“Will you just stop being a fucking baby and close your eyes?” she groaned. “The sooner we do this, the quicker you can go back to bed. Okay?”
“Fine,” I said, closing my eyes and leaning against the headboard. Sometimes, I wondered how I ever wound up in this situation, and then other times I remember that this was infinitely better than my previous marriage. At least with Emily, I wasn’t with a woman who suffocated me every time I got close to her.
“Now hold out your hand,” she said, and I could hear the smile in her voice. I stuck out my hand, half expecting her to just lick it or drop her breast on top of my palm. It was just something I knew she was capable of, and I wouldn’t put anything past her. But then she dropped something long and plasticky on my hand, and my eyes flew open immediately to find the pregnancy test sitting right there.
For a moment, my mind went completely numb. I couldn’t believe what I was looking at, and every part of my body felt like it had just been dunked in cold water. I stared at the cross on the screen, clearly showing that she was pregnant. I looked up at her slowly, and her face nearly split in two as she placed her hand on her belly and
smiled.
“We’re having a baby,” she said, and the words wrapped around me like a warm blanket. I completely broke down as I pulled her towards me, tears swimming in my eyes as buried my face in her neck and just cried my heart out.
I
“Babe, are you okay?” she asked.
“I–I just… I don’t even know what to say,” I muttered through the tears, unable to control myself. It was just too much to bear, and I couldn’t bring myself to say or do anything except hold her. The reality of what she’d just told me was still sinking in, and I was struggling to wrap my head around the fact that I was going to be a dad. Finally,
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Chapter Nineteen
after years and years of trying, after hundreds of visits with the doctor who kept assuring me that we just needed. to keep trying, after hundreds of infuriating conversations where she tried to convince me to look into surrogacy or adoption, I was finally going to have a child of my own.
I couldn’t remember ever being as happy as I was in that moment. Nothing could ever come close to this, and we both just sat there and cried our hearts out. All traces of sleep completely vanished from my mind, and 1 simply focused on holding her and feeling the warmth of her embrace.
“You’re going to be an amazing dad,” she said. “I know it.”
“And you’re going to be an amazing mom,” I replied, “We’re going to take such good care of this baby, and give it the kind of love that no other child on this earth will ever have. We’re going to make it so happy, and give it everything it wants.”
“So you plan on spoiling our child?” she asked sarcastically
“I didn’t say that,” I replied, pulling back to look at her and smiling. “Although, that wouldn’t be so bad, would it?”
“I don’t want a spoiled child who thinks life is so easy because their daddy is a billionaire,” she said, “I want a grounded child. Someone who understands that everyone deserves to be respected.”
We sat there and kept talking about everything we were going to teach our child, and talking about it made it seem so real. I was already imagining a little boy with copper hair like mine, running around with a baseball bat in a park while I taught him how to play. But then it would switch to a little girl who looked just like Emily, and I would imagine her sitting on my shoulder while we walked down the street and she pointed at random buildings and asked about them. I wanted that so badly that it felt like there was a weight on my chest, and I almost couldn’t breathe.
By the time we finished talking, the sun was already up. I made love to Emily before I headed in for a shower, and as the hot water cascaded down my back, I couldn’t wipe the grin on my face.
If that bitch could see us now, she would probably hang herself. Or throw herself off a bridge.
For so long, I’d wanted this. I’d wanted to know that I was going to be a father. For a time, I thought it was going to happen with Olivia. And truth be told, a part of me still wanted to see what our child would look like. But that was buried under several layers of hatred. I despised her now, and I didn’t want anything to do with her ever again. Emily had given me the greatest gift I could have ever wanted, and that was all that mattered.
I wondered what the bitch was doing right about now. If she found out that Emily and I were having a baby, it would destroy her. And that was exactly what I wanted. I was already thinking of how to break the news to the press, and I wanted to make sure that she saw it.
Last I heard, she had fled the country and moved to England. I didn’t bother looking for her, although David told me that his wife was still in contact with her. If I wanted to, I could easily find out exactly where she was.
But what was the point? I didn’t want to see her again. I didn’t even want to know what she was doing with the life now. As far as I was concerned, she was dead to me. And I had other things to worry about.
Business wasn’t going so great. Reynard Tech had suffered back to back annual losses, the kind we had never experienced before. I still didn’t know how it happened, and it just seemed like our stocks took a nosedive one day and never came back up. Investors were pulling out left and right, and we were in danger of facing even more losses this year. The last quarterly projections were abysmal, and it looked like this quarter was going to be
another loss.
But who cared? I was going to be a dad, and that was all that really mattered. Fuck the company, and fuck all the cowardly investors who fled with their tails between their legs at the first sign of trouble. I was going to turn things around, even if I had to do it all by myself.
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Chapter Nineteen
I stepped out of the shower to find that Emily had fallen asleep already, and I didn’t bother waking her up. I simply got dressed, kissed her on the forehead, then headed downstairs.
“Good morning, sir,” Carlos said as I walked into the dining room. “Shall I serve the breakfast immediately, or would you like to answer your missed calls and messages first?”
“How many are there?” I asked as I took my seat. As a rule, never took my phone up to my bedroom, so I always knew there were going to be some missed calls when I came down in the morning.
“Thirty six,” he replied, and I looked up in surprise. “Although it seems to be the same number calling over and over again.”
“Who is it?” I asked.
“It’s an unknown number,” he replied, handing me the phone. As I took It and swiped to unlock, he began to serve my breakfast while I stared at the strange number. It was an international call, and my heart skipped a beat when I realised it was from the UK.
Olivia?
Surely not.
I dialled the number and held my breath, already preparing myself for what she was about to say. But when the call was answered, my heart dropped and I clenched my fists as I recognised his voice. It was the same as mine, after all.
“Hello, Marcus,” he said smoothly, and I almost considered hanging up the call immediately. But I pressed the phone to my ear even tighter, and waited until Carlos walked out before I spoke.
“What the fuck do you want?” I asked.
“Chill out,” he said. “I’m not calling to pick a fight. I heard that mom is sick. Is it true?”
“What do you care?” I snapped. “You turned your back on this family a long time ago,
“Shut the fuck up and answer my question,” he growled. “Is she sick or not?”
I should have hung up then. I wanted to. Instead, I found myself saying, “Yes, she is. But the doctors said she will be fine. They think it’s Covid or something.”
He was silent for a while, but I could hear his shallow breathing. I wondered what was going through his head. A long time ago, I could always tell what he was thinking. But that was when he was still my brother. Now, he was just a stranger I didn’t know. And I didn’t even want to know.
“Let me know if she recovers,” he said finally. “But if it gets worse, I want to be informed at once. I’ll fly back there and see her…”
I knew he wanted to say he was coming to see her one last time, but he held his tongue and simply sighed. “Will you keep me updated?”
“I’ll see what I can do,” I replied, and he hung up immediately. The bastard didn’t even have the decency to say goodbye. I slammed the phone down on the table, forcing myself to stay calm.
None of this mattered. So what if he was reaching out again after all these years? I wasn’t going to let it dwell on my mind. I was going to be a father, and that was all that mattered.
With a jolt, I suddenly realised that Ethan was in the same city as Olivia. The thought dropped in my head so suddenly, and I was so shocked when I realised it.
Chapter Neteen
Could it be…
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Absolutely not. The probability of them running into each other was astronomical. London was a big city. And I couldn’t even imagine how she would react if she saw him. After all, she never knew that I had a twin brother. She would probably just think it was me and run away like the little scared bitch she always was.
And I would pay money to see that.
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