Chapter Three

Two guys from maintenance carried in a spare desk and chairs before Nate could get a word out.

The door shut behind them. His jaw tightened.

"I know I've been slacking at home," he said. "But you know the timeline we're on. We married late. There's only so many years left in the window. Right now the priority's a baby, something to calm both sets of parents down."

I cut him off. "So I've been thinking. A person should know when to stop reaching for more. I'm choosing the business. Which means the baby part goes to someone better suited for it."

"What?"

His eyes narrowed. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Find a surrogate. I'll cover it. Two hundred thousand. What do you say?"

He shot up out of his chair. It scraped hard against the floor.

"That's insane. You can carry a child yourself, why hand it off to someone else?"

"Relax." I stood, patted his shoulder. "I already have someone in mind. You just get ready. Be a good father."

His face cycled through three colors before he managed one sentence. "Viv. This is a joke, right?"

I didn't answer. I picked up the desk phone and dialed the front office instead.

"Have every department send up their quarterly numbers. Forty minutes."

I hung up and opened the project folder in front of me. Nate stood there a minute, waiting for more. When nothing came, he left.

A knock a few minutes later. A young guy walked in, report in hand.

"Ms. Hale. My mentor asked me to bring this up."

"Where's your mentor?"

"Quit last month."

I recognized the handwriting on the cover page before I finished the sentence.

Julian.

Nate's old roommate. One of the three of us who'd built this place out of a rented farmhouse with no working plumbing.

I turned the page over twice, then tore it into pieces and flushed it down the bathroom sink.

Two years, and the whole place had turned over. The people I'd hired myself had been quietly pushed into dead-end departments. Nobody here treated the old head of operations like she mattered anymore.

He'd bet I'd swallow it, for the sake of the business.

He won that bet once.

Not this time.

I looked up at the kid. "You know how to drive?"

"Yes, ma'am."

That night, Nate's parents showed up with bags of prenatal vitamins, bone broth, fertility tea, enough to cover the whole kitchen counter.

Diane gripped my hand, talking fast. "Work can wait, sweetheart. A woman's real job is carrying on the family. You're still young. Get your body right, aim for two in three years. Richard and I have got the strength left to help raise them."

I looked at Nate. His eyes carried the same hope.

They were scared I'd go back to running things. Good. I had bigger plans for the next few days anyway.

"I'll skip tomorrow, then," I said. "Stay home, focus on my health."

Every face in the room relaxed at once.

In bed that night, Nate wrapped an arm around my waist from behind, hand sliding toward my stomach. Then he froze.

"You're on your period?"

"Yeah. All those supplements threw things off. Came early."

He sighed and rolled away. I waited forty minutes, until his breathing evened out, then reached for the phone charging on the nightstand.

His SIM popped out with a paperclip. I dropped it into mine.

His email logged in with one tap, he'd never changed the password. A flight confirmation sat in the inbox: a 10 a.m. departure to San Francisco.

I opened his Amazon next. Both apps stayed logged in across devices without kicking him out. He'd never think to check.

The default delivery address wasn't ours. Some street I didn't recognize, care of a name — Chloe.

Paper towels, laundry pods, small kitchen appliances, cookware, the essentials of somebody's whole apartment, paid for and shipped there.

The DoorDash history ran even heavier. Flowers, bubble tea, dessert boxes, fresh fruit, almost every day. Every delivery note said the same thing:

[Leave at the door. Don't knock.]

I screenshotted all of it, put the SIM back, killed the screen, and lay in the dark.

So this was what loving someone actually looked like.

Taking care of her. Treating her like she mattered.

Not just hounding her about a baby.

I barely slept. When I surfaced, Nate was already gone.

A note sat on the nightstand: [Business trip, two days. Don't wait up.]

Business trip. Cute.

Also happened to be his birthday.

I opened his flight app again. Confirmed, the 10 a.m. to San Francisco, exactly like the email said.

I called Diane.

"Diane, it's Nate's birthday today. I already booked a car. Thought we'd surprise him, see if anyone's free to come along. Could use the company, honestly."

She sounded thrilled. "Of course! My son works himself to the bone. We'll get ready right now."

Half an hour later, seven of us, Richard, Diane, an aunt, an uncle, a couple of cousins, piled into the company van and headed out.

By the time we pulled up, the sky had gone fully dark.

I followed the address up to a sixth-floor window, lit up above the street.

Finally. The woman Nate had hidden away so carefully.

Diane sighed, half touched, half worn out. "Look at my son, flying all this way just to close a deal. People need to know when to be grateful, you know?"

I smiled. "That's why we're here, Diane. To celebrate."

I waited by the entrance until the delivery guy showed up with the cake and the wine, then carried them up myself.

At the door, I looked down.

Seven or eight pairs of shoes lined up outside. Men's, women's, heels, sneakers.

Guests. How nice. A party.

I hit the doorbell.

Three rings, then a voice, sugar-sweet, from inside.

"Babe, can you get that? Should be the cake."

"On it."

Footsteps, getting closer.

The door opened.

Every sound in the hallway went dead at once.

I held the cake up in front of his face.

"Surprise! Bet you weren't expecting this!"