HAPPY FOREVER AFTER

Anger blazed from him. “Being independently wealthy does not give you the right to keep me in ignorance of my own flesh and blood.”

“I was going to tell you, Daniel,” she said.

“When?” he bored in.This content © Nôv/elDr(a)m/a.Org.

“I don’t know” Emma said, she was starting to get angry. The last thing she needed right now was to argue with him. “Maybe… After the baby was born. When it was a real child.” she said.

“A real child?” His voice rose in incredulity. His gaze went to her stomach again.”You don’t think that’s real?”

When she didn’t reply, he added, “Didn’t it ever occur to you that I might want to provide every care to ensure that my child is safely born?”

No, it hadn’t. She’d had no experience of men caring to that degree. It was women who did the looking after. And she had honestly believed he wouldn’t want the baby. He was the one who took off when things started to get a bit serious between them. He didn’t want commitments. And the last thing she didn’t want him thinking was that she got pregnant on purpose… To trap him or something.

Emma stared at him helplessly, unable to offer any further defense for her decisions. She simply hadn’t realized he would care so much about a baby who was yet to be born, that he would feel so responsible.

“I was going to tell you, Daniel,” she said again.

“Were you?” His eyes glittered with biting cynicism. Emma couldn’t take it anymore. He wasn’t the one who was pissed off right now. So she let it all out.

“Yeah that’s right”, She yelled. She turned off the stove and turned to face him. “I was going to talk to you about it when I was ready. And you know what, maybe it’s a good thing Karen told you, because I don’t think I can stand staring at your stupid face anymore”.

“Is that so?” he asked.

“Hell yeah” she replied. “And it still doesn’t matter if you know or not. This is my baby, Daniel. And I’m going to take care of it… I’m going to have this baby…. Without you. I don’t need you, and I definitely don’t want you to help me in any way. When the baby is born, you can be involved if you want. I honestly don’t care. And even if you are, it’s going to be on my terms.”

Daniel stared at her for a moment, then he walked towards her, aggressive purpose radiating from him, making her heart flutter with fear. This was the warrior unleashed, every atom of his being geared to fight. Against her.

The table was at her back and Emma had nowhere to go. She stood right where she was. She wasn’t going to let him intimidate her. Not anymore. So she stood there and let him look down at her with what she was sure was a mixture of amusement and derision in his eyes.

He stopped right in front of her, too damn close. His eyes burned into hers. He reached out and very deliberately spread a hand over her stomach, making her skin burn under the heat of its possessive claim.

“You will not shut me out of this any longer,” he said, the hard edge of ruthlessness in his voice telling her she had no choice.

“I will do as I please…” Emma began but he interrupted her.

“Listen to me,” he said. “I need you to listen very carefully, because I mean every word. I intend to be in my child’s life… In every part of my child’s life. Nothing is going to be ‘on your terms’ because this is my baby too. And trust me, you do not want to fight me about this, because I assure you, it’s a fight you are definitely going to lose. Try it, and see who gets custody of the child.”

The look in her eyes and the way she crossed her hands protectively over her stomach made him instantly regret what he had said.

“You asshole!” Emma threw at him, pushing him and quickly side stepping, sliding away from his touch, mentally pumping strength back into her legs as she charged from the kitchen. He followed her.

“Look, Emma -”

“I want you to leave now!” she yelled.

“Throwing me out of your apartment right now isn’t going to fix anything. It won’t change the fact that you are pregnant with my child. It won’t change the fact that we have to find a way for this situation to work out.”

But Emma wasn’t listening. He had just threatened to take her baby away from her.. Like he hadn’t hurt her enough.”I want you to leave now, Daniel” she yelled again.

There were tears in her eyes now. And Daniel hated himself even more. This wasn’t the way things were supposed to go. In his anger, he had hurt her again. He was sorry, and also worried. Wasn’t the crying and yelling bad for the baby? He thought. He didn’t know. He didn’t know anything about pregnancy. He wanted to hold her and comfort her. Tell her that he hadn’t meant what he said. He was never going to take the baby away from her. But from the look on her eyes it was obvious that she wanted nothing to do with him at the moment.

“Fine,” Emma said. “Since you won’t leave, I’m out of here.”

Before he could stop her, she walked past him and slammed the door behind her.

Emma cut behind her apartment complex using the side street. She needed time to think. To compose herself. She didn’t think she had the strength to face Daniel for another confrontation.

It had been raining. The rain had stopped but the skies were still cast in gloomy shades of gray with more black clouds in the distance, a sure signal that the rain wasn’t over for the day.

Tears threatened, like ominous storm clouds, but she sucked in her breath-determined not to allow Daniel to break her.

The small playground just three blocks from her apartment was abandoned. No children playing. The swings were empty, swaying in the breeze and the merry go round creaked as it rotated slowly.

She slid onto one of the benches, her mind in chaos from the bombardment of anger, grief and shock.

Her pregnancy was obviously a huge surprise to him. She could understand that. But she couldn’t believe he could actually think of taking the baby away from her. And she knew he could if he wanted to

Money and power could do a lot of things.

She had given their relationship a lot of thought over the past weeks, when she wasn’t doing everything possible to make herself forget him. Like that was going to happen.

She knew several things. One, they had moved way too fast. From their meeting in Frank’s place, letting him kiss her, sleeping with him and finally agreeing to his stupid friends with benefits idea. She hadn’t taken the time to really think about what she was doing.

A part of her had known it was a bad idea, but what had she done? She had fallen head over heels in love with him. She had allowed herself to be swept into a relationship with him-one that wasn’t even real. He was out of her league. She had known that and yet she hadn’t listened to that voice in her head.

She had been so stupid.