Queen Move

“You need Carla to set up a call with the governor?”

“Nope. I’ll call him myself.”

Chapter Forty-Four

Ezra

“That was her on the phone, wasn’t it?”

Aiko stands at the door to the guest bedroom where I’ve been sleeping. I sit on the edge of the bed, phone still in my hand. Kimba hung up long ago, but I still hear her voice, the resignation in it. If this is my baby, I’m going to lose her, and it’s like a shoal of piranha trapped in my belly, a feeding frenzy of anxiety and dread.

I don’t answer Aiko’s question, but stand and cross the room to leave. She doesn’t move, but blocks my exit, a tiny wall keeping me inside.

“Ko,” I say, hearing the impatience in my own voice. “I need to get by.”

“Ezra.” She runs her hands up my chest.

I slip past her, striding out into the hall and heading down the stairs. I settle in at my desk, open my laptop and try to distract myself with all the other things that require my attention. There’s an email to re-schedule the publisher’s meeting I missed because of Aiko’s bombshell announcement. I need to finish this book. Another email from the YLA finance director regarding next year’s budget and a grant we’re applying for. I need to look at her projections.

I need to settle the issue of this pregnancy.

I need Kimba.

My head drops into my hands. It’s futile trying to concentrate when my future hangs in the balance. I give up, let myself feel the weight of possibly losing her…again. Not as a boy who had no idea what a magnificent woman she would become, what we could be together, but as a man who’s known her body and glimpsed her soul, been consumed by the fire that burns inside.

You set me on fire inside, Ezra Stern.

“We need to talk,” Aiko says from the door.

“Talk to Chaz.” I lift my head, refocus my attention on the laptop and try again.

“Chaz is not the father of this baby.”

I do look at her then. “Oh, so you didn’t fuck him the last three weeks? Was I mistaken about that?”

Color floods her pale cheeks and she drops her gaze to the floor. “Are you going to condemn me for something we agreed on?”

“Absolutely not.” I shut my laptop and give her a level look. “But you can’t condemn me either. You want to have your cake and eat it, too.”

“I want you, Ezra,” she says, swallowing hard. “I didn’t want to end our relationship. I wanted an open one.”

“Again, cake. You know me, Ko. What would ever make you think I’d want that? I don’t care that you slept with Chaz.”

“Maybe that’s what hurts most because it’s killing me that you slept with Kimba as soon as my back was turned.”

“Your back wasn’t turned. You left,” I say, slicing a hand through the air. “With him. We broke up and agreed to tell Noah when you returned. Don’t try to re-write history because the truth is suddenly not as convenient.”

“History is re-writing itself, Ezra.” She walks deeper into the office, one hand on her stomach. “And there’s nothing convenient about an unplanned pregnancy at nearly forty on the cusp of the biggest opportunity of my career. I didn’t ask for this either. You were there that night. I didn’t fuck myself.”

“I know that.” I expel as much of the frustration as I can on a long breath. “If this is my baby, you know I’ll support you, but we won’t be together.” I look at her directly so she can see the finality on my face. “Not again. And not just because of Kimba. I hadn’t even seen Kimba when we broke up. You and I ending things was the right thing to do, for all of us. It still is.”

“But it hasn’t happened.” She crosses the room, presses her palms to the desk and leans forward. “It hasn’t happened because Noah doesn’t know. Our families, our friends don’t know. When Noah comes home, we tell him he’s going to have a little brother or sister and he’ll be ecstatic. Things go back to normal.”

“I don’t want normal. I want Kimba.”

Hurt shows in her sharply drawn breath, in the tears that fill her eyes right away.

“Ko,” I say, deliberately gentling my tone. “I told you before you left that I wanted one person I could love for the rest of my life. That person is Kimba, and I know it seems soon to you, but I’ve known her since we were babies. Even when we were separated, I never stopped knowing her.”