“I’m leaving.”
“You can’t leave. I fixed it.” He’d done what she’d wanted. Everything was okay now.
“That doesn’t change the fact that you were going to take my baby away from me and I can’t be with a man who’d do something like that.” She began pulling her clothes from the drawer and stuffing them into her overnight bag.
“Alison, you can’t go.” Panic clawed its way up his throat. She was leaving him. “We have to stay married until the baby is born.”
“I’m not filing for divorce. I'm going home. We’ll get divorced when the baby is born.”
“Don’t do this.”
“You did this. Not me.”
“I put loopholes in the contracts for extenuating circumstances. I never use them.”
“Another lie.” She zipped up her bag. “You keep forgetting that we were friends. Oh, no. I forgot. We were never friends, but you did pretend to be my friend and talk to me. You bragged about how your loopholes saved you time and time again. I was such an idiot.”
“I only used them when I had to. I never used them to cheat anyone.”
“You only used them to win. That makes me feel so much better,” she said sarcastically as she picked up her bag and walked toward the door.
“Stop.” He couldn't let her leave, not like this.
She kept walking.
He followed her into the living room. Extenuating circumstances. The words reverberated through his head. He stopped, his feet frozen to the floor. There was no good decision. No right choice. This was the only move he had. “If you leave, you’re taking my child from me.”
“I am not.” She spun around. “As soon as the baby is born, we’ll work out a visitation schedule.”
“But right now, you’re taking my child from me.” It was the only way to keep her with him.
“No. Right now, I'm leaving.”
“And you have my child. I can’t let you do that.”
“You can’t stop me.”
“Please don’t make me do this.” He pulled his phone from his pocket.
“Do what?” Her face paled but her eyes were filled with fire. “Don’t do it, Harker.”
“Promise to stay. Just until the baby is old enough so that I can keep him or her with me overnight.” He needed time to fix this.
“And if I don’t, you’ll call your lawyer and tell him to leave the contract as is.”
“I don’t want to do that.” He wanted her to choose to stay with him, to choose to make this work.
“But you will, even though it’s horrible and wrong to threaten to take my baby. Even though I’ll hate you forever.”
“Just stay with me. Please.” He hated begging but he’d get on his knees for her. He’d do anything to make her stay.
“You win, Harker.” She walked past him.
“Alison, let's talk about this.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.” She went into her old bedroom.
“We agreed to sleep together.” He hurried after her.
