Chapter 58

The moment I heard the knock on the door, I found my saggy but packed sports bag incredibly incriminating. What had I just been thinking? What kind of message—who just packed their bag—we weren’t even a thing! You didn’t just go have a sleepover at a guy’s house. I mean…after the fight I’d put up before living with Joshua, and here I was not even officially dating him.

Baby Bean gave a little turn, as though to mock me.

My leg kicked the bag underneath my bed before I could think more on it, and I padded to the door.

Just as promised, Mr. Czarn stood there and dressed in the most casual clothes I’d ever seen him in, which consisted of a plain gray jersey T-shirt and jeans.

On Mr. Czarn, it felt the same as seeing him naked, for some reason. Like I was seeing a god without his glory about him.

I instantly shook that thought away, reminding myself I’d seen this man act plenty human before.

Despite the clothes, he held his shoulders high, and his smile calmed any nerves.

“Are you ready?”

I took a second to battle between scowling and weakly retrieving the sports bag from under my bed.

Then my uterus gave an awful cramp.

At my wince, Mr. Czarn’s smile vanished.

“Are you okay?”

I sighed and ran a hand down my face.

“Sir, this is not how you do things; you know that, right?”

“Well, I…” he bit his lip. “I did rush things a bit on the phone—”

“You’re supposed to ask.”

“Yes, I meant that. I’m sorry, it wasn’t meant to be domineering. I was trying to take the stress off by taking control, but…” he sighed. “It’s backfired on me, hasn’t it.”

“Major.”

He groaned and ran both hands through his hair, cursing under his breath.

Watching him muss his already messy dark hair and the furrow digging between his brows, I felt myself warm. Some of the calm that had reached me when I’d been on the phone with him settled against my heart.

And then I breathed in and noticed his scent.

Nights hugging my sheets when they still smelled with him, and that one time I stole his business shirt, came unbidden through my mind.

My eyes, still stinging a bit from the violent cry I had, ached again. I blinked furiously to try and stop the tears and bring reason back. I couldn’t just let this guy have his way; that wasn’t safe. Controlling, domineering men—and this CEO, nonetheless—what happened to too beautiful and rich coming to bite me in the butt?

He looked up just in time to see my watering eyes before I turned them down.

“Alaina? Does it hurt that bad? You should sit down, at least.”

But I didn’t move from my doorway. For some reason, I felt stuck to where I’d leaned against the doorframe with the return of the cramps.

“I don’t want to be alone tonight,” wheedled out of my lips.

I hated it. I hated my weakness. I hated that I meant that. I wanted to run far away and hide my pathetic self in a closet where I could pretend I didn’t exist

Yet, as though waiting for such words, Mr. Czarn’s big, warm hands took hold of me, pulling me close.

“Shh, shh, it’s okay.”

I shoved my face into his shoulder and shook my head. My own response wasn’t making sense to me, and that somehow made me more upset than anything else.

“It’s okay that you don’t want to feel alone; that doesn’t make you bad. I won’t try anything tonight, I promise. I just thought it would help you feel safer and less stressed, especially having someone to drive you to work rather than having to take the subway. I know you don’t like being around people too.”

“You talk too much,” I said into his shirt.

“…Sorry.”

But I still ended up in the front seat of a ridiculously fancy-ass car with my sports bag on my lap. He didn’t say anything when he saw it, though I silently dared him too, ready to chuck it as his face if he did. But, if Mr. Czarn had a mastery of anything, it was tact.

The leather seat was heated, and when Mr. Czarn turned up the heat and I practically melted against it, he chuckled.

“I thought that would help with those cramps.”

I wondered how he would know, then remembered he had two little sisters.

I had leaned back my head and closed my eyes to wait for him to start driving when I felt his hand again on my head, stroking back my still damp hair.

“Just relax, dear. I’m not going to try anything. You’re safe. You and Baby Bean are safe.”

Then the hand left, and I heard the stick shift click into gear.

Hearing my endearment of my baby reminded me of the picture I’d put in my bag. My heart did a tickling little leap as a thought corrected: no, not my baby. Our baby.

“I brought the picture,” I said.

“Thank you. Can I see it?”

“You’re driving.”

“We’re at a stoplight.”

“Just wait until we get under some actual light; it’s hard to see anyway.”

“I could turn on the light—”

“Light’s green. Go, people are honking.”

“Jeez, sorry, that was stupid of me.”

But I smiled regardless. Underneath my sports bag, I hugged the little bump where Baby Bean resided, finally returning to my senses that everything really would be alright, especially since the heated seat and the car filled with Mr. Czarn’s storm in the desert scent had successfully calmed the cramps.

Before I knew it, I’d fallen fast asleep.