Page 38 of Session 33

I shook my head. "I don't know what to do. I can't be pregnant."

His face hardened, a flash of anger crossing his features and darkening his eyes. "You shouldn’t have been fucking me raw and lying about birth control if you couldn’t be pregnant." He slammed his hand against the wall beside the door.

"I'm on birth control! I wasn’t lying," I yelled back, pushing myself up from the tub and wrapping my robe tightly around me.

Cassius's expression was one of pure frustration. He followed me and started pacing my bedroom while I sat on the side of the bed. I hadn’t meant to respond to him like I had. I wanted to talk about it like adults.

A crash echoed through the room. I looked up, and my six-foot mirror was in shards.

"This is not how this is supposed to happen!" Cassius shouted.

I sat there with my mouth open.What the fuck?

“Get out!” I screamed.

He stared at me with wide eyes as if he couldn’t believe what he’d done. Then a million emotions played across his face. The last one made him look like he was about to argue with me, but then his shoulders slumped. He took a step toward me, his face crumpling. "Angel, please... I..."

I shook, getting up from the bed, my heart pounding. "Get. Out."

Cassius's knees buckled, and he collapsed to the floor, sobbing. He crawled towards me, stopping and wrapping his arms around my legs, pressing his face into my stomach. "Please, don’t kill my baby," he begged, his voice muffled and broken.

The shift left me feeling drunk. How had he gone from throwing shit to crying?

"Cassius, I..." I started, but my voice faltered. I didn’t know what I was going to do, so I didn’t want to make any promises.

He looked up at me, tears streaming down his face. "I know I’ve made mistakes, but I want this. I want us to have this baby. We can figure it out together."

I stared at him, feeling trapped and overwhelmed. His grip on my waist tightened as if he was afraid I’d slip away if he let go. The room seemed to close in around me, the walls pressing in, making it hard to breathe.

"I don’t know if I can do this," I whispered, my voice trembling.

"You don’t have to do it.Wecan do this," he insisted, standing up and wrapping me in his arms. "I’ll be here for you every step of the way. I promise."

I wanted to believe him, but doubt gnawed at me. "What if I’m not ready? What if you’re not ready? We just met each other. Not even a year has passed since…”

He cut into my words. "We’ll take it one day at a time.”

I nodded slowly, but the panic in my chest wouldn’t ease.

Chapter Twenty Nine

"You let him get you pregnant?" she blurted out, her voice heavy with disbelief. "And your ass got fired?"

I sighed, stepping aside to let her in. "Yeah, come in, Naomi."

She walked in, her eyes scanning the apartment as if expecting to find evidence of all the mistakes I’d made. I shut the door behind her and leaned against it.

"How did you find out?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

Naomi turned to face me, her expression softening just a bit. "Cassius called Jonas, and Jonas told me. We were worried about you, so here I am."

I nodded. "My CEO called me personally to tell me how bad I made the company look," I said, my voice hollow. "I won't lie and say I care about being fired. It gives me time to get used to being pregnant and figure out what I’m going to do. I have money saved, private clients, and I can always get another job."

Naomi sat down, her eyes never leaving mine. "Are you okay, though? Like, really?"

I shook my head, feeling the tears start to well up again. I didn’t want to fucking cry, but I couldn’t help it. "I don’t know, Naomi.I’m scared. I didn’t plan for any of this. And now, I’m pregnant and unemployed. It’s like my life is spiraling out of control."

She reached out and took my hand, squeezing it gently. "Shit happens. But you’ve got people who care about you. We’ll figure this out together. And I actually believe in Cassius. He’s going to be a great father, at the very least."