I’m Back, Mr. CEO

: The Secret She Can No Longer Hide

*NEXT DAY*

"You're still here."

From my watching him and his back turned to me, and with the coffee, which Clara had forced on me three hours ago, the clock reading 11 o'clock, Adrian came home after all, Walking into the house in the tuxedo from last night, bow tie undone and hanging around his neck.

"Where else could I be?" The voice was strange to me. It was flat. As though all the emotion had been extracted from it.

"I thought..." He ran a hand through his hair, and I noticed the gold cufflinks. The ones I had given him for his first anniversary. He was still wearing them. "Margaret said she talked to you."

"She did."

"Then you understand the situation."

The situation. He called it a situation. Like it was some kind of business problem. A merger gone wrong. Not a marriage imploding.

"I understand your mistress is sleeping in the room next to yours. I understand you have a daughter you never mentioned. I understand I watched you on television last night calling them your family." Each word came out clipped. Controlled. "So yes, Adrian. I understand the situation perfectly."

He flinched. Okay, good.

“Vivian isn't my mistress.”

“Then what is she?”

The question hovered between us. He looked away, toward the window-anywhere but me.

“That is complicated.”

“Uncomplicate it.”

“Serena, I cannot deal with this right now. In less than an hour I will have a board meeting, and the PR is drowning in calls on last night. I need to get a change and-”

“I guess she's yours?” I stood up. The room tilted, so I had to grab the bedpost to steady myself. “The little girl. Emma. Is she yours?”

His jaw tightened. “Yes.”

Just one word. And that was enough to confirm what I had already known, but hearing it let go by him was a painful sort of confirmation. It made it feel real, something the television broadcasts hadn’t done.

“How long?”

“Does it matter?”

“How. Long.”

He sighed like I was inconveniencing him. Like I was the problem here. “Vivian and I were together in college. She left after graduation. Moved to London. I didn't know about Emma until recently.”

“Recently?”

“Six months ago.”

Six months. He'd known for six months and never said a word. Six months late in coming home. Six months of sleeping in his office. Six months of treating me like I didn't exist at all.

Now that was an explanation.

"And you have been seeing her. This whole time."

"It's not like that."

"Then what is it like, Adrian?" My voice was cracking. I hated that it cracked. "Tell me, because from my point of view you have been having an affair for six months, you have a kid with another woman, and you brought them both to our home without even informing me."

"I didn't bring them here. Margaret asked Vivian to stay."

"And you didn't stop her?"

Silence.

"You couldn't even tell me," I said, a burning sensation welling up in my chest. "I had to find out on television. Watching you smile at her like... like she was everything you'd ever wanted. While I was here, waiting for you, on an anniversary."

That hit. His eyes widened just a little. "Shit. Serena, I--"

"Don't," I said. "Don't apologize for forgetting our anniversary; that's not even in the top ten things you should be apologizing for right now."

His gaze fell upon me. Really fell upon me. For a moment--just a fleeting moment--I saw something pass over his face. Guilt? Regret?

It didn't matter. It was gone too fast.

“What do you want me to say?” His voice went cold again. Distant. That was Adrian the person I had grown to know. “That I made mistakes? Fine. I made mistakes. But Vivian is here now, and Emma is my daughter, and I have responsibilities—for the rest of us.”

“I’m your wife.” The words were strangled. “Doesn’t that mean anything?”

“Of course it does.”

“Then do something about it.”

“I am. I am trying to take care of this with as much discretion as possible. The last thing I want is you going nuts over this and having something dramatic hit the press.”

Making a big scene. That is what he was concerned about. Not me. Not us. The press.

Something inside me broke. Or maybe it had already been cracking for some time now, imperceptible to my own ears, and this was simply the moment at which I finally could feel it give away.

"I have to tell you."

"Can it wait? I really do have that meeting—"

"I'm pregnant."

It was like a stone thrown between us.

Adrian froze in place, his hand halfway to his tie, hanging there in mid-air. "What?"

"I'm pregnant. Eight weeks," I reached into my purse on the nightstand to take out the sonogram, my hands trembling as I held it out to him. "I was going to tell you last night. At dinner. The dinner you never came home for."

He wouldn't accept it, staring at the grainy image as if it were a document written in a foreign language.

"Eight weeks," he repeated slowly.

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

The words hit me like a slap. "Am I sure I'm pregnant? Yes, Adrian. I'm sure. The doctor confirmed it two weeks ago. I've been waiting for just that right moment to tell you... but apparently there is no right moment anymore."

He kept looking at the sonogram. Not moving. Not speaking. Just... staring.

"Say something," I whispered.

"I don't..." Hands running through his hair, he turned away from me. "This is bad timing."

Bad timing.

My baby. Our baby. The thing I'd dreamed about, prayed for, the reason I'd endured three years of Margaret's cruel comments about my "useless womb." And he called it bad timing.

"Adrian."

"I need to think."

"Think about what? Whether you want your own child?"

"Don't put words in my mouth." He spun around, and there was panic in those eyes, something I had never seen before. "If you only knew it... Vivian has come back, and Emma needs some stability. The board is already questioning my judgment after what happened last night, and now you come to me saying that you're pregnant, and I'm supposed to just—"

"Be happy?" I finished. "Yes, that is what you are supposed to be doing. We have been trying for one whole year. A year of your mother telling me I was failing you. A year of doctor appointments and tests wondering what was wrong with me, and now I am finally pregnant, and the only thing that crosses your mind is how inconvenient this is?"

"I didn't say that."

"That is exactly what you said."

He cast his eyes once more over the sonogram in my quivering hand before they fell upon mine again-the moment I knew perfectly well. He was not happy; he was not excited; he was so far from what I had ever thought of when I had dreamed about telling him.

He was trapped.

"I need to go." He grabbed a clean shirt from the closet and began changing right there, without even turning his back on me. "We'll talk about this later."

"When?"

"I don't know. Later. After the meeting. After I figure out what to tell the board." He buttoned the shirt with jerky movements and refused to look at me. "And Serena? Don't tell anybody. Not yet. Not for now. Not until we figure out what to do."

What we were doing. As if the baby was a problem to be corrected. A situation to be controlled.

He walked toward the door.

"Adrian." I stopped him with my voice, "Do you love her?"

His hand paused on the doorknob. For a very long moment, no answer came from him. Neither did he turn around.

Then softly he said, "I never stopped."

Behind him, the door closed.

I stood in the empty bedroom, one hand against my stomach, the other still clutching the sonogram no one wanted to see.

The cologne smelled in the room. The bed was made with such precision... simply because he hadn't slept in it. There was water running through the wall. Vivian was showering right next door to his.

My phone buzzed.

Text.

**Unknown:** *Saw the news. I’m sorry. If you need anything, call me. - Lucas Grant*

I stared at the text. Lucas Grant. The CEO I had met months ago at that business dinner and who had looked upon me with something bordering on pity when Adrian had introduced me as "just my wife." He had given me his card. I had tossed it in the bin.

Apparently, he had retained my number.

I should just delete the text.

I should be concentrating on my marriage, on my husband, on figuring out how to fix this.

But those words kept resonating:

*I never stopped loving her.*

My finger hovered above the delete button.

Then I saved the contact instead.

Just in case.