Page 172 of Sexting My Best Friend's Brothers
“Ethan?” I whisper.
He stands abruptly. The movement is so sudden that Asher nearly falls off the arm of the chair.
“A baby,” Ethan says. His voice is hollow. Unrecognizable.
“Ethan, talk to us,” Owen says, his tone warning.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” Ethan asks. He refuses to meet my eyes, staring instead at a painting of the Austin skyline on the wall. “Do you have any idea what we’ve done?”
“I know it’s bad timing,” I plead. “I know the contract…”
“The contract is ironclad,” Ethan says, his voice rising, gaining that sharp, terrifying edge. “The Morality Clause. ‘No conduct unbecoming.’ ‘No scandals.’ Do you know what Sterling does if he finds out the executive team knocked up a subordinate? He not only pulls the funding, he sues us for breach of contract. He takes the IP. He takes everything.”
“He won’t find out,” Owen argues. “We’ll hide it.”
“Hide it?” Ethan spins around, his eyes wild. “For how long, Owen? Nine months? What about when she starts showing? What about the medical records?”
He points a shaking finger at Asher’s laptop.
“Greg just hacked us. Nebula just breached our private database! Markus Vance is looking for anything to destroy us. You think we can keep a secret like this in a town like Austin when we have a target on our backs?”
“We can try,” I whisper. “We can make it work.”
“Make it work?” Ethan laughs, a harsh, cruel sound. “This isn’t a bug in the code, Tessa! This is a child! A child that we brought into a war zone!”
Running a hand through his hair, he paces the small living room.
“We’re fighting a corporate espionage war with a sociopath. We’re barely sleeping, barely eating. And now…” He gestures at me, at my stomach. “Now the stakes aren’t just money. If we fail… if we lose the company... What kind of life would that be for a kid? Bankrupt parents? A scandal ruining our reputations forever? Markus will use this. He’ll leak it to the press. ‘Mosaic CEO and Founders engage in illicit affair with employee.’ We’ll become a laughingstock.”
“We won’t fail,” Asher says calmly. “We defeat Markus. We secure the funding. We raise the child.”
“You don’t know that!” Ethan roars.
I flinch, recoiling into the sofa. Ethan never yells. Not like this. He yells orders, but he never yells out of fear.
Asher moves.
It’s a blur of motion. One second he’s on the arm of the chair, the next he’s standing between me and Ethan. He doesn’t touch Ethan, but he creates a wall. A physical barrier.
“Lower your voice,” Asher commands. “You’re spiking her cortisol levels.”
Ethan stops, staring at his brother standing against him. Then his gaze shifts past Asher’s shoulder to me—curled up, terrified, protecting my stomach.
The anger evaporates, replaced by a look of pure horror. He realizes what he’s doing. He realizes he’s acting exactly like the father they all hated—the one who yelled, the one who saw family as a burden.
“I can’t,” he whispers.
“Ethan,” I say, reaching out a hand, ignoring Asher’s protective stance. “Please. We can fix this.”
“I have to go,” he says. He grabs his jacket from the back of the chair.
“Ethan, if you walk out that door right now, you’re making a mistake,” Owen says, his voice cold. “Sit down.”
“I can’t think in here,” Ethan says. He’s hyperventilating. I can see his chest heaving. “The walls are closing in. I need air. I need to think.”
“We solve this together,” Asher says. “That’s the protocol.”
“The protocol’s dead,” Ethan snaps. “We killed it the moment we slept with her.”
