Over the next couple of months, I only really saw Jonathan during doctor’s appointments. It wasn’t an unfriendly situation, merely a matter of timing. The end of summer to the middle of fall was the busiest season for the company as it prepared for the holiday season, and he and I were both run ragged with work.

I was grateful for this. It meant less time spent obsessing over him and our non-relationship, and fewer awkward conversations spent with my words trying to work around the carnal memories flooding my brain. For some reason, my lust for him had only grown more intense, even as I intentionally cooled my emotions.

My mother informed me that the hormones were to blame—that my body was making a point of bonding with the father of my child, for better or worse. Fortunately, we weren’t cave dwellers, and modern life had a way of overwhelming even the most basic instincts with busy work and bright lights.

“You should join my gym,” Imogen said to me one day, with a pointed glance at my waist. “I could use a workout buddy.”

“While I would love to be your support system,” I said sarcastically, “I think I’ll pass.”

“Are you still depressed over that guy from forever ago? Look, I know I missed the mark with Brody and Aiden, but…”

“For me, maybe,” I said, poking the hickey on her neck.

“But,” she repeated, “I have a lot of other guy friends that I think you’d be interested in. How are you going to find anybody if you let yourself go? I could introduce you to my personal trainer; I think you’d really like him.”

She gave me an earnestly concerned look, and I flushed red. I wanted to tell her that I wasn’t letting myself go, that this wasn’t fat—well, maybe a little of it was; my pregnancy cravings had been wild lately—but I couldn’t spill the beans before the announcement.

“Ask me again after the Autumn Wrap Party,” I begged her desperately. “I don’t even have time to breathe these days, let alone think about dating.”

“That’s fair,” she sighed, eying the pile of paperwork on her desk. “All right, after the party. But you have to promise to keep an open mind.”

“I will if you will,” I whispered, suddenly dreading the reveal.

“What?”

“I said I will. I promise. Now, shoo, I have work to do.”

Imogen stuck her tongue out at me and returned to her desk, where she moaned over every packet she drew from the pile for the next several hours. I did my best to focus on my work, but I found myself obsessively stretching my shirt over my swelling belly. It was getting increasingly difficult to disguise. The party and the announcement couldn’t come fast enough.

I could almost feel the collective sigh of relief the Friday of the party. The last new Christmas toys had hit production, the last holiday marketing campaign had wrapped, and the last frantic supplier had been dealt with. Santa would visit all the good little girls and boys this year, whether their parents could afford to bribe him or not.

To the company’s surprise, Jonathan had started a new philanthropic program, and was donating five million dollars’ worth of toys to children’s charities across the country. He had planned it quietly, but word had leaked somehow (I suspected he or his assistant had tipped the press themselves), and now his face was splashed across magazines and newspapers everywhere I went.

He still couldn’t make himself look warm in a photograph, no matter how many millions he gave away. Of course, that could have just been my own bitter perception talking.

The work day ended early, and virtually every employee of AllGood Inc. marched down the block in small clusters and pairs until they reached the Spot. The three-story club hosted this party every year, closing it to the public from four in the afternoon till two in the morning, catering to Jonathan’s every whim.

I walked with Imogen and two other women from our floor, letting their animated chatter wash over me as my stomach clenched with anxiety. This was it. After tonight, there was no turning back. We would be official in every way that mattered to the public eye, and I would be locked in a romantic void for 18 long years.

I didn’t ask myself if it was worth it. I had already asked that question a thousand times, and I still hadn’t come up with a good answer.

Once inside the club, I peeled away from the group to go find Jonathan. If we were going to do this, we were going to do it together, or so help me, I would…

I didn’t know how to finish that sentence. How do you threaten a man with unlimited resources and a steel heart?

I eventually found him on the third floor, toasting and laughing with the executives. I watched him from a distance for a few moments, busying myself with a tray of hors d’oeuvres, studying the way he moved among his peers. Cunning. Calculated. Every expression, every gesture, every casual movement of his body was perfectly choreographed.

He seemed like an entirely different person from the Jonathan I had come to know in the bedroom. That made sense, I decided. He wanted something different from me than he wanted from his peers. Who was I to say that his earth-quaking love making wasn’t just as calculated?

He met my eyes from across the room, then, and his expression changed from cool amusement to spontaneous delight for the briefest second. Just long enough to make my heart race with hope—a hope I squashed immediately.

“Glad you could make it, Miss Marshall,” he said smoothly as he left his cluster to greet me. “The executives were just expressing their surprise that you returned to your previous position after shooting the marketing campaign. They seem to be under the impression that you would make the perfect face for AllGood in the long term. What are your thoughts?”

Work. He’s talking about work. I could have slapped him.

“Well, as tempting as that sounds, I really do enjoy my work in product development. Besides, I may not be a very good model for much longer, considering…” I made a furtive gesture at my swollen belly, and he shook his head.

“On the contrary,” he said, loud enough for those around to hear. “I believe your condition would serve us well, especially if we were to move forward with Chase’s most recent idea.”

“I haven’t heard his idea,” I snapped, becoming increasingly frustrated at the direction our conversation was taking.

“Multi-functional toys for very small infants,” Jonathan explained. “Nursing pillows with tactile doodads, holographic stroller covers, that sort of thing. Toys to stimulate the mind from day one.” He smiled proudly, as if the idea had been his.

I glanced around to see if anyone had made the connection, but our conversation seemed to be wholly ignored.

“Those sound like great toys,” I said uncomfortably. “I might agree to participate.”

“It would be a great help to me if you would.”

Haven’t I helped you enough? I thought furiously.

I swallowed the words with a sip of sparkling water, but I could still feel the thought vibrating in the air between us. He seemed oblivious, as usual, and kept talking.

“I’ll make the announcement at seven,” he said. “Right in the middle there, between people being comfortably full and buzzed, but before the shenanigans begin. Meet me at that balcony at quarter to seven. In the meantime, go mingle! Have fun! This your last night as a publicly single woman.”

He winked at me and tipped his glass to mine before wandering back to his colleagues. Dissatisfied and anxious, I spent the next few hours wandering aimlessly from floor to floor. Imogen was busy stringing along three guys from IT without letting any of them see the others, playing her usual game.

I didn’t understand how or why she did what she did, but I could recognize skill when I saw it. Imogen had it in spades. I would have to ask her, one of these days, how she got so many men to fall desperately in love with her so quickly. Maybe I could use those skills on the one person in the world whose heart I craved.

At 6:45, I stepped into the elevator. Imogen slid in, giggling, just as the doors were closing, and through the gap I saw her three suitors staring after her with expressions ranging from bewilderment to rage.

“Note to self,” she gasped, fanning her face. “Next party, keep them on different floors.”

“Or just stop playing with them altogether,” I suggested.

“What fun would that be?” she scoffed. “Breaking hearts is my one pleasure in this cold, cruel world. Don’t take that away from me.”

I rolled my eyes at her and grinned. As infuriatingly inconsiderate as Imogen could be, she certainly knew how to feel alive.

“So, where are you going? Better food upstairs?” she joked.

“I have to meet Mr. Dane,” I said, wiping my clammy palms on my skirt.

“Ugh, why?” she asked, wrinkling her nose. “This party is supposed to be off the clock; you can sue him for that, you know.”

“Not for this,” I told her with a thin smile as the elevator slid to a stop. “You’ll find out why. Don’t have too much fun.”

“No such thing,” she countered, tossing her blond mane with a cheeky grin.

I shook my head and made my way through the energetic crowd to the balcony which overlooked the lower two stories. He was waiting there, drink in hand, cellphone to his ear. A knot rose in my stomach and I pushed it away, willing myself to just get through the next few minutes with grace and dignity.

He tucked the phone back into his pocket as I approached, and turned to smile at me.

“Stand over there, just behind the pillar,” he told me. “I’ll introduce you after I’ve begun the announcement.”

“All right,” I said, stepping aside and feeling a bit like a child.

A bright spotlight locked on Jonathan, outlining his sharp features in a way that made my belly warm with lust in spite of myself. An air horn sounded, and the bar slowly quieted.

“Good evening! I hope you’re all having a good time.”

A resounding cheer answered him, and he smiled and held up a hand. He was calculatedly charismatic, and it left me cold.

“As always, I want to congratulate you for pulling off the holiday season so spectacularly. AllGood Inc. is filled with good people, and each and every one of you is responsible for our success, so thank you.”

He paused until the fresh round of cheers died down.

“I have another happy announcement, which I hope you will all join me in celebrating. To help me give you the good news, I present Miss Kaley Marshall.”

He held out his hand and I took it nervously, my cheeks flushing as every eye in the bar focused on me.

“You’ve all seen her face. She’s been plastered on billboards and in television ads for the last few months, brilliantly advertising our products. Some of you know that she has a personal interest in selling our wares, as her day job is in the Product Development department of our esteemed company.”

A smaller, scattered cheer went up from the twenty or so employees in my department. I smiled nervously.

“But as much as she has earned our congratulations, that isn’t why I am introducing you to her now. Miss Marshall…Kaley and I…” he took my hand and gazed fondly into my eyes with an enraptured smile. Calculated. “…have quietly become a couple over this past year. Now, we are expecting our first child, due in April. We welcome you, our AllGood family, to celebrate with us the beginning of the new Dane generation!”

A hush had fallen over the crowd as he spoke, and remained for a few seconds longer than I expected it to. When it finally broke, the applause was half-hearted, and almost sounded dubious.

To my great relief, the spotlight switched off as soon as Jonathan thanked the crowd, allowing me to step back from the edge of the balcony and try to dissolve into the semi-darkness of the club. Jonathan walked with me, playing up his part as doting lover until he was surrounded by his executives, all eager to lavish him with congratulations.

“Never pegged you as a gold digger,” a woman I recognized as being from my department sneered. “Guess it takes all kinds.” She looked me up and down incredulously, then dismissed me with her eyes. It cut deeper than it should have, but I was all right. She was a virtual stranger, after all.

But when Imogen approached with suspicion and disgust plastered all over her face, I began to quake.

“Really? You’ve been getting it on with…him? And you’re pregnant. God, Kaley, I knew you wanted kids, but I never expected you to stoop that low.”

“It wasn’t… I wasn’t…”

“You know what? Save it. I’ve been tearing my hair out for months trying to set you up with a guy, and you just took the easy way out. Good luck with your cold fish.” She spun on her heel and sauntered away, swinging her skinny hips haughtily.

The grains of truth in their accusations cut me to my core. The tears which had been threatening to appear all evening suddenly burst into existence, drowning me under waves of despair. In desperation, I pushed through miles of sneering, incredulous faces until I reached the stairs to the roof.

Without a moment of hesitation, I scrambled up, blinded by my tears.