It struck me that I was back where I started. Standing on the bow of our yacht by myself, was a metaphor of how I stood at the head of the company also by myself. Yes, I had my brothers and my grandmother, but for the most part I had felt isolated from them. From the moment my mother had died and I had taken on the mantle as the head of the family when my father was too distraught to do so, I purposely set myself apart from the rest of them. I suppose a shrink would have all sorts of theories about that. Probably something about a fear of intimacy or fear of loving or fear of losing.
The question was why was it wrong to want to avoid that? I'd allowed love in and look what it had done to me. It kicked me in the nuts and ripped my heart out. No, my way was better.
Carter would be thrilled when I told him that the old Ryan was back. The Ryan who was 110% focused on the family business. The Ryan who didn't let emotion get involved in his personal or his professional life.
I wasn't sure how Kellie and I were going to continue to work together. I wasn't going to fire her or make her life miserable because that wasn't the type of man I was. But I was the type of man that might look for another position within the company for her. Perhaps one that paid more since there was a child on the way.
When the boat docked and the ramp was down, Kellie was off much faster than I anticipated. I rushed after her because I was her ride home. But as we reached the parking lot, she stepped up to a rideshare car and got in the backseat.
"I can see myself home," she said. Her voice quivered but her eyes were sharp and determined. I wasn’t sure if she was telling herself the same thing that I was telling myself; I could survive without her.
I arrived at the office early the next morning locking myself in and immersing myself into our expansion deals. I checked on shipments going to Europe, and reviewed reports we'd gotten from Japan. I even read all my emails coming from all the departments, something I
usually let Kellie do and just let me know which ones were the most important.
I still hadn't figured out what I was going to do about working with Kellie. For the time being, I guess we have to figure it out. I wondered how long it would be before the pregnancy became obvious. We were definitely in one of those situations that Carter was so concerned about.
But with the pregnancy, the situation between Kellie and me was personal. Our legal entanglements would be personal too, I'd make sure of that. I didn't think she'd go after the company's assets or try to do something to ruin the company. Even as I thought that, I remembered that I hadn’t thought she'd be the type of person to keep knowledge of my child from me.
There was a knock on the door and when it opened Carter's head poked in. "So, how’d it go?"
Emotion welled up from my gut and I clamped my mouth shut to keep from letting some sort of growl of despair escape. "Not so good."
Carter entered my office and made himself comfortable in one of my chairs. He arched a brow as he stared at me. "She turned you down?"
"Not exactly. But I don't want to talk about it right now. I have other things I need to do." I busied myself with the paperwork on my desk even though I didn't really know exactly what it was.
"There's no putting it off anymore," Carter said, his tone annoyed. "I'm going to tell them. At least Gran and Hunter."
"Don't bother," I said, sighing and leaning back in my chair.
"Why not?"
"Because Kellie and I are done."
30
Kellie
I seriously considered calling in sick again, not knowing how I was going to face Ryan at work. My reasons for deciding to go to work probably weren’t the most noble. I was a responsible employee and I had work to do, so of course, I had to go to work. And I needed to consider that Ryan and my arrangement was such that our personal lives weren’t to impact our professional ones. The petty part of my decision was to make sure I didn’t give Ryan any reason to suspect that I couldn’t be a good mother. If we got into a custody dispute, he would win. He and his family had so much more money to fight me. Plus, he had much more to offer a child, at least financially. Not just the best schools, but vacations to places like Italy, and Switzerland, The Netherlands, and France.
The other thing was, I knew that I should have told him about the baby sooner. But I didn’t think my infraction was so bad that it couldn’t be overcome. After all, he loved me, right? He asked me to marry him, so he must love me. Why couldn’t he forgive me?
Then I realized that I didn’t remember him ever saying the words. He never said, “I love you Kellie.” And, in fact, I had never said them to him either. I felt it. But even after he proposed to me, I hadn’t said it. What did that mean?
When I got to work the next morning, I tried to arrive at a time that I knew he would be busy in his office so I could avoid seeing him. As I reached my desk, Carter was exiting Ryan’s office. He looked at me, and for a moment, it appeared he was going to continue past me to his office.
But then he stopped and turned to look at me. “Are you okay?”
I wasn't sure what he knew about Ryan and me at this point. I didn’t know what Ryan had told him about the proposal, the baby and ultimately our break up.
So I mustered a smile, “I’m fine, thank you. How are you?”
He studied me for a moment. But then said, “I’m doing good, thank you.” Then, he didn’t seem to have any more to say, so he headed off to his office.
Invariably, there came a time when I had to see Ryan. There were papers that needed signature, notes that I needed to take, reports that needed delivering. Each time I walked into his office, my heart broke a little more. I hated the way he could look at me with disdain. It was even worse when he looked at me with no emotion at all. What was once was friendly and professional was now bitter and broken.
I lasted two days going to work and acting like everything was normal. On the third day, I woke up planning to go to work, but was unable to get out of bed. I was drained mentally, physically, and emotionally, and I just couldn't bring myself to face Ryan. I was thankful that Natalie was out of town at an artist retreat because there was no way I could hide this from her and I couldn’t talk about it without feeling like I might break into a million pieces. I knew she would be there for me and would support me through this, but I couldn’t imagine myself putting words to everything that I was feeling.