The shared lunches and secretive smiles came to an unceremonious end after my spat with Jensen. In their place were looks of desire that went unanswered, a bitter taste rising in the back of my throat every moment he avoided me. I wanted nothing more than to grab him and shake him, demand that he talk to me and work through this agonizing distance, but I was afraid that he had lost all semblance of love he felt for me.

Certainly, it wasn’t love in his gaze on the rare occasion that I caught his eye. Jensen was worried, tired, and the fact that he had chosen to embark on a business trip in the midst of our feud was a bitter pill to swallow. It seemed that he had made his choice, and that my feelings and our future children were secondary to his job. I knew that the man I loved carried a heavy sense of obligation, but I only wished that it extended toward myself.

Perhaps I was being selfish. The fact of the matter was I knew that I had no means of tying him down unless he strictly wanted to be tied. Jensen Elliott was a powerful man, and when it came down to it, I was little more than his frumpy secretary. My good looks had faded with every pound I gained, my cheerful personality dimmed by the pain in my heart. As much as I wanted to approach him upfront and tell him how badly he was hurting me, I couldn’t imagine it would do much good.

Jensen had wounded me more deeply than I ever could have expected, the festering marks fresh in my heart as he flitted past my office to depart on his trip. I wasn’t just bothered by his refusal to acknowledge me, though that certainly played a part. I couldn’t shake the idea that I had been unforgivably reckless. It was true that I had known very little about those cursed pills when I’d swiped them from that lab.

At least Jensen had checked in with the lab technicians, had at least some confidence that the capsules were safe before he ingested them. Sure, it was foolish on both ends to use a drug that had yet to be approved for sale, but it was even more idiotic for neither of us to bring our brilliant idea up with each other. I refused to take all of the blame for the situation, as the genius CEO of the multibillion-dollar pharmaceutical company certainly could have thought to bring the suggestion to the table.

Getting angry was doing me little good, and it wasn’t as if I could address Jensen that day, even if the mood struck me, as he was off to some city in France to discuss a new business deal with one of his many international partners. Still, as pointless as my fury was, I could do little but leer at my computer as I waited for the day to come to a close. An unbearable number of hours remained in the day, but I truly failed to see why I needed to hang around when my boss wasn’t even present.

For that matter, I couldn’t understand why I remained, even when Jensen was in the office. It wasn’t as if he could look me in the eye. He refused to even speak to me, in spite of all that we’d been through together. Perhaps even because of it. I had been a fool to jeopardize my job for a fleeting infatuation, and I couldn’t shake the thought that we would both have been better off if I had just settled for a normal sperm donor.

The thought of facing him when he returned from his trip left a rather unpleasant taste in my mouth. Would it be more awkwardness, a refusal to speak to me until the babies were born? At any rate, it didn’t seem as if he planned to talk to me even after I’d delivered his spawn.

Tapping my nails on the surface of my desk, I narrowed my eyes at the influx of messages in my inbox. It would serve him right to lose me as both a lover and a secretary. While it seemed clear that he’d never felt as strongly for me as he suggested, I liked to think he felt some measure of affection of me. Clenching my jaw, I pushed away from my desk and stood up from my seat. My hands flexed at my sides, and I felt as if I would explode if I didn’t act.

Paper and pen clutched in hand, I stormed across the top floor to Jensen’s office. It struck me that I had ample opportunity to wreck the room and leave it in a total mess for him to deal with. However, even if he was apathetic toward me, I still loved the gorgeous man. I settled in his office chair and stared blankly at the sheet of paper I’d brought.

There was so much to say, but most of it would remain unsaid. If he couldn’t talk to me in the days since our falling out, I wasn’t going to bare my soul on a sheet of office stationery. I put the end of my pen between my teeth, gnawing anxiously on it as I tried to figure out what on earth to say. Would a simple goodbye suffice, or would I be better served by something with more vitriol? Deciding not to indulge that part of me, I jotted down a message declaring my resignation.

Staring at the paper and my distinctive looping handwriting that was at odds with the formal nature of the note, I exhaled a sigh. I rose from Jensen’s chair, reminiscing on the years I’d worked at GlobaPharm. It would be difficult to find a new job on such short notice, especially considering my looming need for maternity leave. It was just that I could no longer bear the long stretches of silence when I so desperately wanted to make things right.

Apparently, in Jensen’s mind, there didn’t seem to be a possibility of making things right. Though I wished I had more of a choice in the matter, I resolved to forget him as much as I was able. I walked back across the top floor to my office, boxing up a few personal items before deciding that they reminded me too much of the life and the man I intended to leave behind.

Leaving the box on the floor of my office, I walked toward the elevator and hit the button for the ground floor. It wasn’t time for lunch and it wasn’t time for anyone to clock out, so I had the elevator all to myself. It did little to comfort the crippling loneliness I felt, but from then on out I planned to live with my loneliness. At least…until my children were born.

The thought struck me that if I had no idea how to raise quadruplets with help, I would be even more lost on my own. It wasn’t my decision to make, though. I couldn’t force Jensen to be with me, even if he was the father of my children. I couldn’t force anyone to be with me. I had resolved at the start that I would be content as a single mother, and I sought to find that same confidence.

When I reached ground level, I walked out without another moment’s pause. The time for hesitation had passed, and I had no choice but to move on with my life. Walking the distance to my parking spot—a reserved spot that Jensen had recently put in for ‘expectant mothers’—I fought back the tears that threatened to spill over. I had done enough crying over this situation.

Squeezing into my car, I turned the ignition and felt a sharp pang in my heart as my favorite ballad, the song I’d mentally dubbed ‘our song,’ began to play from the radio. It seemed the higher powers were intent upon having a laugh at me that day. I turned down the radio, wiping away tears that I wanted nothing more than to banish.

“Goodbye, Jensen,” I said quietly, the finality of it all forming a deep pit in my stomach. I stared at the building a moment longer, remembering the good times as well as the bad. I wondered what Jensen might think when he came back in three days and saw my resignation on his desk, but I could only assume he’d be thrilled. Less awkwardness in the office, and he could move on to his next secretary.

Would she have the same chocolate brown curls that he claimed to love so dearly? Would she be willing to sacrifice everything to carry his child? I doubted it, but it wasn’t a thought I cared to entertain. I knew the man would move on easily, having his pick of any woman he wanted. Just the same, I wanted to pretend a little longer that he had actually loved me; that it hadn’t all been a farce.

I pulled out of the parking lot with a nervous churning in my gut. Was I really doing this? It wasn’t too late to turn back, not yet. I could return to the top floor and shred the note I’d left for Jensen quite easily. It would be back to business as usual—avoidance, bitter stares and an empty heart.

Deciding that I would rather perpetuate my misery at home, in bed, I turned the corner of the road. I drove until GlobaPharm was mostly out of sight, though I knew the towering peak of it would haunt me for some time.

One of many regrets to toss on the pile.