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“She just doesn’t know who the meeting is with. She knows we are having a meeting.”

Alex looked impish. Adonis wanted to punch him. This was the kind of thing that made him loathe and enjoy his friend, honestly.

“Why didn’t you tell her?”

Of course Alex wouldn’t have any reason to believe that he should tell Esme anything, especially about him.

She was going to be angry.

She had been angry with him when she had left the apartment.

He had been angry with himself, in all honesty.

But it had been the right thing to do.

He didn’t relish the idea of ambushing her. He did care for her. In his way.

“Come on.”

Irrepressible Alex. Of course, he didn’t even notice that Adonis had paused.

And then the door to the boardroom swung open, and they were inside. And there was Esme, standing at the back of the room wearing a tight black dress that fitted to her every curve, including one that had not been there five months ago.

Her face went pale. “Adonis?”

And he could think of nothing. Nothing at all. His face was blank. His mind empty of words for the first time in his memory. He stared at her. At the way her hand rested on that bump.

“Esme,” he said. “You’re pregnant with my baby.”

She was. There was no other explanation for the bump. His Esme had not gone from his bed to another man’s bed. That was his child.

His child.

His.

And then, the next thing he felt was Alex’s fist connecting with his face. And he wondered as he went down if this was a planned ambush on their part, or an honest-to-God extremely bad combination of events.

He didn’t have to wonder for long, because Alex gripped him by the jacket and hauled him up off the ground. “She’s what?”

“Alex,” Esme shouted. “Stop it!”

“Dammit,” Adonis said. “Esme, you have my phone number. You couldn’t have called to mention this?”

“Well, nobody bothered to tell me that you were coming. I didn’t expect to see you.”

“He’s the father of your baby?” he asked Esme.

“Yes. He is.”

Adonis felt like he was going to break something. Possibly his own hand.

Alex didn’t look any better. Alex was, in fact, a shade of purple he’d never seen before.

“I went through a hundred stages of grief and rage when you told me that you got pregnant from your little outing in that… That god-awful dress, and you acted as if you had no idea who the father was.”

“Yes,” she said slowly, “I lied to you.”

“Damn you,” he roared.