Page 15 of Beneath His Vow (Knocked Up and Locked Down #1)

THIRTEEN

LEXI

I wake with an ache in my chest and a weight in my gut. I took a week off after the meeting. I blamed the pregnancy. Blamed exhaustion.

Today, I go back to work, and for the first time, I don’t want to.

I blow out a breath and glance over at my husband. Casey’s draped over me, his leg tangled in mine, his hand splayed on my belly.

I don’t move. I just stay in the silence, that tight feeling in my chest growing.

All week I’ve tried to rationalize what happened in that room. I can’t and the self-doubt has eaten me alive.

It also made me feel alone. Completely and utterly unprotected in a place that I should have felt safe in.

It has sat on the tip of my tongue all week to tell Casey what’s going on, but I’m scared what he’ll do if I admit my fear.

Particularly since I’m not sure if I’ve made the whole situation worse than it is.

Maybe the touches were friendly. Maybe I imagined the intent. Maybe I’m losing it.

I have a meeting tomorrow with Janice. She said it was about compliance, a corporate word designed to drive fear into anyone who hears it.

And I am scared.

Not of the financial implications of losing my job. I know Casey will take care of me and our baby.

I’m scared of losing something that meant everything to me.

Casey pulls me against him, nuzzling his nose into the crook of my neck, kissing the skin there. “How long have you been awake?” His voice is thick with sleep.

“Not long.” I wrap my arms around his. As always, his touch grounds me.

Just tell him…

A sharp kick against my side—harder than usual—and Casey’s hand freezes.

“Was that… Was that a kick?” The awe in his voice chokes my throat.

He rolls me onto my back, his hand clutching my stomach. Tears prick my eyes. I’ve seen every side of Casey over the years. Happy, sad, furious—but I’ve never seen this. He’s looking at my stomach like it’s something sacred beneath his hand, like I just handed him the entire world.

“You felt that?”

He nods. “It was only faint, but yeah, I felt it.”

“It doesn’t feel faint to me,” I say. “It’s like she’s booting my lungs into my throat.”

Casey scrubs a hand over his face, like he doesn’t know what to do with himself. “That’s our kid, Lexi.”

My heart swells, everything forgotten but this. This is the softer side of my husband that nobody sees but me. “She’s active this morning.”

He shoves my camisole up, pulling my shorts down and bearing my skin. I’m not sure what he’s expecting to see, but he presses his fingers against where she moved. “Come on baby, do it again. Come and say hi to your dad.”

The baby taps again against my side, and his mouth splits into a grin.

I laugh, despite the heaviness weighing on my shoulders. “She’s reacting to your voice, Casey.”

He kisses every inch of where he felt her move. “You have no idea the gift you gave me the day you got pregnant. I want to keep you in this state forever. You’re so fucking perfect.”

His reverence sends guilt stabbing through my chest. I hate lying to him, and I don’t know how to keep going like this. I can barely eat on the days I have to work. I sleep even less.

Maybe it’s time to admit defeat, to walk away while I still have some semblance of my sanity left. I trail my fingers through his hair.

All I know is I can’t carry on like this. I don’t know how to win against someone who has already stacked the deck in their favor.

But giving up, letting James push me out like this pisses me off. I’ve never backed down from a fight in my life, but it’s not just me to think about anymore.

“Come on mama. Let’s get you up and fed.”

He helps me out of bed and into the shower where he presses me against the tiles and slides inside my body. He fucks me slowly, building us both to climax with each drag of his cock into my pussy.

I let myself get lost in this moment, all thoughts emptying out of my mind as I stretch around him.

Casey is the only thing keeping me sane, keeping me grounded.

My pussy still aches deliciously when he sits me at the table and slides a plate of toast in front of me. I begin to eat, but then the countdown to work starts ticking and my appetite flees. Casey watches me, and it takes everything I have not to shrink under his watchful eye. “You done?”

I nod. “I’m sorry. I’m really trying, but my stomach just doesn’t feel good this morning.”

“You ate fine all week. You worried about goin’ back to work?”

Yes.

“No.” I hate how easily the lie falls from my mouth. It shouldn’t. Not to him. Not between us. “I’m just a little nauseous.”

He stands, kissing my hair before he takes my plate away. “You would tell me if something was wrong, wouldn’t you?”

I hate making him doubt me. I never want that, but I don’t know how to tell him this without him going nuclear.

But I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep walking into that building afraid, on edge. I’m five months pregnant and the bigger I get, the more vulnerable I feel.

“Would you…” I swallow. “Would you think less of me if I quit my job?”

There is an imperceptible tightening around his eyes, but I see it. “Not even a little.”

“I don’t want you to feel like I’m not contributing anything. Not that I contribute now.” He’s never let me pay towards the bills, not even when we were living together before we got married.

His fingers trail over my cheek. “You gave me a home, a reason to stay. And now you’re giving me a family. I don’t care if you work. I don’t care if you sit home all day and drink fucking tea. I just want you happy, and you haven’t been happy for a while now, Lex.”

Tears prick my eyes. “I know.”

I’m still not sure if I’m going to tell him the depths of what I’ve been going through.

But I’m done trying to fight for something that is mentally draining me.

I want to be the hero in this story. I want to fight the bad guy and win, but I can’t.

I’m tired. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, and I need to think about my baby.

He scans my face like he’s analyzing beneath my skin. “Babe, if getting written up leaves you this drained, then I don’t want you going into that place.”

“I want to quit.” The weight on my shoulders lifts the moment I speak the words.

“Then fuckin’ quit. I like the idea of you bein’ with me all day.”

I don’t deserve him, don’t deserve this. “I’ll wrap up my projects and hand in my notice today.”

He kisses me, relief in every line of his face. “You’re makin’ the right call.”

“I just want to enjoy my pregnancy.”

His lips are soft against mine, his hand on my nape firm as he pulls me closer. “You don’t have to go in at all if you don’t want to. I’ll sort it.”

It’s so tempting to say screw it, but it’s not Janice or James I would leave in a mess. It’s Tasha, it’s my team. I can’t do that to them.

“I need to hand over things before I can just walk away.”

He doesn’t argue, though I can see he wants to.

The moment I enter the building, I head straight to Janice’s office.

Even though I know I’ve made the right decision, it’s still hard to tell her I’m quitting. This place has been my life for years.

She peers down her glasses at me over the desk, steepling her fingers together. “I understand things have been very tough for you lately, but nobody wants you to leave, Lexi. We’re trying to work alongside you to rectify the issues. Didn’t the time off help?”

I laugh. “Right. You really rectified it when you took the word of James over me. Even though I’ve been here longer and have proven my worth over the years.”

She sighs, pulling her glasses off and massaging the bridge of her nose. “I don’t know how things got so tangled between you two, but there has to be a way you can work together.”

I shake my head. “How am I supposed to work in a company that I don’t trust to take care of me? It doesn’t matter, anyway. I’m done. I can’t keep putting myself through this.”

She scowls. “It’s not that simple. You can’t just leave. We’re in our busiest period right now. You’re needed.”

My stomach should sink. Usually it would, but I channel Casey, tilting my head slightly as I draw my brows together.

“I’m needed? But my performance is a liability.

That’s what my file said, right? How can I be needed?

You can’t have it both ways, Janice. Either I’m bad at my job and I deserve to be written up or you can’t live without my input. ”

Her cheeks flush, the first reaction I’ve ever seen from the woman in the years I’ve been with the company. “You’re under contract.”

“So call my lawyer. I don’t care about contracts. I’m walking. This environment is so toxic it is endangering my pregnancy.”

I see the ripple of panic at those words. “A doctor has said this?”

I give her a thin smile. “Suddenly now you care about my pregnancy? You didn’t care when you dragged me into this room and tore me down.

It doesn’t matter, anyway. I didn’t walk in here asking for permission to leave.

I’m telling you. I’ll hand over my work to Tasha and then I’m gone.

Call it mutual consent, tell everyone I pitched a fit and you had to let me go if it makes you feel better. I don’t care.”

“While I’m sympathetic to your situation, your contract clearly states you have to give two weeks’ notice.”

“And I’m sure all the bad publicity you will receive when I scream from the rooftops about how I was harassed while pregnant will be worth the ten whole days you’re demanding I work.”

She blanches. “No one has been harassing you.”

I flinch. She doesn’t know what’s been happening, and even if I told her now, she wouldn’t believe it.

“Did you ever stop to think why James suddenly decided I couldn’t do my job after years of no issues?

” Janice opens her mouth, but I speak before she can.

“I’ll make sure my desk is cleared out by the end of the day. ”

I stand, using the arms of the chair to lever myself up. Her eyes drop instantly to my bump. “At least give me until the end of the week. Just so we can make sure everything is in order before you go.”