From Enemies to Expecting

Now she could readily admit she was so jealous she couldn’t stand it.

As the four pregnant executives gathered in one of the conference rooms at the company they’d built from the ground up, Trinity had enough energy to hug Harper, whom she hadn’t seen in person in quite some time. Never would Trinity have thought they’d all have pregnancy in common a few weeks ago. Fyra’s chief science officer had finally developed a belly, which she patted when Trinity commented on it.

“Dante calls him Amoeba. I tried to get him to quit, but he thinks it’s hilarious.” Harper rolled her eyes at her absent husband, whom she’d left behind in Zurich, but only because he was filming his television show about the science of attraction. Otherwise, he’d have been following his wife around like an overprotective caveman, wearing a goofy, adoring expression that communicated how very much he loved Harper and their baby.

Obviously Trinity could use some pointers on how to find a man like that—she should have been watching Dr. Gates’s show all along. Then it wouldn’t have been such a shock to find out Logan hadn’t been falling for her all along like she’d been for him.

Tears pricked at her eyelids and she let them fall. Didn’t matter how hard she tried to hold it all in, everything came gushing out anyway. Why fight it?

“Oh, honey.” Harper rubbed a sympathetic hand along Trinity’s forearm. “It gets better.”

Cass settled into the chair on Trinity’s other side and drew her into a hug, bopping the balloons tied to nearly every surface of the room. “You still haven’t talked to Logan?”

Trinity shook her head against Cass’s shoulder without fear, because Harper’s combo foundation and powder was bulletproof against smearing. Maybe that could be the genesis of a new ad campaign. But her thoughts refused to jell, like everything else in her life. Her creativity had left the moment Logan walked out of her condo. Which was of course appropriate, because he’d become her muse along with her reason to breathe, the father of her baby and the sole thing that occupied her thoughts 24-7. Ironic, much?

“You have to talk to him,” Alex called from the TV screen. “He has legal obligations to you and the baby regardless of whether he likes it or not. Child support, if nothing else. Phillip is texting you the name of a lawyer right now who will get you everything you deserve.”

What did she deserve? Half of Logan’s fortune? Season tickets to the Mustangs’ home games? To be alone because she’d spent her adult life pretending she didn’t want the fantasy she’d created with him?

Cass nodded as Trinity sat back in her chair. “Also, things are not always how they seem. I thought Gage and I were destined not to work. And we tried it twice. I never would have predicted that he’d storm into my office with an engagement ring in his pocket.”

That was different. Everyone had known that Gage had it bad for Fyra’s CEO.

“Phillip kidnapped me on the way home from the hospital, after that time I passed out, so he could talk me out of divorcing him,” Alex threw in. “Men can be very unpredictable when they decide they want something.”

Harper laughed. “Dante flew from Zurich to Los Angeles, then to Dallas almost back-to-back to tell me he’d screwed up when he left. I’ve been in love with the man for ten years. I would have taken a phone call. But it was nice to feel like I was his number-one priority.”

“You all deserve the happiness you’ve found,” Trinity sniffed. “But you married men who wanted to have children—”

The gales of laughter interrupted her as all three women wiped tears of mirth from their eyes.

“I cannot even begin to tell you how wrong that is,” Cass said when she’d gained a small measure of control. “Becoming a father to a one-year-old was probably the hardest thing Gage ever did. He looks like a pro now, but trust me when I say it took a lot of soul-searching on his part to get where he is today.”

Harper laced her fingers with Trinity’s and smiled. “You do remember that Dante is not the biological father of my baby, right? It took me forever to convince him to go to the doctor with me as my friend, let alone for him to decide he wanted to be the baby’s father. It nearly broke us apart, but we figured it out. If it’s meant to be, you and Logan will, too.”

“And if it’s not,” Alex countered, “you’re a strong, independent woman. We’ll be there for you as you raise your baby.”

“If the pregnancy sticks,” Trinity reminded everyone. Because that was the biggest hurdle. It didn’t matter what she wanted. It mattered what her body decided to do with the baby, which she had no control over. That was probably messing her up the most.