The Billionaire's Illicit Twins - Holly Rayner Page 0,34

better deal. I needed to get home and start working on what that deal might be… and whether I would be able to convince her that one dinner wasn’t enough to hash it out.

Chapter 19

Bella

I stumbled into my apartment at eight o’clock that night, exhausted after the day of negotiations—and Ethan’s double talk, which had been hard to pick up on at first and then harder to keep up with once he was actually comfortable with it. I dropped my stuff onto the table by the door and then went right to the fridge.

I looked longingly at the bottle of red on top of the fridge, but then turned my gaze away and opened the door.

“No wine for you for the next seven months, at least,” I told myself firmly. The bottle of my favorite kind of wine would have to wait until after the babies were born. And probably longer than that, honestly. I hadn’t yet researched what the rules were for drinking while nursing, but I was sure they were just as stringent as the one that said don’t drink while you’re pregnant.

Inside the fridge, there wasn’t a whole lot. But I had bought a six-pack of mineral water, and that was what I went for now. A quick grab for a glass, a stop at the freezer for some ice, and I was making my way toward the couch. Once I was there I collapsed down, leaned back, and finally let myself start breathing again.

God. God. I’d gone into that meeting completely furious with Ethan. Furious… and tempted. And deeply, deeply conflicted about the entire thing. Yes, I was pregnant and that put me into a difficult position, even before you counted the insane flip-flops my hormones were insisting on doing every five minutes. Yes, the idea of that much money was very tempting—because it would give me a foundation I’d never had before, and let me achieve almost all of my dreams in one quick blow.

But it meant giving up a baby for the rest of my life. Never knowing what he or she would be like, how they would grow up, who they would become. Never being able to know for sure that my child was safe and doing well.

And not only that, it meant saying yes to the man who had suggested I sign on that particular dotted line like it didn’t even matter. Like it was the easiest, most straightforward decision in the entire world. Like I shouldn’t have even had to think twice about it.

In short, it would have meant agreeing to someone so entitled and arrogant that he didn’t even seem to think I should have a choice in the matter.

To say I’d been resisting partially because of that would have been putting it lightly.

But now… now, he was talking about doing a deal that worked for everyone. And that… might change everything. If it meant that I could send the baby to live with him but still see him or her on occasion…

Well, it would change everything.

And that was why I’d taken his double talk and not only listened to it but also actually considered it. That was why I hadn’t blown him out of the water right from the start. It was why I’d given him my own thinly veiled answers—which I doubted anyone but Ethan himself had actually picked up on.

It was why I’d said yes to this freaking dinner idea.

Yesterday? I would have told him to go screw himself, and I wouldn’t even have hesitated or felt the slightest bit guilty about hurting his feelings. Today? At the thought that he might be willing to work out a deal that took care of our babies better than what he’d originally thrown at me? Now that was worth taking the time.

The fact that it meant I got to see his twinkling eyes and dark, smoldering good looks for another night, and fall right into that charm he’d used so effectively the first night we were together? That didn’t mean anything. It meant less than nothing.

Which was exactly why it wasn’t even part of the equation.

Chapter 20

Bella

I called Ethan early the next morning, as I’d promised myself I’d do, just to get it out of the way. And because there was a part of me that wanted to know what exactly he was going to pitch to me.

Hours later, I found myself getting dressed for a date that night at an extremely fancy restaurant—one I’d never even considered going