Billionaires Dollar Series

One thing is inevitable in life, and it’s that time never stands still. The days keep turning, despite the internal state of panic I’m in.

Most days I spend ignoring my thesis in favor of pregnancy research, apartment hunting, packing up my belongings and ensuring the Gardners’ house is in pristine condition for their arrival. I’m to be out one day before they arrive, which includes coordinating with the cleaning crew to do a final sweep of the house.

All these tasks are good. They keep me busy-too busy to focus on the fact that my baby’s father hates me. That I have no idea at all how I’m supposed to break this news to my parents, to my friends.

That I might eventually have things like preeclampsia or something that’s called lightning crotch.

My visit to the OB-GYN isn’t for several weeks yet-she’d laughed when I said I thought I should come in right away. “Between week six and eight,” she told me, “you’re welcome to come in for your first appointment. Before then, I can’t really see much.” And then, the first person to say it, she added, “And congratulations, Bella.”

I’d cried after I hung up the phone, but I do that a lot these days.

The hardest thing was to be quiet around Wilma and Trina. I joined them for drinks one evening to celebrate Trina’s new appointment as an undergraduate teaching assistant, and had to blame a headache for my choice of drink.

“How’s Ethan?” Wilma had asked, her hand reaching out to land on mine. “Have you been able to get through to him?”

“No. That ship has sailed entirely, I think.”

“Stubborn, infuriating man,” Trina had said. “Do you want us to knock some sense into him? We could, you know.”

“Greenwood Hills security might get to us first,” Wilma mused. “We’d have to go incognito.”

“Exactly. Bella, if you lend us your trench coat, we’ll go pummel your man for you.”

I’d laughed, touched and warm and sad all at once. My heart ached to tell them the truth, but it still felt too big for me to grasp myself. I couldn’t even imagine saying the words out loud.

I’m going to be a mother.

I’d kept my hand on my stomach for the rest of the night, a quiet determination growing every time I’d repeated those words in my head. And I’m going to do the best job I can.

So by the time I’m set to move out of the Gardners’ mansion in Greenwood Hills, it’s real to me, just as real as the new and painful morning sickness that has started to make an appearance. I hope it’s just passing through, and not here to stay.

I keep the trunk to my Honda Civic open and carry bag after bag out to the car. I tuck my handbag in on top and I’m just narrowly able to close it.

There. An entire summer-and entire life, it feels like-all packed up.

There’s no sound from the other side of the hedge. It’s empty, quiet, just like my phone has been. Ethan hasn’t been in touch, and I’ve been too afraid to contact him. He’ll do the right thing, but knowing he’ll do so begrudgingly, thinking I tricked him…

The shame of it makes my cheeks burn.

I walk through the house one last time, attic to the basement, making sure everything is in place. Expensive vases in their correct spots, check. Kitchen cupboards empty of my items, check. Saying goodbye to Toast… not check.

“Toast?” He’s not upstairs, not in any of his normal spots.

“Toast?” He’s not downstairs, sprawled on the couch or waiting by his food bowls.

I rush out the front door and shut it firmly behind me. Had I forgotten to do that while I carried my things? Had he finally managed to make his big escape?

“Toast? Toast!” The entire yard is fenced, but he’s a cat. In the fight between the two, I knew which one I’d put money on. I walk around the property, calling his name, panic increasing with each passing minute. This can’t be happening, not today, not when I have to leave, and not to Toast.

It’s one thing too many.

“Toaaast!”

I look under the lounge chairs and by the pool. The gardening shed, too. Nowhere. Gone.

A deep voice calls out from the treehouse. “Has the cat disappeared?”

Ethan. Watching me from his side of the lawn, just like the first time we’d seen each other.Content bel0ngs to Nôvel(D)r/a/ma.Org.

I nod miserably. “I think he snuck out when I was loading my car.”

“And you haven’t found him?”

He withdraws from the window, only to return a second later. “I’ll come help you look.”

My heart is pounding by the time he’s at my front gate. He walks in with a single nod to me, striding around the perimeter of the property. I follow him.

“He’s been gone for about an hour at least.”

“I’m guessing your ‘aunt and uncle’ would hate it if he’s gone?”

“Yes.” Hate might even be an understatement. Toast’s well-being had been key in the house-sitting manual I’d been given. All instructions began and ended with him. How could I have been so stupid?

Ethan and I are quiet as we look. A truce, of sorts, even if my body feels like a live wire, taut with his presence.

“How are the girls?” I ask, my curiosity overcoming my caution.

“Good.” Ethan’s voice is clipped. And then, reluctantly, “They’re wondering why you stopped coming over.”

“What did you tell them?”

“That you’re getting ready to move and you’re very busy.”

I nod, slowly. Makes sense. And yet, one day, we’d have to talk to them. They’d be getting a baby brother or sister, after all.

Perhaps Ethan hears my thoughts in the silence, because he drags a hand through his hair. “I don’t know, Bella,” he tells me. “I don’t know.”

“That’s okay,” I say. One problem at a time.

Cat today. Baby tomorrow.

But by the time the sun starts to set, Toast is still nowhere to be seen. Ethan has to return to the girls, and I walk him to the gate, right past my fully packed Honda.

“Let me know if I can do anything to help,” he says.

“You’ve already helped,” I say. “Thank you for looking with me.”

He nods once, glancing toward the car. “Text me when you’re settled into your new place. I’ll come over, one day. We have… things to go over. Logistics. Preparations.”