Ethan's hearing felt light-years away, so he wasn't sure what—or if—Aria said something after the word pregnant. His gaze lowered to her belly, the belly he'd seen for months and not known any different. How had she hid … what, six months of a pregnancy? Had it been six months already since that night at Surreal?
Aria, reading his mind, slid her palms over the curve of her stomach, showing him a bump she'd obviously been hiding. And it all hit him at once. Her reluctance to being touched, not drinking her coffee and fainting. It all made sense. She'd been protecting herself, and the baby the entire time.
"So, the car seat, the daycare—it was all for you?"
Aria's warm brown eyes lowered, and she nodded.
Ethan didn't want to ask the question, but knowing she had an ex-boyfriend, he needed to, didn't he? He tried to recall that night at her apartment, which hadn't left his mind, and he was sure he'd forgotten about the condom.
Swept up in the moment, he hadn't thought twice about it, but now, now, he wondered what he'd been thinking. If Ethan Devry knew anything, it was how to stay safe, yet, there he was—going to be a father.
Every word in his vocabulary vanished. He'd become a child again, not having the knowledge to form a sentence. Aria tucked a brown curl and interlaced her fingers underneath her belly. "I've known for a while, obviously. I'm six months—almost seven—and I've been drowning in this lie."
He'd definitely call it a lie. Withholding something that big was defined as a lie, for sure. Ethan tugged at the collar of his shirt, suddenly feeling overheated, and in desperate need of water. "It's my baby?" he asked softly.
Aria nodded. "Yes. Before Landen and I broke up, we hadn't been doing well, and I hadn't slept with him in ages. There is no one else. The baby is yours."
Ethan took a step back. His reality tilted on its head, and his back hit the door. He needed some air, and this apartment was too hot. He remembered her asking about wanting children, and he said he didn't see himself as a father. She hadn't said a word, but he was sure if felt like a nail in her coffin at that moment in time. Ethan's phone buzzed in his pocket, and to distract himself from the moment of shock, he dug it out and answered it. He held up his finger to Aria and walked outside into the breezeway.
"Hello?"
"Where are you?" his father's voice boomed.
Ethan almost preferred the silence of the room with Aria to the tone of his father.
"I had something to take care of—"
His dad scoffed. "Right, I just got here for our meeting, and you aren't here. Abe is handling the meeting that you should be running. What's the matter with you? I give you the news of expanding in Dallas and you go MIA here? Seriously, son, I don't know if I can trust you. Plus, that stupid picture on the magazine this morning. Real classy, feeling up a woman outside of a college bar."
Ethan felt his anger growing. This wasn't the time to deal with his father's accusations when he just found out he was going to be one himself.
"And just when I thought you were mature enough to run the Dallas business. I've tried to groom you over the years, but you always think about yourself."
Ethan ground his teeth together in annoyance, wanting to scream the reason at his father, but he didn't. He had to keep himself calm before he lashed out and told him exactly what he thought about him, and he was sure selfishness would come up in his rant.
"It was something I couldn’t get out of. I will be there soon," Ethan said. "I'm only ten minutes away."
His dad hung up before Ethan could say anything else, leaving him with his cell pressed to his ear and no one on the other line.
Ethan walked back into Aria's apartment to an empty living room. "Aria!" he yelled out.
When she didn't answer, he walked toward her bedroom, looking for her and saw it. The crib setup in the corner of her small bedroom. Shame, guilt, and fear clogged his throat until he couldn't breathe.
Ethan felt the world weigh down on his shoulders at that moment, and his freedom being locked into a tiny box somewhere in the back of his mind.
"Aria," he said again into the silence.
"Yes," a weak voice said from behind the bathroom door.
"Come out. I have to go. My father is pissed about me missing the monthly meeting."
Her silence put the nail in his own coffin, but he had to get back to work before his father gave his position to Marilyn. He needed his job, especially now that he had more than himself to take care of.
"Aria!" he said again, but she didn't answer. "I'll call you when I'm finished. Please answer the phone."
To his dismay, he left Aria in her bathroom and jogged downstairs. His phone buzzed in his pants pocket, but he didn't answer it. He raced toward his vehicle and sped toward Devry Media.
Suddenly, everything felt different. His weekends out with Abe, the big fundraiser, his position as CEO. They seemed minuscule to the fact that his one-night-stand was pregnant with his baby, and he'd been drawn to her since she was hired at Devry.
He didn't feel it was a coincidence about his attraction to her; he felt it was destiny that he wanted her so bad. Because Aria didn’t tell him the truth because she was scared what he would think.
Ethan knew his father would accuse her of being a gold-digger, but he knew it wasn't true. Aria hadn't told him about everything because she was proud. She would have done this herself if she hadn't ran into him at Devry Media. But his father wouldn't think so, or Marilyn, and probably Abe too. They both had ties with his father, and he feared they'd put a bug in his ear if they found out.
But what would she do about maternity leave? She couldn’t leave for two months without questions being asked.
Ethan let out a frustrated sigh and pressed the pedal down harder in an attempt to get back to appease his father. But it wouldn't be long before he had to toss out his father's opinion all together and be there for Aria—and his future child—like his father never had been for him.