The Office Rival: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romance

Somehow, I make my way back to work, confused and utterly disappointed. At my desk, I throw the flowers into the trash and grab my scissors, angrily cutting every stem to pieces. I take a picture of it and send it to him.

Me: YOU JERK

My hands are shaking, and I see Vicky standing over me, mouthing something. I try to hear her, but the warm gush of liquid running down my legs confuses me.

“Holy fuck, Pres! Your water just broke,” Vicky screams.

I look down and then back up at her in a blind panic, only to hear her yell to the office, “It’s showtime, baby.”

Twenty

I’m staring at this face.

It’s soft and wrinkly and everything is so small.

Ten tiny fingers, ten tiny toes.

It’s my baby.

My life does a complete one-eighty in just twenty-four short hours.

It all happens so fast from the moment my water breaks.

In a state of denial, I want to go home, but Vicky shoves me into a taxi with her, and we head straight to the hospital. I am not experiencing any pain physically, but emotionally I am angry, hurt, and humiliated by what the Jerk did. The delusional fog I am in, which I blame on the hormones, has come to a screeching halt, and there is no time to even think about that as I lay in the hospital bed, tied up to several of drips and monitors.

“I’ve tried to call Haden,” Vicky tells me.

“Why would you do that?”

“Because you’re having this baby, and he needs to be here.” She shakes her head at my question, gently patting my forehead with a cold washcloth.

“I’m not having this baby. I’m only thirty-five weeks along. It’s not going anywhere.”

Denial only gets you so far. No matter how much I try to talk myself out of it, the contractions are a motherfucking giant slap of reality. The pain ricochets across my back, then moves toward the front. Gritting my teeth in this unbearable state, I’m given a jug of ice cubes to suck on for the next lot of contractions. I want to throw the jug at the nurse, but physical abuse won’t help me, and I shouldn’t be mean to the person who has the drugs.

“It keeps going to voicemail,” Vicky says in a worried tone.

“Well, fucking good! He doesn’t deserve to be here, anyway,” I yell mid-contraction.

The second the contraction winds down, I start to cry, and I mean ugly-sob cry. Even with Vicky by my side, I feel so alone and terrified. She holds onto me for what feels like forever until I manage to calm myself down.

Mom and Dad are honeymooning in Fiji—they only just arrived there yesterday. Gemma and Melissa are staying at some B&B, and their phones have no coverage. To add to everything else, the crib hasn’t arrived yet, and I haven’t washed all the clothes like you’re supposed to, plus my hospital bag is sitting beside my bed at home.

This was not my plan.

This is so unplanned it makes me want to cry even more.

“Shhh.” Vicky strokes my hair at the same time Kate rushes into the room with Lex right behind her.

“Oh my God, what the hell happened? Lex and I were in a taxi when I got your text. I had the taxi driver rush us right over here.” Panicked and out of breath, she is by my side, riddled with worry.

Still in an emotional state and unable to communicate effectively, I let Vicky do all the talking. She starts with my lunch with Eloise, how the Jerk screwed me over, and the taxi ride over here. Both of them offer their opinions on Eloise, but I immediately tune out, not wanting to deal with that.

“Did the Jerk really knock Eloise up, too?” Kate whi

spers to Vicky.

Vicky nods and proceeds to tell her the rest of the story. Lex walks over to the end of the bed and lifts the chart off the railing to read it.