Pregnant Pause [H.S]

Chapter 1

"Please, Fitzy," I said, a smirk forming at the corners of my lips. "Give me good news so I come home happy."

"A twelve-hour workday doesn't leave anyone much room for happiness."

I ignored her. "I'll watch Friends with you and won't even walk away when you recite the script along with the actors."

She scoffed. "I don't need you to watch Friends with me."

"You love it when I do."

"I don't love it."

"No?"

"No."

"You don't love when I get all cuddly with you?"

"It's all right," she said, feigning airiness.

I let out a low chuckle. That was my Fitz – stubborn and hard-headed and almost never one to give in

"You don't love when I hold you and drum on your knee and give you shoulder kisses?"

Maybe it was because I knew her better than I knew yesterday's weather, but I could always tell when June Fitzpatrick was smiling – even if it was over the phone.

"It's fine, I suppose."

"Hmm. Tough crowd," I muttered in good nature. "Look, I won't be able to think until you tell me. You want me to stay here all night trying to get work done?"

There was another pause, and that alone alerted me that I'd won her over.

"You're impossible," she finally said.

"Impossibly smitten with—"

"Quiet," she interrupted. "All right. After you left this morning, I went in for a shift at the call centre."

"Right."

"I heard my mobile ringing while I was on a call, and I thought it was you—"

"Naturally."

"—so I sped through my blurb on the phone and ducked down in my cube to answer it. Turns out it wasn't you—"

"Plot twist."

"—shut up. Idiot."

I cracked a lazy smile. "Go on."

"It was this old woman who, at first, I thought was my gran, but who turned out to be—"

"Must be nice to recline while the rest of us slave away."

My eyes flew open at the cold words, and upon realizing I was no longer alone in my cubicle, I slid my feet off the desk and sat forward in a weak attempt to appear hard at work.

Fitz babbled on.

"—they'd been hoping for somebody a bit older, which I thought was sort of rude to say to my face—"

"It's not that," I said, shaking my head in apology.

"Really? I mean, she was basically saying that someone else could have been more fitting—"

"I mean," I corrected myself, tearing the receiver and Fitz's story away from my ear, "you know it's not like that."

The calculating eyes of Beckett Arsenault travelled me up and down, cool and unimpressed. Despite being my age and of a lower position than me in the company, I'd never encountered anyone more condescending.

My father included – though I was careful not to mention him around Beckett.

"Could be," he said with a careless shrug. His posh Surrey accent shone through as he added, "Although you'd be stupid to dick around when Alison's expecting a draft of your projections next week."