“Adrian, I’m sorry, sorrier than you can ever know. But please, listen to me. I didn’t want you to find out like this. Don’t do this, Adrian.” Liz pleaded. Adrian didn’t answer. His eyes slid past her shoulders. He wouldn’t look at her. The silence spiraled around her, coiling and menacing. It felt like an eternity before anyone spoke again. “Twins,” He muttered quietly at last as though he was rolling it around his head, letting it sink in, letting it take ground. “Twins,” she repeated quietly. “I wanted to tell you. I promise I wanted to tell you but… not like this.” He turned to look at her again as though he was seeing her for the first time. And it wasn’t a good experience. A shiver rippled over her body. “You’re having twins? I’m going to be a father? And you kept this from me all this time?” He shook his head as if he was finding it hard to believe her right now. “I – I can explain.” It sounded hollow, so inadequate, still… “If you give me a chance…” For another painstak
Adrian Moore struggled to silence the traitorous voice inside his head.And so he merely kept driving until eventually he was nearing his apartment, deliberately slowing down to unsettle her before they even got to his house. He wanted to remind her about the time they’d spent together in this same apartment, all while she was hiding about her pregnancy from him.The problem was that it was also unsettling him, too.“What are you doing, Adrian?” She snapped out, as though she couldn’t bear it any longer. “Are you doing this on purpose? Do you intend to make me feel guiltier than I already do?”“Do you…?” He challenged, wishing that a part of him didn’t revel in the fact that his Liz was still as stubborn and quick-witted as ever. “Are you feeling guilty?”“What kind of question is that, Adrian? Of course I do. I never wanted you to find out like this. And I certainly never intended… what happened between us these past few days.”Any gnawing pain he’d began feeling towards her disappea
Liz Walters wanted to be sure first, to reassure herself first that their relation would become serious and that things would be alright between them before she would have eventually told him about her pregnancy. But fate had something else in play for her… Just when she’d thought of telling Adrian, of surprising him about her pregnancy news, he’d found out about it. And he didn’t look pleased at all. She opened her mouth to speak but the words got locked into her throat. She couldn’t utter a thing when a disturbing thought suddenly struck her mind – a doubt. Liz’s mind raced, leaving a track of fear in its wake. “Do you live here alone?” The question was out before she could bite it back, not helped by the way Adrian cast her a look over his shoulder but didn’t immediately answer. She followed him as he stepped through a hallway to the lightest, most expansive living room she had ever been in, sleek windows curving from one wall to the other, and from floor to ceiling. Then he
“I thought things were now alright between us.” He said. His voice was barely above a whisper. “Why are you doing this?” And there was the truth, in those little words. Thought things were but not simply were. Even though she knew he was right, it still hurt. “When you made me sign that contract, you were selfish, and cruel. You only thought about you. You never thought about me.” Liz argued back. “You mean I was,” he corrected bitterly. “Because I needed a woman who could throw dust in my family’s eyes, and I chose you even though I knew that you would probably never have agreed to it had I not threaten you with the terms and conditions on that contract?” “So now, you do admit you were wrong. At first you were but then, I certainly don’t remember you strong-arming me into doing anything. In fact, I seem to recall I was doing it on my own free will. I thought it was daring and romantic.” His jaw clenched in a way that was achingly familiar, and Liz would have given anything to kno
“You still kept your pregnancy a secret from me,” he choked out at last, but at least he was directing his pain and rage towards her, rather than inward as he might have done during their contractual marriage.He might be mad at her, but he wasn’t shutting her out. Surely that had to be a start?“You didn’t tell me about your pregnancy. You had every opportunity to tell me. You didn’t. You deliberately kept it from me. I might have pushed you away, but you are still the one who left. What were you thinking when you found out that you were pregnant? You wanted to keep my unborn baby with you.”“It wasn’t like that and you know it. With what right was I supposed to stay back there when you pushed me away? I left for both our sakes, Adrian,” she repeated, her voice softer now that she could see he wasn’t going to argue with her.“I thought we both were going to start anew but then, I found out that I was pregnant with your child. The first thing I thought about was you. Trust me, Adrian.
They were having a lovely evening together. One of the nicest evenings that Adrian could remember for a long time.“Do you remember that time we went on that walk down the canal towpath and you almost fell in the water because you were showing off?” She asked.Adrian laughed, nodding. “Yeah, I was such an idiot….trying to make you see how cool I was. We hadn’t been out for a walk since then, had we?”Liz shook her head, her eyes alight with mirth.“I can remember thinking what a good idea it would be to show you that I could balance my way across the towpath, show you that I wasn’t scared,” he went on, reminiscing on those memories they’d made back in New York when they were still getting to know each other.“You would have done it effortlessly if it hadn’t been for that goose scaring the living shit out of you!” She laughed. She couldn’t help it.It felt good to laugh with her… to reminisce.“That was stupid,” he rolled his eyes at her. “And I wasn’t scared of that goose. It just cam
Going through the entire presentation for the AI development project had taking every bit of the nine hours at the office Liz had allocated. Checking and double-checking geographical surveys, evaluating this new technology impact and recalculating estimated financial budget to ensure everything was right – it all took time.In the end, though, she knew the staffs responsible for this project were ready.The investor would actually be at the meeting, and she was a little worried about that. After what happened last time with his associates who’d come to seal the deal, it would be the first time that she’d be meeting the investor himself.She’d heard he was a real hard-ass about cost-savings, but the solutions she and her team had proposed were the right ones, so were the terms and conditions mentioned on the contract. Maybe not the cheapest solutions and ideas, but her team clearly agreed they had identified the best options.Rolling up the final set of plans, she tucked them into the
Liz Walters suppressed the urge to apologize at the last second. Instead, she ground out. “You make it impossible for me to be otherwise.”“I push you to be better, to anticipate. What you do, or fail to do, is on your shoulders. Not mine.”A thread of hurt wove through the fabric of her emotions, maliciously eating a hole of her self-righteous anger. She clung to that anger, though, refusing to yield. He wanted to goad a response from her, and she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction.Snapping her napkin out and laying across her lap before the waiter had a chance, she glared across the table. “You taught me to have broad shoulders.”He paused, his glass halfway to his lips, and waited.Liz shrugged. “Broad shoulders were the only way I could ensure I had plenty of room to carry the disappointment you constantly heaped on me.”Mr. Walters’s eyes hardened dangerously.Bracing herself, she waited.His gaze shifted when the waiter appeared at her shoulder and asked for her drink or