Chapter 3 - The Boardroom Interrogation
My hands were shaking so badly I dropped the printed merger forecast twice before finally gathering the papers into my leather portfolio. Walking down the executive hallway toward the thirty-second-floor glass-walled boardroom felt like marching toward the gallows. My stomach churned with a sickening blend of morning sickness and raw terror. Every step felt heavy, every pair of eyes in the open-plan office seemed to burn into my back, whispering secrets I hadn't told anyone.
When I pushed open the heavy oak doors of the boardroom, the atmosphere inside was thick with tension.
Several vice presidents and senior regional directors sat around the mahogany table, murmuring quietly among themselves. At the head of the table sat Adrian. He wore a crisp charcoal tailored suit, his sleeves rolled back slightly, revealing the strong forearms I remembered all too clearly. His dark hair was slightly tousled, and his expression was a mask of cold, impenetrable corporate dominance.
As I slipped quietly into an empty seat near the foot of the table, Adrian’s gaze snapped toward me.
His eyes locked onto mine. For a fraction of a second, the executive mask slipped—just a micro-expression of intense, searching inquiry. Then his jaw tightened, and he looked back down at his tablet.
"Let’s begin," Adrian’s voice cut through the room, smooth, commanding, and utterly devoid of warmth. "We are here to review the anomalies in the Southeast retail acquisition data. Ms. Mercer prepared the initial variance models. Paige, walk us through the discrepancies."
I stood up, my legs feeling like lead. I cleared my throat, forcing my voice to remain steady as I plugged my tablet into the central display screen.
"As you can see from slide four," I began, pointing to the glowing charts, "the projected logistics overhead for the Georgia distribution centers was miscalculated by approximately 4.2 percent. However, when cross-referenced with local municipal zoning laws—"
I paused. A sudden, violent wave of nausea surged upward from my stomach, hot and sharp. My vision blurred at the edges. The numbers on the screen began to swim, spinning out of alignment into a chaotic blur of white and gray.
I grabbed the edge of the mahogany table, gasping softly for air.
"Paige?"
Adrian’s voice cracked across the room, stripped of all corporate pretense.
Before I could steady myself, my knees buckled. I pitched forward, the portfolio slipping from my fingers as darkness rushed in to swallow me whole. I didn't hit the floor. Strong, warm arms caught me mid-fall, hauling me up against a solid chest just as blackness took over.
When I slowly drifted back to consciousness, the harsh glare of the boardroom overhead lights was gone.
The room was quiet. Too quiet.
I was lying on the leather sofa in the private executive antechamber attached to Adrian’s primary office. A damp, cool cloth rested gently across my forehead.
I turned my head slowly. Adrian sat in an armchair beside the sofa, his elbows resting on his knees, his face buried in his hands. The door to the main office was firmly shut and locked.
"You fainted," Adrian said quietly, his voice rough. He didn't look up yet. "In the middle of the board meeting."
I swallowed hard, struggling to sit up. Adrian was immediately there, sliding his strong hand behind my back to support my weight, adjusting the pillows behind me with a practiced gentleness that completely contradicted his cold corporate persona.
"The meeting?" I asked, my voice weak.
"Dismissed," he said flatly. "I told them you suffered a severe migraine due to exhaustion." He finally looked up at me. His dark eyes were burning with an intensity that made it difficult to breathe. "You haven't been sleeping. You’ve lost weight over the last three weeks. And today you collapsed."
I pulled the damp cloth from my forehead, staring down at my hands in my lap. "I’ve just been... dealing with some personal things."
"What things?" His voice dropped an octave, sharpening with suspicion. "Paige. Look at me."
I hesitated, the secret heavy and suffocating in my chest. If I told him, my entire life—my career, my carefully guarded independence, my carefully structured future—would be entirely out of my control. And control was the only thing I had left.
"I went to see a doctor this morning," I whispered, the words tasting like ash in my mouth. "Before coming to the office."
Adrian went completely still. The air in the private room felt heavier, pressing down on us like lead. "And?"
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I looked up, meeting his unwavering gaze, letting the terrifying truth fall between us like a dropped blade.
"I’m pregnant, Adrian. Three weeks."
