Page 28 of Knocked Up By the Silver Fox

"Will, they may have a point…" He frowned as I looked up at him. "Banks has been buying up shares of Caldwell Investments. He owns 2 percent now…That number can't creep up at all. He'll end up with a spot on the board and?—"

"You don't have to tell me what it means, Allen, I'm well aware. I know how this works." I sighed hard and turned my gaze out the window in a huff. I was stuck between a rock and a very hard place. I loved Beth, so there was no way I was going to let them fire her on my watch because I knew she hadn't done anything wrong. But if Banks ended up buying enough stocks, he really would start to gain power. That was the last thing I needed.

"This meeting is over." Carl stood up and looked around at everyone, but he zeroed in on me. "This isn't over. We have to keep tabs on what's going on. You're right. We can't just fire her without just cause, but we can encourage her to quit on her own. It's what's best for the company after everything else we've gone through to get here. Do what's right, Will." Carl never used my nickname, and I hated hearing it in his voice.

They all filed out one by one, the last one being Allen. He gave me a sympathetic look and I realized he knew how I felt. None of this was because I was dating her, though the boardexpected me to use my leverage as her lover to try to force her to walk away. If the shareholders saw that she was meeting secretly with Nevil while he was buying up shares, they would gather the same assumption too. That she was doing some bad things.

I pulled out my phone, anxious to hear her voice and calm my nerves, but when I looked down at the screen, I saw a notification from Facebook. It was about a post Abby made during the meeting. I had my phone set to alert me every time she posted so I could keep tabs on her social media too. I never could be too careful with my only child, and I just wanted to protect her.

So imagine my surprise when I opened the app to see that she had posted hateful things about Beth. There was no image, but there was a lengthy post about how much she hated the idea that her father was dating someone so young. She went as far as to call Beth a "gold-digging inheritance chaser" who "preys on older vulnerable men."

I was livid, speechless even. Abby had gone too far, and even though I felt sympathy toward her for having to learn about me and Beth the way she had, this was uncalled for. She crossed a major line. And what made it worse was that it went viral. Sebastian Sullivan's son had reshared the post to his timeline, and of course, everyone who followed the movie star saw his son's post. Hundreds of thousands of people were now calling Beth a gold digger on social media, and it was only a matter of time before they started calling her that in the tabloids too.

I stood up and pocketed my phone. I had to go get Abby immediately and make her take that down before it did too much damage. Nosy gossip reporters would be looking into it instantly, and it would drag Beth's reputation through the sewers.

I stormed out without telling anyone I was leaving, and I made sure to bypass Beth's office by leaving out the back bySarah's desk. I noticed the post open on her desktop computer and didn't even stop. I had to deal with this at the source. Even Sarah's dirty smirk didn't make me pause to shut her down. Abby had to take the post down or she was grounded for life.

19

BETH

Ihovered over the toilet again, moments after peeing on the little plastic, cotton-tipped wand. I stopped by the pharmacy on the way home. Rachel's backhanded comment, which was meant to be a joke, scared me to my core. A pregnancy at this stage of the relationship or at my age wasn't at all what I wanted. I was a single woman trying to work my way up the ladder in a man's world, and this would be seen as a sign of weakness.

It had been more than an hour since anything had come up, but my body still hated me. I kept dry heaving every twenty minutes and all that came up was a few teaspoons of stomach acid. My lips burned. My mouth felt like sandpaper; I had horrible breath, and I just wanted it to end. My whole belly hurt from exertion, and I felt so tired.

The test had processed. It was sitting on the edge of the sink for at least the past five minutes waiting for me, but I couldn't bring myself to look at it. I was terrified. Rachel had warned me so many times to protect myself, that Will wasn't good for me. While her warnings had come in the form of accusing him of being inappropriate, I should have heeded them.

I never thought Will was manipulative or dangerous, but if I had drawn clear boundaries and denied my own lust, I wouldn't be sitting here dreading the outcome of that test. I wouldn't be paralyzed with fear of my future being so difficult I'd cave and collapse. But I was. My future was uncertain, and that fear of the unknown kept making my stomach so upset I kept throwing up.

The dry heaves ended, and my stomach stopped cramping. I sat up on the edge of the bathtub and wiped my mouth with a dry cloth while I flushed the toilet. The tears didn't stop though. I kept crying and trying to calm myself down, but no matter what I tried to tell myself I was too afraid.

I knew what it was like for a woman who had children and struggled on her own. I'd watched a friend of mine in college go through it. She ended up throwing herself at the first man who looked her way, and now years later he had cheated on her and she was miserable. She was trapped too—unable to support herself and get away from his abuse because she had a child and never finished her education.

I had my education. I had a darn good job too, but it wouldn't matter when it came time for me to have maternity leave and I couldn't afford to take the time off and still pay the bills. It made me rethink the offer Will made to me to increase my salary and give me the benefits package Nevil Banks had offered me. But how would that look if I went and asked now? And what would the board think? I heard they weren't happy about the rumors now spreading around the company about me and Will.

I covered my face and planted my elbows on my knees. I was getting ahead of myself majorly. I hadn't even seen the test results and I was already thinking about the worst-case scenario, but how could I not? This was a huge deal, one that could change my life forever.

I raised my head and wiped the tears off my cheeks, then I reached for the test to finally put myself out of this misery ofwaiting. Seeing the results would be its own sort of torture, but at least I'd know which sort of agony I'd be in and I could stop thinking in "what if" scenarios.

I looked down at the white plastic wand in my hand and saw the two pink lines streaked across the results window and knew what it meant. My suspicion, which had been Rachel's bad joke, was correct. I was definitely pregnant with Will's baby, and that made my chest ache. I let the test rest in my palm and felt my shoulders drop.

I wasn't sure what he'd say or if he would think I'd done this on purpose. I didn't want his money. I wasn't after his company. I wasn't a gold digger or out to get his wealth in any way, but I wasn't sure if he'd believe that. I told him to pull out, and that was his mistake, but I couldn't even blame him. We were both so into it, neither one of us was careful. We were both to blame, which only made this result sad.

I closed my eyes and tried to think of anything good that would come of this, but all I could think of was his daughter's reaction to seeing me. She was so disbelieving, so hurt, and she ran off and ignored him. What would she think if she found out I was pregnant? And how would she treat him then? Not to mention how would people at work respond? And how would I even make ends meet? Babies were expensive.

Before I even knew what was happening, the door burst open and Rachel walked in. I hadn't heard her in the apartment, and I never expected her to be home this early, but she caught me with the pregnancy test in my hand and I winced as she looked down at me and saw it.

"Are you okay?" she asked, and she stepped farther into the bathroom. Her eyes searched my face for a second and then dropped to my palm. I sighed and dropped my head, but I didn't stop her from taking the test out of my grasp. When she looked down at it, I let a few tears fall. "Oh, babe…"

I couldn't stop the waterworks at that point. There was no point in shutting them off anyway. I'd heard that crying was a good form of stress relief, and that was what I needed right now.

"Hey, come with me…okay? It's going to be alright…" Rachel set the test to the side and took my hand, pulling me up to my feet. I walked with her into my bedroom where she folded back my covers for me. I kicked off my shoes and shed my jacket, then climbed under the blanket.

Rachel covered me up and walked around the foot of my bed and climbed on the other side, just the way she used to do when we were kids and I was sick.

I didn't have to tell her how scared I was or what I was afraid of. She didn't ask me to talk or explain anything. She put her arms around me and talked soothingly to me. The twin connection we had made it seem like she knew what I was thinking before I said it, and I was grateful for her not nagging me.

"Okay, so mistakes happen…but it's not the end of the world. There's adoption, or we can take you to a clinic." I tense and winced at her words. No way I was aborting my baby…The immediate reaction made me instantly aware that going backward wasn't an option for me.

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