Garrett needed to switch gears. Imani was too upset for anything he might say to break through. “All this energy is not good for you—or the baby.”
“Now? Now, you care about my baby and me?” Imani was doing everything not to snap completely. She took a couple of calming breaths. “You're ridiculous.” Aggravated, she pressed her fingers to her forehead and almost rubbed the skin off. At the end of the day, Imani just wanted out. The marriage was over, and she needed the pain of the last year to go away. All she wanted was a fresh start.
Exhausted from her anger, she whispered, “What do you want Garrett? What do I have to do to end this?”
He hated to hear the sound of desperation in her words and that she actually wanted out. He wasn’t a man to give up easily, and he for sure wasn’t ready to give up on his marriage. It was time to put his plan in motion. “Do you honestly want to know?”
She could no longer hide her hopelessness. A weak voice escaped. “Yes.”
Hazel green eyes bore holes through her soul as he placed both hands on his desk one over the other. “Wait until after the baby is born. I’ll move back to our house—not Devonshire, and give me one month.”
The absurdity of that almost knocked her off her feet. It was so ridiculous that it took a minute for her brain to register what he’d said in order to respond in any coherent way. She shook her head from side to side. “Oh no. No, no, no . . . NO, Garrett! Are you serious?”
“Dead serious.”
They stood staring at each other waiting for the other to blink.
He didn’t.
She didn’t.
They could both be stubborn. That was the problem. Imani sucked in her bottom lip to keep some form of control.
Holding his gaze and as calmly as possible, she responded. “I can't go on like this with you. You’ve got to let me go. Marriage is supposed to be about love not . . . this . . . this thing we’re doing.”
As if by magic, she was suddenly gazing up into eyes that had always been able to turn her knees to jelly. Garrett rounded his desk so quickly that Imani was amazed at how fast he’d done it. One minute the safety of furniture was between them, and now, there was no buffer. He was standing directly in front of her.
He was close—too close. There was a moment when he raised his hand that Imani thought he might touch her. She stopped breathing. Garrett had always been hard to resist, even when she wanted to strangle him to death. Today was no exception. He wore her favorite cologne, a blend of sandalwood, musk, amber, and him. It was uniquely Garrett. It floated through the air tickling her senses, and Imani had to remind herself that Garret wasn’t the man she’d fallen in love with. After everything, that he could still have this kind of effect on her should have been reason enough to have her committed.
She cleared her throat and took a step backward then focused her attention on the paperweight behind him on his desk. His voice brought her out of her mystifying haze of stupidity.
“If after one month of living with the baby and me, you still want a divorce, I’ll give it to you without any hassles. I’ll only demand one thing, joint custody.”
“Why? Why would you want custody?”
“I don’t want to be a part-time father.”
Imani didn’t know what to say. “Garrett, this makes no sense.”
He folded his arms. “Are you afraid that you might still have feelings for me? Is that why you won’t agree?”
“Don’t be ridiculous! I just want to get on with my life. You and I have wasted enough time.”
Hurt, he responded harsher than he had intended. “Those are my terms. Take them or leave them. Otherwise, I’ll have you in court for the next couple of years.” Garrett turned his back on her and went to sit back down in his chair. “I have the resources. You know I can do it.”
“Why? Why are you doing this?”
He wasn’t going to tell her the full truth, but he would share part of it. “I know what it’s like to grow up without a real father. I don’t want that for this child. I would think you wouldn’t want it either.”
Imani was about to respond when her thoughts were interrupted by what felt like trembling underneath her feet, but then it stopped. She chalked it up to hormones, especially since she and Garrett were in a high-rise building—that would be impossible.
He frowned. “Did you feel that?”
She looked around and whispered. “I guess I didn’t imagine it.” They stared at the bobble head on his desk as it began to move up and down.
The floor vibrated again, and a weird whine-like noise sounded as if metal was bending just before everything started to shake uncontrollably.
Imani could barely stand up on her feet. Somehow, Garrett managed to get to her before she fell on the floor, but even he was having trouble keeping them upright.
CRACK! Was that an explosion? As if she weren’t already scared to death, that noise shook Imani to her core. She was terrified.
The lights flickered on and off
