An email pops into my inbox from Jeffrey with the subject line, “Thinking about you.”
My stomach drops out a bit.
For God’s sake. I don’t need Jeffrey’s midlife crisis and post-breakup realizations on top of all this.
I open the email.
Hey Luce,
You’re looking great—pregnancy really suits you. Can we get together for lunch today? I miss you and I’d love to touch base.
No signature.
Something old and distressing coils in my solar plexus. The old familiar anxiety of wondering if things with Jeffrey are going to work out. If we could make it as a couple. If he’d be the dad I wanted him to be for the family I wanted us to create.
I would’ve welcomed this email four months ago. Before I hooked up with Ravil. Maybe even after I knew I was pregnant, when I realized how daunting it was going to be to do this thing on my own.
But now?
Now it’s damn inconvenient.
And still hurts, somehow.
Maybe hurt is the wrong word, but I don’t like the way it makes me feel. It opens old wounds. Me wondering why I’m not good enough for Jeffrey to want to put a ring on my finger. Wondering when he’d be ready. Bending and contorting myself to fit into his very long timeline for when things should happen. Wanting to make it all work perfectly for him, so there could be an us. And then finally realizing his timeline was never going to speed up to the pace I needed it to if I wanted to have a baby before my body got too old.
Eight years we were together. I grieved my decision when I made it, not because it was the wrong one but because I loved Jeffrey. I’d had all kinds of visions of a future with him as the stable, loving husband and father. But those were projections not a reality.
I hit reply.
Hey Jeffrey. I’m actually on bedrest, so I can’t meet today or any time in the near future, but I appreciate your thoughts.
—Luce
His reply is immediate.
Oh my God, is everything okay? Do you want me to come by? What do you need?
Well, crap. Not this. I definitely don’t need this. I blink back tears, thinking that if I really were on bedrest—if Ravil had never shown up, and if Jeffrey had circled back—I’d probably be so relieved to have him back in my life. But only because he’s familiar. Like family.
Not because I believe he’d actually show up the way I needed him to. I doubt he’d stick around and father the baby. He’d just make me hope and grasp at the idea that he would.
But what if it was his? Would he then?
Probably not.
Ugh. I give my head a quick shake. These thoughts aren’t useful in the least. It’s not Jeffrey’s baby, and he missed his chance. I’d thought he’d be a stable and secure kind of dad. The guy who looks good on paper. In reality, would he?
Or would I be the one still trying to orchestrate everything in our lives to make it work for him?
I think of the way Ravil crowded me back against the beach wall, his hand on my belly, his lips at my neck. Our son.
He sounded so awed. We shared the moment equally. If Jeffrey was the father, would he have felt the same reverence? I seriously doubt it. He isn’t uncaring, but he can’t seem to make himself feel much, either. Like he wants to care, knows he’s supposed to care but is ambivalent about everything in his life, especially me.
Ravil wants this baby.
Very much.
He’s not the man I want for my son, he’s not the father I pictured, but at least he cares.
That’s something.
I hit reply and type, No, thank you. I’m fine, just need to follow doctor’s orders for now. Thanks.
A few minutes later, Ravil opens the door without knocking. “Who’s Jeffrey?” he demands.
I frown at him, trying to hide the shiver that runs through my body. His monitoring was definitely not a bluff.
I look at him coolly. “My ex.”
“The man you came to Black Light to forget.”
He remembers. He guessed that night I was on a rebound. It was one of those moments of extraordinary perception that struck me.
I nod.
Ravil regards me, a shadow on his normally impassive face. He shoves his hands in his pockets and leans against the doorframe, his posture deceptively casual. “Get rid of him.”
I raise my brows. “You obviously read the emails. I did my best. I’m following your guidelines, Warden.”
Ravil shakes his head. “Get rid of him completely. Out of your life.”
“Or what?” I snap, annoyed.
“Or I will.” He’s the sort of man who lowers his voice when making a threat rather than raising it, and it sends icicles through my veins.
Genuine fear for Jeffrey makes me grip the edge of the desk. I don’t know much about Ravil, but I imagine he might be capable of terrible things. Including murder.
I stare back at him. “Fine.”
The idea of saying something that would completely cut Jeffrey out of my life turns my stomach sour. We left things amicable—we were kind to each other during the break up. He helped me move into my new apartment when I said I was moving out. There was no fight or hateful things said.
But it’s over. And I don’t want to endanger him.
“I’ll take care of it.” I narrow my gaze at him. “Get out.”
Ravil’s lips purse, and he leaves without comment.
I’m not surprised when he reneges on his plan to let me out for lunch and sends Valentina in with a tray of food instead.
Ravil
I’m not jealous. I’m simply not a jealous man. I learned as a young boy not to covet what someone else has but to work all the harder to surpass them.
Still, it takes me all day to get over being pissed off about Jeffrey.
Blyat.
Dima already had a data file on him, and I review it. I want to kill the man,
