I LET HIM KEEP THE BABY

The day I gave birth, my husband was in New York, pulling his exgirlfriend out of a business crisis. The media all ran with it—old flames rekindled.

I wasn't jealous, and I didn't make a scene. I only asked him for a divorce. Cillian laughed under his breath. "Fine. We can get divorced.

I keep the baby." I nodded. "Okay." The careless look on his face froze. Chapter 1 After the baby was born, things between Cillian and me didn't get any better.

Late one night, one call from Bridget pulled him out of the house again. She could call Cillian away from me without any effort at all. Cillian eased Lolo down into her crib.

He looked up at me, his face cool. "I'm going out." This time I didn't stop him. Before he left, he paused at the doorframe, his eyes on me. I met his eyes, then looked away.

After a moment his low voice came. "I'll be back as soon as I can." I smiled and nodded. It didn't matter to me anymore when he came back. Cillian didn't come home that night.

A phone call woke me. It was Cillian.

He'd called to explain. "Something came up with Bridget." I said, "Okay." I was about to hang up when Cillian suddenly asked, "Are you jealous?" His tone was offhand, and underneath it there was a thread of worry. "What?" "I'm not." He paused, then explained, "Don't get the wrong idea.

My assistant Vada is here too." "Is Lolo being good at home?" "Roberta's got her. She's good." Then I hung up before he could.

After a month of maternity leave, I went back to work at the network. A friend of mine used to tease me for marrying Cillian and still going out to work.

If it were her, she'd stay home and be Mrs. Warrick. I smiled and said nothing. I got to the newsroom. Cillian texted me. [Check on Lolo.] I didn't answer.

He called instead. "Is Lolo up?" I was impatient, and there was anger in it. "How would I know." "Just ask Roberta." Cillian and I both went still.

He said quietly, "Okay." I'd thought that after the baby came, the trouble between us would ease. It didn't.

Before I found out I was pregnant, Cillian and I were in the middle of a cold war. Bridget had finished her film degree in Europe and come home.

The first feature she wrote and directed after she got back was financed by Cillian. He showed up at the event as the film's biggest backer, there to stand behind her.

That was how I found out she was his exgirlfriend. They were something close to childhood sweethearts. I was there to cover it, a reporter on the network's entertainment desk.

The desk sent down a list of questions I couldn't make myself ask. I traded assignments with a coworker, quietly.

She looked at me, surprised. "Emmy, you sure?" "This one's a lock." "Yeah," I said. "You take it." I helped the others get the equipment ready.

The press conference for the film began. Cillian sat in the front row, in the VIP seats. He lounged back into the leather seat, cool and distant, his expression impossible to read.

People kept stopping in front of him to say hello. "Mr. Warrick. It's been a while." "Mr. Warrick, good afternoon." Cillian nodded, his smile faint.

Chapter 2 The whole press conference, I listened to the talk around me. "Who is Bridget, anyway?

She's barely back and she's already got the Warrick Group's money?" "I heard she's Mr. Warrick's first love. The one that got away.

That kind of woman carries real weight with a man." "Meaning?" "She took off to Europe for school back then. Dumped him right before the wedding." "He's that loyal?

I figured that at his level, no woman would weigh that much with him." "There's only one kind of woman a man keeps thinking about. The one who dumped him." My head was a mess.

The press conference ended. The mics and the cameras swung to the cast and to Bridget. What everyone was really curious about wasn't the cast—it was Bridget and the man behind her.

The questions came one after another. "Ms.

Livingston, where did the idea for this one come from?" Bridget pressed her lips together and smiled. "First love." Nobody said it out loud. Everyone thought of Cillian.

I couldn't read his expression. I only saw his brow tighten, slightly. Afterward, Bridget's eyes landed on mine, dead on. She raised an eyebrow and smiled.

I suddenly remembered her. We had met once, before Cillian and I got married. In a hotel hallway. He was talking to her, low. She let out a small laugh.

It sounded like teasing, but there was mockery in it. "Cillian, are you going to regret this?" He didn't answer. He only lowered his eyes and looked at her, seriously.

Like his eyes held a fog that wouldn't lift. I didn't understand what she meant then. And I didn't understand the look in his eyes. Today I did.

That look, that exchange—it's what happens in a movie right before the two leads part for good. I got home. I waited up for Cillian. I kept trying to work out how to ask him.

After all that, only one sentence came out. "Cillian. Is Bridget your exgirlfriend?" He didn't hesitate. His face stayed calm. "Yes." He hid none of it, and it caught in my throat.

I didn't know what else to ask. It also made me think, suddenly, that maybe I should let it go. What actually put divorce in my head came later.

It was finding out what had happened a year earlier, when I fell down a slope during a shoot and ended up in the hospital. Cillian hadn't come to me right away.

I'd always thought he was away on business. Until I stumbled across Bridget's Instagram. The dates matched. The day I went into the hospital, Cillian flew to the Alps to find her.

By some coincidence, she had gone off a mountain skiing. She'd come close to ending up in a vegetative state. He turned up travelworn, right when I was about to be discharged.

I was slow to catch on: my husband was still in love with his first love. After the press conference, the rumors about Cillian and Bridget spread.

Every day at the network, I listened to my coworkers gossip about my husband and his exgirlfriend.

The fight with Cillian broke out when he and Bridget were seen coming and going from a hotel. A photo of them kissing got taken.

Someone on my own desk wrote it up and pushed it out. A wave of gossip went through the office. My heart stalled, and something sour rose in me. I got home. I asked him, "Cillian.

Are you and Bridget back together?" Cillian glanced at the photo and the headline. He laughed softly, and there was mockery in it. Chapter 3 "Ms. Stafford.

Your people are the ones who dug that photo up." "Shouldn't you of all people know exactly what happened?" My eyes burned. "Cillian, why don't you know enough to keep your distance from your ex?" His eyes went cold.

His voice pulled tight. "You should know better than I do what's behind all this." "Your own network runs a story it made up, and you come ask me if it's true?" Cillian stopped where he stood. "The stories calling her the other woman—your desk can figure out how to deal with them." "Otherwise you can wait for a retraction demand from the Warrick Group's lawyers." I never made anything up. "Cillian, I didn't know about any of this." "If you hadn't done any of it, would anyone have gotten the wrong idea?" "Isn't she the one throwing herself at a man she knows has a wife?" He looked at me, cold. "Emmeline, you really want me to be cheating on you?" "Do you have any idea what a rumor like that does to a person's life and career?" There was a thin edge of anger in his voice when he said it.

The next day. The editor in chief came hurrying down to our desk and pulled everything we'd posted the day before.

A coworker read the headline out loud, enunciating every word. "Warrick Group CEO Meets the Other Woman Late at Night: Has the One That Got Away Become the Other Woman?" "Marsden, that headline is way too bold." "And why are you calling Bridget the other woman?" Marsden shrugged and grinned. "Eh.

Shame. It was doing numbers, too." "I heard Cillian's married. Doesn't that make Bridget the other woman?" "I actually had somebody check.

He got married two years ago, he just never made it public." Another coworker chimed in. "Marsden's not wrong.

If there's nothing to hide, why make us pull every last piece of the gossip?" My back went stiff. So back when I found out I was pregnant, I hesitated.

I thought maybe I shouldn't go through with it. Cillian and I really didn't seem to fit.

When I asked, the doctor advised me to have the baby. "You're past twentyeight weeks." "At this stage, I wouldn't recommend termination." I went home and read everything I could find.

Every one of them said the same thing: have the baby. By then Cillian knew I was pregnant too. I thought the baby coming would soften things between us. It didn't.

Until the day I gave birth. I couldn't reach Cillian.

After she was born, I saw the news. [Bridget Livingston in Crisis: Cillian Warrick Flies to New York Overnight to the Rescue.] Something had happened to the Livingstons, and Bridget was pulled into the business crisis with them.

Cillian went to New York and got the Livingstons out of it. The news left me dazed for a long time. For days the stories about Cillian and Bridget were everywhere.

People said a wedding was coming, that the two families were talking about it. Online it was nothing but guesswork. By the time Cillian got back to Los Angeles, I'd been discharged.

I came out of the bedroom to take my medication, and he was there in the entryway. We looked at each other.

I froze for a second, finished the medicine, and started back to the bedroom. Cillian crossed the room in a few strides and pulled me tight against him. I didn't move.

His voice was rough. "That must have been so hard." I pushed him off. I didn't say anything. I just suddenly had nothing to say. Cillian's eyes dropped.

He stood there and looked at me for a long time. He explained. "Em." "Something happened with the Livingstons.

I went to New York." Chapter 4 "I didn't think the baby would come like that." "I had the timing worked out.

I thought I'd finish there and fly back from New York before your water broke." During the pregnancy, Cillian knew more about it than I did.

He came with me to the oneonone birth classes. He read to her through my belly and played her music. Even the birth instructor said he was the most devoted father she'd ever seen.

If he hadn't flown to New York overnight, I might have believed he really loved me. She was two weeks early. "Cillian." "I'm tired. I'm going to bed." Cillian nodded. "Okay.

I'll go look in on our daughter." She was named Paloma. We called her Lolo. My first day back. The office was full of gossip. About Cillian and Bridget. I didn't join in.

I just listened, bored. Before the end of the day. Cillian wanted to pick me up. I told him no. I never showed much during the pregnancy.

And with loose winter layers on top of that, you couldn't tell. Nobody at work knew I was pregnant. They only said I looked like I'd lost weight. I smiled and said, "Great.

Finally." I let out a breath. At least no one had thought of pregnancy. On my way out of the building, I did see Cillian's car. But I stayed out of his sight.

I left in a coworker's car. She and I had plans to try a Thai place that had just opened.

Coming out of the mall, Cillian called me. "You didn't go home?" "Working late?" I glanced at my coworker. "I'm out with a coworker.

Don't wait up for me." She asked, curious, "Who was that?" "Your mom?" "Yeah. My mom." That was when I realized the call was still connected. I hung up.

A message came through from Cillian right after