Chapter 57

I sighed, tapped the little green phone icon, and put the phone to my ear.

“Hello, sir.”

“Who was at your apartment? Are you okay?”

I sighed heavily. “Sir…”

“Please tell me. I have a right to worry.”

It irritated me how much he used the baby nowadays to get what he wanted.

Even so, after taking a moment to consider it, I sighed again and let myself sink deeper into the tub.

“It was my ex…I don’t know how he got my address.”

There was a pause, then I heard him give a soft curse.

“Bless you,” I said.

“There’s something off about that guy. Normal people get the idea after being escorted out by security the first time, but he’s been…” He paused. “You don’t sound okay.”

“I guess I’m not, but I will be.”

“It’s okay to be upset. He’s more or less stalking you, and he’s been harassing your workplace trying to get to you.”

The knot inside me jerked even tighter at that, and I bit my lip. My eyes burned, and when I looked down, my vision was once more blurred through a layer of tears.

I tried to hold it back. But I’d already had a good cry before this, and the steam in the bath just made the snot quicker, and the sniff came on me before I could stop it.

I heard a low breath, then a quiet, “Alaina…”

“He kept trying to justify having sex with someone else,” I found myself croaking. “And—and that I’m just sensitive about it because I’d been a virgin when he—cause I wasn’t—”

“That is not true in any sense,” he said, so suddenly harsh and loud that I jumped. The jolt made me sniff again, and I thought I heard him soften with his next words. “There is no reason to cheat on someone. I know it…it sounds hypocritical coming from me, but intimacy is something to be thrown around so carelessly. It’s called making love for a reason. It’s the closest and most vulnerable two people ever get.”

I rubbed at my eyes even as I pulled my knees closer to the phone, as though I could curl myself around the comfort of his words.

“And he…” I hesitated, wondering if I should tell him this, but even as I thought so, it came blubbering out of my mouth like poison being extracted. “He caught me when I slipped and found out I was pregnant and automatically thought it was his, even though we’d always used protection, but when I said so he—he—ugh, something so stupid shouldn’t make me feel so awful.”

“What did he say?”

“He said he poked all the condoms with a needle because it turned him on to have the possibility of impregnating me—but I had my period after I left him! A really horrible one, lots of blood, I swear it’s not his, I know it’s not his! You can take a test after the baby is born, or if there’s tests they can take before—”

“Alaina.”

“I wouldn’t ever do that to you, not to anyone. I know it’s not his, and I didn’t even know your name, I honestly just needed a job—”

“Alaina.”

I hiccupped.

“Even if the baby wasn’t mine, I’d still want to date you.”

I blinked hard, squeezing out several fat tears.

“That can’t be true,” it came out a whimper.

“It is.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“That’s okay. I believe you anyways. If there’s anything I’ve learned through our interactions, Kim’s praises, and my, ahem, perhaps not too legal background checks, it’s that you are honest. If you’re not telling the truth, you’re not saying anything at all.”

I couldn’t help but let out a little whine. My throat was too sore and swollen to hold it back. But even as I kept telling myself it couldn’t be true, I could still feel the cold spots left by Joshua warming. My cramps were all but gone now, and I thought I could even fall asleep tonight without any difficulty.

Mr. Czarn really did make it unfair.

“That stupid man made me cramp,” I said.

“I bet he did.”

“I’m taking care of it, though. I’m taking a hot bath with Epsom salt like the doctor said. I won’t let Baby Bean get hurt.”

I heard a breathy chuckle. “Baby Bean?”

“Oh, yeah. I call him that.”

“Is there a reason?”

I found myself smiling. “When I first saw him in the ultrasound, I thought he just looked like a bean with little sprouts where his arms and legs were. So I called him Baby Bean, and it’s just stuck.”

“I like it,” he said, fondness warming the words till they dropped like melted chocolate in my ears. “Do you have the picture? Can I see it?”

“Yeah.” I sniffed again, rubbing my nose. “I can bring it to work, I guess. But it really just looks like a white bean in bigger black bean.”

“Even so…” he cleared his throat. “You should consider moving. Who else knows your address?”

I groaned, loudly. “No, why should I have to move? It’s his fault. That will stress me more than anything, I can’t do that with the baby.”

“You’re right, scratch that. Until it’s safe, you can come stay with me. That should do it.”

I bunched up my face so hard I could feel my eyebrows making a permanent dent in my skull.

I made a particularly loud sniff. “Huh?”

“And I feel like seeing that picture now as well. If you feel up to it, pack some pajamas. I’ll see you in thirty minutes.”

“Wait, what? No, hold on, you can’t just…”

But the silence on the other end told me he had already hung up.

I stared at the red ‘end call’ circle, wondering where our fuzzy bonding moment had just gone.

“Just because I open up a bit…” I scowled and just stopped myself from tossing the phone. Kim would not take kindly to that. “Bossing me around when I’m off the clock, you cannot make a healthy relationship off that.”

Even so, I didn’t soak quite as long as I could have, and I did stuff some pajamas and a change of clothes into one of my many dance team sports bags. I definitely didn’t take a moment to regret throwing out my only set of lingerie in a fit of heartbreak.

Boss or not, Mr. Czarn would be hearing a word on asking for permission before he saw so much as a strap of my bag.