She canceled her plans, and he’d stayed until the middle of the following week like a simpering idiot. He had conducted his business from the villa and rearranged his appointments until later in the week. When he returned to Atlanta, he found a real estate agent to put a newly formulated plan into action. The agent found a condo for her a few miles from his own place downtown. He planned to move her in and pay for it to have her close by, and if she wanted to work, he’d get her a job at his father’s company.
He decided to tell her about the condo the weekend of his sister’s wedding. He was ready to move their relationship to the next level and invite her up to see the place. But everything had changed. Their arrangement wasn’t working out. So she’d said. In the back of his mind, he’d wondered if her friend had anything to do with it.
He never told a soul about his plans. Certainly not her. He wasn’t about to beg. If she wanted out of the relationship, she could have her freedom.
When she’d told him about her pregnancy, he’d been purposely cold and cruel to her, but once he’d thought about it, he realized Eva would never tell him she carried his child if she wasn’t one hundred percent certain. Another woman, yes. Eva, no. Even now she made it plain she didn’t want anything from him.
He tossed the tie on the bed and dialed the number for his attorneys.
He’d given her until noon tomorrow, and now he would wait. He had rights, and he intended to exercise them, no matter how helpless she looked. This wasn’t only about him; this was about his daughter, too. His daughter would never experience what he had. His daughter would never have reason to doubt he loved her.
****
“So what are you going to do?”
Back at her apartment, Eva sat in the cushiony armchair positioned across from the sofa where her best friend and roommate sat. Kallie tucked a lock of brunette hair behind her ear and screwed up her face into a concerned frown. Kallie’s first roommate had moved in with her boyfriend, paving the way for her and Eva to move in together to save money after Eva lost her full-time job.
After Derrick left, Eva worked a six-hour shift with Ms. Elsie, automatically performing her duties of putting up the sales displays, ringing up customers, and folding and refolding clothes on the tables. The monotony of the tasks provided the type of familiarity she needed to get her through the day, but she had left the store in a semi-dazed state.
“I don’t know,” Eva said wearily. “I can’t believe I got myself into such a mess.”
Kallie folded her feet under her on the sofa. “You didn’t get pregnant on your own. It takes two.”
“I know, but still . . .”
“It could be worse.”
She looked at her roommate. “How could it possibly be worse?”
“He could be completely uninterested in your child, which is what you originally thought. Now we know the truth. Or, he could be some loser who has nothing to offer. Derrick has money, and he wants to take care of this baby.” She shrugged.
“He doesn’t just want to take care of her, Kal. He wants to take her from me if I don’t agree to marry him.” She rubbed her hand across her brow. “I didn’t see this coming. He’s not going to budge, either. You should have seen him.”
Kallie leaned forward. “Before you ended the relationship, you said you had fallen in love with him. What if you could make a go of it? You know, have a real marriage.”
Eva laughed shortly. “Yeah, right. I romanticized the situation, trying to make our . . . relationship . . . into something it wasn’t.”
She’d willingly accepted the terms of an open relationship even though she had reservations about it. She didn’t see the harm, especially when they first started seeing each other. Too late, she learned she wasn’t the type of woman who could handle it. In fact, she should have known right from the start, because she fell for him almost immediately, and the night they met remained burned in her memory . . .
****
Eva and her three girlfriends were having their annual New Year’s Day dinner at their favorite restaurant on the waterfront. Every year they met and shared their goals for the new year and talked each other out of feeling sad about bad decisions from the year before.