, and his entire demeanor iced over. “That's not your call.”

His tone cut through her, heightening the sick wave of panic and pain that had been brewing since she first admitted she was falling for him and he didn't say it back.

She'd screwed up. She never should have said anything. That was what she got for trying to get out of her comfort zone. For daring to believe that she'd found someone who would love her madly, passionately, like Phillip had loved Gina. She'd really thought... Obviously, she'd imagined Phillip had developed any sort of feelings toward her other than gratitude. But the notes had been so sweet and the way he looked at her sometimes... Her heart lurched as she stared at his implacable expression.

No. This was not her fault. Her feelings had changed and he didn't get to dictate that.

She wanted the husband she'd convinced herself he was becoming. It wasn't what they'd talked about or what she'd thought would happen, but that didn't make it any less valid. And she'd fight for what she hoped could be the outcome of this argument. “Well, the agreement's not working for me anymore. That
is
my call.”

Frowning, he eyed her. “What are you saying?”

“I want more than a partnership. I don't want to be two friends who got married because of a baby. Actually, that's not even still the same as it was when we first came up with this deal.” She laughed without humor. “It's not a baby. It's a whole family that will be here in six months. Nothing is like it was when we cooked up the agreement. Especially not me.”

“We agreed—”

“I know that!” Breathing in sharply, she tried to settle her stomach, which kept flipping over and back again, a little more violently each time she got more upset. “I didn't know we were having twins when I agreed. I had no idea what love looked like when I agreed. I had no idea that I'd experience such depths of feeling with you when I
agreed
. Emotions are not my forte. Don't you get that? This is hard for me and I was scared to bring it up because I don't know what I'm feeling.”

Her hands shook with the effort to hold back the tears.

“Then you shouldn't have brought it up,” he said flatly, refusing to look at her. “We had a line and you crossed it.”

“I had to,” she whispered, head bowed as something sharp tore through her chest. “I want more, Phillip. If you aren't willing to consider what I'm asking for, then I'm done here.”

That got his attention. He glanced up abruptly. “What does that mean?”

“What it sounds like.” An ending. What was ending, she wasn't sure. Her hopes? Her dreams? “I'm going to stay with Harper for a while until I can sort out what I want to do.”

Drained, she rubbed at her temples, too shell-shocked to string together many more coherent words. Had they just broken up? Hard to say; she'd never done any of this before. She had no idea what came next, but what was happening at the moment was not something she could keep slogging through.

“I see.” His eyebrows snapped together. “We agreed no love. We agreed no divorce. Apparently you're allowed to throw the entire agreement out the window if I don't bow to your wishes. Is that it? I have no say here?”

Divorce.
The ugly word bit through her and something died inside. No, that wasn't what she wanted at all. But what was the alternative? They'd tried no expectations and that had been a dismal failure.

“I don't have the energy for this right now.” That at least was the truth. “I have to think about the babies. I'm about to break into a million pieces and I'd prefer to do it somewhere you're not.”

He nodded curtly. “Randy will take you to the airport. Fly home in my plane. Take care of yourself.”

Too numb to cry, she gathered her bag and let Phillip help her into the car that would take her away from the man she suspected had just broken her heart.

Eleven

T
he next morning, Harper took one look at Alex's face and threw open the door of her Victory Park loft to embrace her. “Oh, honey. When you called, I had no idea it was that bad.”

What was the definition of
bad
? That she didn't know whether she could be married to Phillip anymore? That he hadn't tried to stop her when she left? That in spite of everything, she'd fallen for her husband after all, and now that she knew love existed, it sucked?

Alex sniffed against Harper's shoulder. “It's bad. The worst part is that I don't even know why I'm crying.”

The diminutive redhead herded Alex to the long off-white leather couch facing the Dallas skyline. A dozen floors below, traffic raced along the street, but up here, they were insulated from life's ebb and flow. If only the quiet would dull the riot of emotions seething through her stomach.

“You're crying because men are jerks and they should all be flayed alive with butter knives,” Harper responded matter-of-factly. “Except Dante.”

For some reason, that got a laugh from Alex. “Friends are exempt?”

Alex and Phillip had been friends once upon a time. Now they weren't even that. Were they? When she'd started this ill-advised descent into lunacy also known as admitting she cared for her husband, she should have thought it through a little better. Now she didn't have a friend, a partner
or
a father for her babies. That dull butter knife might be a kinder way to go.

Harper grinned fondly. “Dante's exempt because he's awesome and it would be a travesty for the world to lose his genius. The fact that he's one of the few people in the world who would drop everything for me is just a bonus.”

That sounded so nice. She wanted Phillip to love her like that.

Stomach sloshing again, Alex groaned and leaned back against the couch. She'd flown back to Dallas last night and had been so sick by the time she got back to Phillip's house that she couldn't pack one single shirt, let alone all her belongings. She'd curled up on the bathroom floor, cheek to the marble, in hopes it would cool her tear-ravaged face or settle her stomach. It had done neither.

“I'm crying because of hormones. That's all,” Alex assured Harper, though she'd stopped believing that at about three o'clock that morning. “This pregnancy is going to go down as the most difficult in history.”

Harper snorted, reminding Alex she'd used the hormone excuse on her friend once already.

“I think all pregnant women say that. What's it feel like, anyway?”

“Like I drank four glasses of red wine, two shots of Jägermeister and a gallon of Clorox in less than a minute. On an empty stomach.”

Hormones weren't the reason she ached inside at the thought of never seeing Phillip again, never being held by him again. Not having that family with him that she'd envisioned where they woke up on a Saturday and went for brunch at a low-key restaurant, then swam in his parents' pool until it was time to get ready for one of Phillip's political fundraisers that evening. The kids would stay home with the nanny she'd hired with Connie's help, and in the car, Phillip would raise the privacy shield and turn to Alex with a wicked smile...

“Ha-ha.” Her friend's nose wrinkled and she nodded to Alex's midsection. “I mean the being-pregnant part. You have real live babies in there. Is it weird?”

“Miraculous,” she corrected and her heart thumped twice in rapid succession. Looked like that particular organ was still working after all. “They're mine. I'm the only person in the world who gets to have the experience of carrying them in my womb. When I give birth, they'll be my children forever and no one can take that away.”

“Wow, your face just started glowing.” Clearly fascinated, Harper zeroed in on it, her scientific brain no doubt cataloging all the nuances.

Alex didn't even have to think twice about how to describe it. “That's what love looks like.”

The miracle, the energy Phillip had spoken of—that was how she felt about her babies. If nothing else, he'd given her the babies and they were a huge gift indeed.

“I'm a little jealous, honestly,” Harper murmured, her smile faltering. “You and Cass are both moving to a new phase in life and I'm being left behind. Trinity is, too. I'm not sure she cares, though.”

“But you care?” Alex eyed Harper but her vision was still pretty blurry. Was she serious or just making conversation? “Since when do you think about being a mom?”

Harper shrugged, not even bothering to cover the wistfulness in her small smile. “Lately. It's not a crime.”

The thought of Harper giving a man the time of day—let alone unbending enough to be intimate with one—was unfathomable. “Weren't we just talking about how men suck and should all be tortured?”

“Who needs a man? There are all sorts of ways to become a mother without introducing additional complexities like a relationship.” As Alex well knew, and the point wasn't lost on her. The leather creaked under Harper's thigh as she crossed her legs. “You're going to be raising your babies alone, right? If you can do it, I could, too. We'll do it together.”

Alone? As in without Phillip?
No.
That was not what was happening here. She'd needed breathing room, that was all. Her heart settled deeper in her chest as that reality clarified. She hadn't been able to pack because that wasn't the answer. She and Phillip were married. This was the part where it got hard but she'd made a commitment and she still wanted her babies to have a father. Phillip was the only one who got that title.

“Yeah, but the difference is that I don't want to be doing it alone. That's not what I'd envisioned for myself or my kids. At all.”

So they'd have to find a way to make it work. Somehow. Her resolve faltered. Did that mean she'd have to go back to their original agreement and suck it up, never mentioning again the longings of her heart to have something more meaningful than a handshake?

“Well, it was just a thought, anyway.” Leaning forward, she patted Alex's arm. “If you don't want to do it alone, then why are you here? Go back to Washington and work things out with Phillip. You had a great agreement going for you. Put it back together.”

“It's not that simple,” Alex wailed, her emotional threads bursting at the seams again. “Everything seemed so logical and reasonable and then I started wanting more, wanting things I don't even understand... He wasn't happy with me for bringing it up.”

Of course he hadn't been. She'd broken the rules. Bad things happened when she did that, but she'd done it anyway. She was the poster child for letting selfishness guide her actions and then reaping what she'd sown.

Tossing her hair back, Harper narrowed her gaze. “Then I'm probably not the right person to help you sort it out. I love you like a sister but romantic love is a waste of time. When you said you and Phillip had a fight, I thought he'd brought up the issue about you working again.”

“No, he got over that.” Hadn't he? They'd never really talked about it again. More like it had been brushed under the carpet. Like everything else. “This is about our nontraditional marriage and whether I can keep being okay with it.”

Phillip needed her and needed his marriage. That much she knew for a fact. He had his image to maintain, after all, she thought sourly.

“Then it sounds like you have some thinking to do about what you want to do. Of course, you're welcome to stay here until you figure it out.” Brightly, Harper jumped up from the couch and held out her hand to help Alex to her feet. “Let's have some breakfast and you can fill me in on the status of the FDA application. As soon as we have approval, we're ready to gear up production of Formula-47, and frankly, I can't wait for two years' worth of work to come to fruition. Do I need to step in as Fyra's liaison now that things are dicey with Phillip?”

Alex groaned. The hearing on Monday. She'd forgotten all about it. The babies weren't the only reason she couldn't shed her relationship with Phillip quickly and easily, even if she wanted to. “The hearing is on Monday. I went to Washington yesterday with the sole intent to spend the weekend with Phillip and then go to the hearing, but instead, I ran away like a spoiled brat.”

Some executive she was. In all her imaginings of her life with Phillip where they lived happily ever after with their family, her career hadn't entered the picture once. Because it was a given, she reminded herself fiercely. Fyra was her life.

Or at least it was right now. At some point in the future, she'd have two sweet babies added to the mix and she'd be a mother as well as a CFO. If she wanted to work things out with Phillip then she'd also be a wife, whatever that would look like.

And it was her job to deal with the FDA hearing. So she'd do it.

It was too much to contemplate and her morning sickness was back with a vengeance. So much so that she couldn't even think about breakfast. “I'll get the report from Phillip Monday night and fill you in. Don't worry about it.”

Alex drifted through the rest of the weekend and somehow managed to sleep most of it. She was so tired, and Monday morning, she nearly called in sick. They'd filed the quarterly reports on Thursday last week; if there was ever a good time to take a break, this was it. But she hadn't taken one sick day since they'd opened the doors of Fyra, and now wasn't the day she'd start.

At three o'clock, an email popped into her inbox from the Office of Senator Edgewood and her heart did a slow dive, even though she knew before opening it that it was about the FDA hearing.

The committee is ready to move to the next step—touring the research facility. They'll expect to collect samples and research notes from the project. Talk to Harper and let me know when to schedule it. I'll be coming to Dallas with the committee as the liaison.

That was it. No mention of their fight or a question about how she was doing? Was that how it would be from now on? If so, she didn't like it. But she steeled her resolve and coordinated with Harper on a day and time later in the week. She responded to Phillip's email with the details, matching his businesslike tone.
We'll expect you on Thursday
, she wrote and hit Send.

As the week progressed, Alex's morning sickness grew to epic proportions. She barely kept down a few crackers and ginger ale, and she only ate that because Harper forced her to when Alex huddled on her friend's couch in the evenings, pretending to watch TV while the misery of her existence overwhelmed her.

She missed Phillip and couldn't stand things being so unsettled. That was the reason her stomach was so messed up. Her symptoms had improved last week or she would never have been able to go to Washington in the first place. Was this part of her punishment for daring to ask for more from her husband than a businesslike email as their sole communication in a week?

Thursday dawned as the worst day yet. Alex dragged herself from the froufrou coverlet on Harper's guest bed and forced herself into a pair of jeans that scarcely buttoned over her expanding stomach. Finally, she'd started outgrowing her clothes. Ironic that it had happened today of all days.

When the committee arrived at Fyra, Alex managed to be at the front, ready to greet them, though the dark-haired man in the center drew her gaze and kept it. Hungrily, she soaked up the sight of her husband, cataloging the fatigue around his eyes. He looked like he hadn't slept much and the thought lightened her heart at the same time it saddened her. She didn't want him to lose sleep over their situation. She wanted... Well, she wanted something that wasn't possible.

But what was possible? Could she agree to live with him again for the sake of the babies, in name only? She was sure he'd agree to go back to their original agreement. After all, becoming president one day guided all of his thoughts and actions. It was the whole reason they were married in the first place. If she wanted a father for her babies—and she did—could she forget about the fact that she'd fallen in love with him and he'd refused to reciprocate?

The answers did not arrive by way of osmosis simply by virtue of Phillip being within touching distance. The two men accompanying the senator introduced themselves and the tour started immediately thereafter. Harper met them at the door of the lab and took over to explain her setup and walk the committee through her processes. Which was a godsend, as Alex sincerely thought she might lose her breakfast of two crackers and ginger ale very shortly.

Phillip hung back, drawing near Alex, his blue eyes trained on her. “How are you doing?”

Tears pricked at her eyelids over the mere sound of his voice. “Not good. You?”

“Same.” He shrugged. “I've been worried about you.”

“I could tell from the way my phone never stopped ringing.” A wave of dizziness cut off the rest of her sarcastic comment and she flung a hand out to steady herself, catching him square in the chest.

“Alex—” Phillip caught her in his strong arms as her knees buckled. “What's happening? Talk to me, sweetheart.”

“I...can't.” Her tongue froze in panic as another wave of dizziness nearly blacked out her vision. If he hadn't been holding on to her, she would have hit the floor, no question. Something sharp tore through her abdomen. All the air rushed from her lungs as she fought to breathe, to understand, to keep her insides from falling out.

“The babies,” she croaked and then blackness took her under.

* * *

Phillip had never known the true meaning of terror until the moment his wife passed out in his arms.

How he'd got her to the hospital in under twelve minutes remained a mystery he had no interest in solving. Not while everything that was precious to him hung in the balance.

Hospital personnel swarmed in and out of the triage area of the emergency room, taking vital signs and barking questions at him. He answered as best he could.