The Billionaire's Illicit Twins - Holly Rayner Page 0,56

have. It was something no woman would ever allow, because it completely invalidated all her hard work. All her talent. And I wouldn’t do it. Not with all the attention my firm was getting, and not with all the increased responsibility they’d given me. They were practically dangling a partnership in front of me if I could finish out this round of publicity on that case, and my workload had never been bigger or more impressive.

I was on the verge of reaching my dream. It was right there in my grasp, just inches from my fingertips. But if anyone found out about Ethan…

It would be yanked out from in front of me once again. I’d find myself still a junior associate, still struggling to make rent, and still very much not achieving my dream.

I couldn’t let that happen. Which was why I’d come home from that fairy-tale weekend with Ethan without having given him any promises, and had an immediate conversation with my reflection in the mirror—all about how I had to pull back, get myself under control again, and keep my eye on the prize.

I was at least twenty percent sure that I’d taken that lecture to heart.

Of course, I’d then come to work and found my desk piled high with new cases, and immediately started second-guessing myself. Because I was so burnt out I could have cried, and the pregnancy was getting a whole lot harder than I’d anticipated.

I was eight months along now, and had to work incredibly hard just to keep my eyes open—much less keep them focused on any work. I also couldn’t afford to take time off yet, so I was still coming to work every day.

And I thought there was a very good chance that it might actually be killing me to do it.

All of which made it even more tempting to call Ethan up and tell him that I’d take him up on his offer. Sell one of my kids to him for the price of my freedom.

Of course, there was another option. One that he’d brought up only in passing over the last couple of months but that I’d never thought was serious. Then he’d brought it up again over the weekend, that second night when we were cooking dinner. The one that included actually having a relationship, or at least raising the babies together. Working as a team, as he’d put it.

Take the money and get to keep both of the kids. It was so, so tempting. Keep tabs on both of my babies. Have the security that Ethan’s money would bring. Keep the safety net that Ethan had become in my life.

But I knew I couldn’t do it. It was dangerous for the same reasons that it had always been dangerous. If anyone saw us together, my career was sunk. Yes, it answered the problem of me not having decided whether I could actually give one of the babies up. But there was a very good chance that it would also slide me out of the frying pan and right into the fire.

Because I was in love with Ethan Parker. I was woman enough to admit that. I was also woman enough to admit that I had thought—more than once—about what it might be like to live in that world he inhabited. The one where anything was possible, and where you were always safe and secure. The one where he would always be there to catch me if and when I fell.

But he’d also told me that he’d resisted starting a family for so long partially because of the pressure from his own family. He’d told me that he didn’t think he’d be good at it, and that he’d avoided it for that reason as well. That he was, at least partially, refusing to start a family on principle. To force his mom to mind her own business.

And I couldn’t afford to become a casualty to that principle. If he didn’t want to start a family, then this whole ‘let’s be partners’ thing? It was nothing more than a fad. Something he’d come up with because we’d been spending so much time together, no doubt. Maybe he thought it was the right thing to do. Maybe he thought he actually wanted it.

I thought he was probably wrong, there. And I wasn’t going to put myself in harm’s way. I already had enough on my plate.

I was just reaching for the first file on the pile on my desk, trying