Ethan walked into Devry Media with a mountain of stress weighing on his shoulders and a vibrating phone in his pocket. If he hadn't just found out that one of his employees was pregnant with his baby, the rude call from his father wouldn't have bothered him so much.
The entire way to the office, his heartbeat threatened to strangle the life out of him. The one organ that gave him life, caused his entire his body to quake in fear.
Ethan Devry felt scared.
Scared that he would be a father in a few short months.
Scared that he would twist the child into whatever he pleased like his own father did to him.
Scared for Aria—because she was young and stuck in a situation that she never wanted for herself.
But most of all, scared for the baby. Scared that Ethan could never show it the love that it deserved.
Ethan tried to calm his nerves, as he grew closer to the conference room. Edmund, his father, stood at the head of the table, checking his watch when Ethan barreled into the room.
Edmund tossed his hands dramatically. "About damn time, son. Where have you been?"
Ethan very well couldn’t tell his father the truth. If he told them the truth now, the entire company would know within minutes. Because Marilyn still sat in her seat, along with the department heads and Abe.
Ethan cleared his throat. "I told you I had something to take care of. Where is the fire? There must be one, right? Since you threatened my position at Dallas because I left one meeting? It's the first one I've missed, and I come back to this?"
"We were discussing the monthly payroll, and the timeline for having the Devry Media building in Dallas. You would think the CEO would be here for that, Ethan."
Ethan took a deep breath, his nerves rattled around inside of him. "Then let's continue, shall we?" Ethan said, taking a seat beside Abe.
His dad's gaze shifted toward Abe and back to Ethan. "This is going to be a long day. I need you to help me with the payroll because the head of the department quit this morning. She left nothing to help us with the system or any notes. It's up to you to figure it out. Go speak with her co-workers and get to the bottom of their strategy and the system."
Ethan stood up and dismissed himself without another word. He had too much on his mind to argue with his father about his tone or the fact he'd left Ethan in charge.
He made his way to the payroll department and found all of their new computers up and running. He'd approved the money for that while trying to catch Aria at the daycare, which was for their child and not Joan's.
Ethan closed his eyes as the elevator lowered and let him off on the second floor. The payroll team looked stressed when he walked into their area. "I need someone—anyone—to show me the system here since our head quit. Who's up for the challenge?"
A short dark-haired boy with long hair and a hooked mustache raised his hand. "Okay, then. Show me."
What seemed like hours later, Ethan made his way back to his office with a folder of information about their payroll and its components. He made his way toward his office but noticed that the conference room was abandoned, and he figured his father was in his old office down the hallway.
He walked down the hallway, seeing most of the employees out for lunch, and walked past Abe's office. He noticed the door was cracked, which meant he was there, so he pushed it opened and saw it empty.
Ethan turned to leave when he noticed a picture sitting on his desk. It wasn't like him to be nosey, but the bouncy brown curls caught his attention. He walked over, checking over his shoulder, before turning the picture to face him.
It was Aria … and Ethan, in his office. The close proximity to each other left room for the imagination on what Ethan had on his mind. Spreading the pictures out, he noticed several more tucked beneath it.
One after the other, he searched through every encounter they'd had with one another. Even a picture of Ethan going into her apartment complex.
Things began to unravel, and everything became clear.
Ethan grabbed the pictures and stalked down the hallway toward his father's old office. When he got there, his father sat at his desk, covering his face with his palms.
"Dad?" he asked.
Edmund glanced up, a disappointed look on his aging face, and a frown tugging at the corners of his mouth.
"I got the payroll information. They have it under control now … where is Abe?" he asked bitterly.
"Take a seat son."
Ethan walked over and took a seat in front of his dad. He noticed immediately that his dad was mad, and he knew why. Edmund pulled out pictures that matched the ones in Ethan's pocket and placed them in front of him.
But there was one he didn't see before.
Aria walking out of the store with a crib in her shopping chart.
Ethan's heart hammered. It was against the rules to date a co-worker; it was a death sentence to get one pregnant.
"Tell me this isn't what it seems," he said, interlacing his fingers over his belly.
"Where did you get those? Who gave them to you?" he demanded.
He shrugged. "I don't know. They were in an envelope on my desk. Did you get the little Linetti girl pregnant, son? Please tell me this is a big misunderstanding, and the crib isn't for her."
Ethan wished he could say it was. There was only one rational explanation on who gave it to him—Abe. Never in a million years had Ethan thought that Abe would stab him in the back. He wouldn't have found out if he hadn't stumbled into his office. Now it made sense about his assistant—that he didn't need—asking Aria questions.
Abe put him up to it. Ethan's temperature began to rise, and he found himself ready for a fight.
There was no sense in lying now. The truth would be out shortly whether he told his father or not.
Ethan sighed, bracing his elbow against the arm of the chair, he swiped his brow with his fingertips. "She's pregnant, it's my baby, but I got her pregnant before she was hired. I didn't find out until this morning. That was where I was when you called."
His father kept quiet, the disappointed look on his face made Ethan feel even less qualified for the job than before.
"I can't believe this, Ethan. Why would you hire a girl you slept with?"
Ethan rolled his eyes. "They basically hired her before I even entered the interview. I couldn’t tell them not to do it without telling them I'd slept with her. She deserved the job, Dad."
Edmund cursed beneath his breath and slammed his fist against the desk. "I put those rules into our company so things like this wouldn't happen, Ethan. Do you know how it's going to make us look that you knocked up one of your employees? Like your childish endeavors to the clubs on the weekend don't give them enough to talk about. Now this. You're truly a disappointment, Ethan.
Ethan's resolve snapped, and he stood up, his chair flying backward across the room. "You know what, Father? I don't give a damn about what you think about me any longer. If you don't want to pass your company down to me, then so be it. But I refused to be the absent father that you were for me. I have to take care of my baby, no matter the consequence or the headline in a stupid gossip magazine. Now," Ethan said, grabbing the picture off his father's desk. "I have other matters to take care of. Good day, Edmund."