“Where’d Gracie go?” Jamie demands, furious. She cornered me once before and told me that if I ever hurt Gracie, she’d gut me, and for some reason, I actually believe she would. Grace is lucky to have a friend like Jamie.
“Don’t know,” I snap at her.
“What did you do to her?” She takes another step further into my office and narrows her eyes at me.
I throw my hands in the air and growl but don’t answer her question. One, because I don’t know if I can even vocalize what I’m feeling right now, and two, it’s none of her damn business.
I see Aaron slide into my office and stand next to Jamie before he pipes in, “Uh, everything okay?”
I push myself up from my chair and stand with my hands planted firmly on the desk to steady me. Sensing the seriousness of the situation, Aaron closes my office door, giving us privacy from all of the eyes that seem to be pacing the hall outside my office. Everyone seems to be acutely aware that shit is going down. But it’s the two pairs of eyes standing in front of me that I have to answer to. My heart beats wildly in my chest and my stomach twists in knots as I replay what I said to Gracie. I’m disgusted with myself for the way I handled the news and how I pushed her away when she needed me.
I prop my hands on my hips and take a deep breath. “I don’t know where she went,” I tell them.
“What did you do?” Jamie seethes.
“Everything...”
“Dude!” Aaron starts, but I cut him off.
“She’s pregnant.” My voice is weak, and I find it hard to speak. I try to swallow against my dry throat, but struggle to. “I found out she’s pregnant.”
I hear Jamie gasp and I turn away from them, unable to look at either of them.
“Is it yours?” Aaron asks like a dumbass.
Anger courses through my veins at the insinuation it wouldn’t be. “Of course it fucking is.” Sighing loudly and rubbing my eyes with the heel of my hands, I suddenly find myself fighting back the rapid onslaught of emotions.
“You’re not happy,” Aaron says quietly, a statement, not a question, and I simply look at him. He’s my brother. He knows me better than anyone. I don’t even need to answer this because he knows; he lived the life I lived. We lived it together. I always swore I’d never bring a child into the world knowing that I couldn’t or wouldn’t commit the time to be the best father. My goal has always been on AM Global, and I’m just building that dream.
“It’s not what I planned—" I begin before Jamie cuts me off.
“Whoa there, buddy,” she says, clearly disgusted with me. Join the fucking club. “I don’t know what’s going through your head right now, but for one goddamn second, you best not be angry at or blame Gracie for this. Last I checked, it takes two to make a baby, and I can goddamn guarantee you she didn’t plan this either.”
“I know how a fucking baby is made,” I bark at her.
She points a finger at me, her long fingernail right in my face. “What did you say to her? She left here crying, Drew,” she asks through gritted teeth.
I take a sharp breath and lace my fingers together behind my head. “I don’t even remember. I was so upset—”
“Bullshit. You know what you said.” Jamie takes another step closer, almost nose to nose with me now. She’s intimidating with her long blonde hair and New York accent. She also most likely knows how to have me killed and disposed of with her New York connections and she looks like she’s ready to call in a favor and do just that. “What did you fucking say to her?” she asks me again.
I take a long pull of air into my lungs and pinch my eyes closed. “That I didn’t want a baby—”
I don’t know if I feel the smack or hear the slap first, but Jamie’s palm meets my cheek and I lurch backward.
“What the fuck!” I yell as Aaron wraps his arms around Jamie’s waist, pulling her back and away from me.
“You son of a bitch!” she screams at me, throwing her arms wildly like she wants a piece of me. “She deserves better than that…better than YOU!” she shouts at me, trying to break free from Aaron’s grip. There is no doubt if she gets free, I’m a dead man. But my heart sinks at what she’s said to me because she’s right. Gracie does deserve better than me. She is the best thing to ever happen to me and I treated her like trash. I treated her and our baby like they were disposable—all because this didn’t happen according to my plan or my timeline.
Because I wasn’t in control.
“You’re a selfish bastard, you know that, right?” She chokes those words out and I look at her. Tears fall from her eyes as Aaron keeps his arms wrapped around her waist. I turn away from both of them, my hand rubbing my cheek where the skin still stings.
On a sob, Jamie continues laying into me. “You don’t deserve her, Drew. I knew you were going to hurt her. I fucking knew it.”
With my back to Jamie, I respond with the most honest words I’ve ever spoken, only I should have said them to Gracie, not Jamie and Aaron. “I didn’t want to hurt her either. I love her.”
“Love her? You don’t know what love is, you selfish prick.” She snorts and I turn around to look at her. “If you love her, you wouldn’t have let her walk out of here. For once in her life, she needed someone to have her back, to support her. Just once…” Her voice breaks. “She carries the burden of everyone else’s problems, Drew. She never catches a break. I thought you were different. I thought you were a break for her. Someone easy for her to love, someone who’d take care of her for once. You are just like everyone else in her life…worthless. Guess I was wrong about you.” Her face twists in disgust. “Gracie is the strongest person I know, and she’ll raise this baby with or without you. But if you’re not on board, you best get the fuck out of New York and never come back here. San Francisco is calling you back, you asshole.”
With those words, she twists out of Aaron’s grasp and flees my office. My throat closes as I think of Gracie being here with our baby, without me, and I feel like I’m suffocating. God, I fucked up. I run my hands through my hair as my stomach continues to twist violently.
“Why would you tell her you didn’t want it?” Aaron asks, seeming genuinely concerned and disappointed in me for once.
I look at my brother and a million memories of our childhood flash through my mind. All the baseball games that I’d look out into the bleachers only to find my mom, and I can’t even remember all of the birthday parties he missed, all because he was “at the office,” building his company.
“Because I’m afraid,” I choke out, my voice breaking. I clear my throat, swallowing back the lump in my throat. “Because I don’t want to be like him.”
He nods in understanding.
“Because I’m so fucking afraid I will be like him, and Grace deserves better than that, our baby deserves better than that. You remember what it was like…” I actually feel tears sting the backs of my eyes. I can’t remember the last time I cried, but the thought of Gracie doing this alone, or worse, allowing someone else to raise my baby, is enough to make me want to vomit.