“All day,” I muttered under my breath as I tossed my purse on the chair by the door. “He’s had the pictures all damn day. Not a word. I know he’s seen them. He has to have seen them, hasn’t he?”

I kicked my shoes off, not caring where they landed. One slammed into a table leg, collapsing the pyramid of pregnancy tests, sending them cascading to the floor. With a sigh, I snatched a trash bag out of the kitchen drawer and began scooping them up.

“He has seen them,” I repeated fiercely. “So why wouldn’t he say anything?”

I froze as ice gripped my chest, and I sat back on my heels in horror.

“Oh, God. Oh, God, he has seen them. He’s seen them, but he’s changed his mind. He doesn’t want the baby anymore, or me, or any of it. Oh…”

I let the bag slip from my fingers, and I curled up into a ball against the back of the kitchen cupboards. As I gazed around the room, I was reminded of that first day that I had considered his offer. Every dangerous, dirty object in my apartment leapt out at me, as if highlighted by my anxiety.

“Follow your passion. Don’t get caught up in the details.” I repeated my mother’s advice in a flat monotone. “That worked out well, didn’t it?”

I needed a plan. I had eight months, maybe less, to figure out how to raise a child on my salary. Maternity leave wouldn’t be a problem; AllGood had a great maternity plan. Daycare would be handled as well; as long as employees signed a release stating that their child could be observed playing with toys in the last stages of research and development, AllGood would take care of them over the course of the parents’ shifts.

But I couldn’t raise a child in this place. I needed to get out, and quickly, before I was too big to move things. I had the bonus check, I remembered. It wasn’t small. It could easily cover a down payment on some small house outside the city limits. It would be a longer commute, but it would be worth it for a safer environment.

“I can do it,” I told myself firmly. “And I will, with or without that…”

A knock at the door interrupted my unfriendly characterization, and I raced to peer through the peephole. The fishbowl view offered an enlarged designer tie clip beneath a throat I knew intimately.

My heart raced as I opened the door.

“Jonathan,” I said, as neutrally as I could manage. “I didn’t expect to see you.”

“After those pictures you sent, you didn’t expect to see me?” he asked incredulously.

I realized I was still standing in the doorway, and I moved aside awkwardly, letting him in.

“Well, you didn’t respond all day,” I explained. “I thought…why are you here?”

He was staring at the mess of tests scattered over the table and floor, his hands in his pockets, his back to me.

“I wanted to see them in person,” he said softly.

I couldn’t read his tone, which frustrated me to the point of anger. I had just opened my mouth to give him a piece of my mind when he turned to me with a beaming smile and glistening eyes.

“This is wonderful, Kaley! We’ll get you to the doctor first thing in the morning, just to check on everything, make sure you’re okay and the baby’s okay. I have a doctor in mind, unless you are particularly attached to yours?”

“No…I’m not,” I said slowly, my mind racing to keep up.

My doctor was the one I could afford, and he had a gruff manner and cold hands. If I wasn’t so astonished, I’d have been thrilled at the chance to switch.

“I am…terribly sorry about how I reacted last time,” he offered, stumbling over the words. “It was an emotional response, and an unfair one at that. I care so much about this pregnancy that having success within our grasp only to be snatched away again was…difficult for me to process. Do you understand?”

He cast his shining silver eyes at me, looking honestly apologetic. That made sense, I told myself, though his words rubbed my raw emotions like sandpaper.

“Yes, I understand,” I said, unconvincing even to myself.

I swallowed hard and cleared my throat, then walked to the kitchen for water. If he was going to hang around, I was going to need to bury this fresh sorrow quickly. He hadn’t been heartbroken. He’d been frustrated. He was only back now for the baby; it had nothing to do with me. I was, as I had always been, just a womb attached to a PR campaign.

I swallowed one glass of water, then another, wishing it was whiskey. He joined me in the kitchen a moment later, still beaming.

“I can call in a favor and get us seen as soon as they open tomorrow. Can I pick you up at nine?”

“I have work,” I told him lamely.

“Call in! It’s a doctor’s appointment, for crying out loud, Chase will be understanding. He has to be; it’s in the rulebook. So, nine o’clock?”

“Um…yes, of course,” I said weakly.

He smiled happily, an irritating expression that made me want to crush his lips with my mouth.

That is not the appropriate response to irritation, my mind whispered in confusion. I didn’t care. It was the impulse, and I was darn ready to run with it. To hug him until his head popped off. To kiss him until he suffocated.

He was so close, so infuriatingly close, and so out of reach. His baby grew in my belly, the scent of his skin filled my nostrils, and still, he was utterly untouchable. How could he remain so cold, so detached, with what we were doing? His only pleasure and joy was the baby. That much was clear. Was I so difficult to fall in love with, or was he simply incapable of falling in love?

He left with a whistle on his lips and a spring in his step, narrowly escaping a confused outburst from me.

“What am I even doing, anymore?” I asked my reflection in the mirror.

She didn’t have an answer for me.

Sighing, I finished cleaning up the mess, then left a message on Chase’s machine, informing him I’d be late to work the next day. As I crawled into bed, I somehow felt more alone than I had when Jonathan wasn’t speaking to me.