Billionaires Dollar Series

You’re not busy, Wilma mouths, already standing to grab her purse. I wave at her. Stay. But she shakes her head.

“Okay. Yeah, okay. Are you downstairs?”

“I’m in the area. I’ll be there soon.”

He hangs up without another word. I sit staring at my phone, my heart racing. It isn’t until Wilma heads to the front door that I come to. “He wants to talk.”

“I heard,” she says. “Bella, this is great.”

“It’s probably about contracts. I didn’t sign them the last time.”

She put a hand on my shoulder. “Whatever it is, just remember that you have the right to be angry, to be furious, to be sad, anything and all of that.”

“Good luck, babe. And call me immediately after.”

She disappears down the hallway, the low heels of her boots steady on the floor. They’re far steadier than the beat of my heart.

I snatch the sonogram picture from the floor and clutch it to my chest. It feels like armor-like my strength. Funny, that. In so short a time my life has reoriented itself entirely around this child, like a planet changing its source of gravity.

Ethan had to be close, because I’m still sitting on the floor when he knocks. In his hands is a Tupperware box with small, irregular chocolate squares.

They disrupt my thoughts-I don’t even say hello. “You brought brownies?”

“The girls and I baked them this morning.” And then, perhaps because he can’t resist, he adds, “Maria didn’t help us.”

I take it from him. “Impressive.”

“Marginally, perhaps.” Ethan’s eyes slide from mine to the image I’m clutching, and the faint smile fades from his face.

“Is that…?”

“Can I see?”

I hand it to him, and for a long moment he just studies it, a finger tracing the small shape. For some reason the sight of him clutching the tiny picture makes me want to cry. I swallow the emotion down.

“It’s really hard to make her out yet,” I murmur. “It’ll be clearer on the next ultrasound.”

Ethan nods, and I realize I’d forgotten that he’s done this before, that of the two of us he’s the one with more experience. “A girl?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Too early to tell, but I just think of the baby as a girl.” In my head, she already has Ethan’s honey-brown hair and green eyes, fitting in with her older sisters.

Ethan just looks at the image, his head bowed. I rock back on my heels and can’t help but notice the circles under his eyes, the unusually tousled thickness of his hair.

“Bella,” he says finally, his gaze meeting mine. “I don’t know where to begin.”

I swallow. “Why don’t you begin at the beginning?”

“How pragmatic.”

“Engineering student,” I say, the old joke slipping out.

His lip curls. “Engineer.”

Hope soars inside me.

He hands back the picture, but there’s reluctance in the gesture. “I can send you a copy,” I say.

“I’d like that.”

Sounding more sure than I feel, I slip my hands into the pockets of my slightly-too-snug jeans. “Starting at the beginning, huh?”

“How far back are we talking here?”

He rubs the back of his neck. “I’ll fast forward from the Big Bang, but pretty far back.”

“I really wish you had a couch.”

“It’s going to be one of those conversations, huh?”

“I’m afraid it might be.” Ethan looks up at the ceiling, exhaling, like he’s gathering strength. And then, “Do you know there’s a gigantic crack in your ceiling?”

“It’s not important.”

“It strikes me as very important.”

“The place is safe. They wouldn’t rent it otherwise.”

His scoff tells me he thinks I’m an idiot. “Landlords do plenty of shadier things than that. And you refused to let me find you a better place to live?”

I cross my arms over my chest. “You can’t ask me to accept your charity. Knowing what you think of me, too? Absolutely not.”

“Bella, I don’t-”

“It was basically charity.”

“You’re right. I’ve been an ass.” Ethan spreads his arms wide, and like his frame, like his voice, they fill the small space. “From the second Lyra called me to tell me the Gardners had no niece, I’ve been an ass.”

I blink. “That’s starting from the beginning?”

“No. I got distracted.” He shakes his head. “For so long after Lyra, I shut down. I wasn’t… I didn’t look for love. I hadn’t looked for it actively before her, and after that, well… There were women, but nothing lasted, because I never allowed it to.

“And then you walked over with those damn fudge brownies. And I wanted you, even though I knew I shouldn’t let myself.”

I have to swallow before I can speak. “Because you thought you couldn’t offer me a relationship?”

“Yes. And it wasn’t because of a lack of time, or because of the girls.” He puts a hand to his chest. “It’s because I wouldn’t let you in. Not really. But you didn’t walk away. You kept coming, as irresistible as you’d been the first time, and I decided the risk was worth it. Because I knew there was a risk, and in the back of my mind, I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

I wrap my arms around myself. “And then it did.”