Page 153 of Wild Thing
“Not til Tuesday now,” he said, slightly taken aback that I withdrew from his touch. “Greg called me earlier. He wants me to stay a few extra days, now that the Studio Pase project is… on hold." Brax's eyes flicked over to mine. "Are you off the job?"
I nodded, "I'm off work entirely. I have to take mandatory leave. The firm has strict procedures in place apparently. Marie wants me to take at least four weeks."
I wanted to protest when she mentioned taking leave. The last thing I wanted to do was be alone with my thoughts and guilty conscience. But there was no way around it. It wasn't my call. Ultimately, I couldn’t continue on the Studio Pase project anyway. Not anymore. Not now that she knew the truth about Brax.
“So, when’s your flight?”
I lowered my gaze into my lap and bundled my hands together. “This evening.”
Brax sighed. “I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you I was engaged.”
I braced myself for the conversation we needed to have. I twisted my rings around and around, refusing to look at him. “Why didn’t you?”
“Iwasgoing to tell you. The last thing I wanted to do was hide anything from you," he said, pulling his phone out of his pocket and placing it on the coffee table. "But I wanted to end things with Ally first.”
My mouth felt dry as I swallowed and looked him in the eyes. I wanted him to see the pain behind mine. “Why?”
I wasn’t sure I even wanted to hear his justification.
“Believe me, in hindsight, I wish I’d told you that first night at dinner,” Brax’s eyes darted to the floor, then flicked back up. He was annoyed at himself. “I told you it was complicated though. Honestly, I never wanted to be engaged to Ally, but at the time I felt like I had no choice.”
“You always have a choice.”
He blew out a long breath and averted looking at me in the eyes. “She was pregnant.”
The oxygen disappeared from the room.
I froze, every muscle locked as if movement might shatter me completely. Brax searched my face trying to get a read on me. His gaze was intense, probing, almost desperate.
My lungs felt like they’d forgotten their purpose.
She was pregnant?
A surge of heat flushed through me, anger boiling just beneath my skin. My hands started to tremble, but I clenched them tight. This was so, so much worse than I originally thought.
I’d been sleeping with a man who had a pregnant fiancée.
It was fucking diabolical.
“P-pregnant?” I stammered.
My hands shot up to cover my face as my vision blurred, the room spinning around me. I squeezed my eyes shut, as if pressing hard enough could block out the nauseating feeling that was crawling all over my skin like thousands of tiny bugs.
“Dylan, she––”
“Ohmygod, ohmygod,” the words tumbled from my lips. There was a pounding in my ears. I couldn’t listen to another sickening second.
I hated him.
“Dylan, please look at me.”
I shook my head.
No.
There was no way I could look at him. If I didn’t look, maybe it wouldn’t be real. I couldn’t hold the tears as they traced salty paths down my cheeks. Brax’s hands gently tugged at mine, trying to pull them from my face, but I barely felt it.
I let my hands fall, like a dead weight. Everything was hazy. I felt like I'd taken a double dose of codeine. I was here, physically, but it was like watching myself from a distance.Maybe this was what disassociating felt like—hollow, detached.
