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Coralie

“Two cheeseburgers. Fries are coming up in just a second.” The guy behind the counter gives her a wink. He’s cute, with a piercing in one ear and artfully shaved hair. A little punk rock.

He was the kind of guy she would’ve flirted with at a bar not too long ago, hoping he’d buy her a drink. Hoping he’d take her home.

But now she’s standing here in an elastic-waist skirt, waiting for their lunch. Hoping they don’t skip the pickles, because cravings are real. She uses her thumb to jiggle the fake wedding band on her ring finger.

The radio is playing “I Will Always Love You,” by Whitney Houston. That song is everywhere lately, and she’s starting to hate it.

Too unrealistic.

“Here you go!” the pierced hottie says, tucking the fries into her bag. “You have a nice day now.”

“Thanks.” She allows herself a single flirtatious smile before leaving a dollar in the tip jar and tucking her boss’s change into her pocket.

She heads back to the office quickly, so the fries won’t get cold.

They never have lunch together. He always goes out, and she eats a sandwich at her desk. But today his lunch meeting was postponed and then finally canceled, and he said, “Let’s get some burgers. I’ll buy, you fly.”

By the time she strides back into the office suite, she’s been gone twenty minutes. She opens her mouth to call out that lunch is here, but his door is partway closed, and she catches herself, in case he’s on a call.

A glance at the phones says he’s not. She puts the bag down on her desk and hears an unwelcome sound from the office. A giggle .

She freezes. A woman’s laughter erupts a second time.

Her heart banging hard inside her chest, she edges closer to the par tially open door, the carpet swallowing the sounds of her footsteps. She eases into a position that allows her to see inside. Her stomach drops.

There’s another woman sitting on the edge of Mr. Wincott’s desk. Coralie can’t see the woman’s face, but her bare legs dangle from a skirt that’s frankly too short.

Mr. Wincott’s smile is downright lecherous.

A hot cloud of shocked rage envelops her. She steps away and goes back to her desk, her heart thumping with anger.

And shame, honestly. She’s surprised that she’s surprised. Tigers don’t change their stripes, as her mother used to say.

YOU’RE A STUPID BITCH, CORALIE, yells the voice inside her head. WHAT DID YOU THINK WOULD HAPPEN?

She sits down at her desk and removes one of the burgers from the bag. She unfolds the foil wrapper and takes a bite.

It grows quiet in the office. Too quiet.

Fuck him. Fuck him sideways. In the ear.

Her anger feels good for a minute or two, but then it feels lonely. And all of a sudden she understands how very lonely she’ll be when the baby comes.

She dumps out her fries and eats them while they’re still crisp. His loss if the rest of them get cold.

It’s another twenty minutes before the other woman comes out. She walks past Coralie’s desk without a glance.

Coralie is full of greasy food and really fucking depressed. She doesn’t walk his lunch into his office, like he probably expects. She waits for him to come out. A petty rebellion.

When he finally emerges, she hands him the bag without making eye contact. “You should have eaten when it was hot.”

“Hey,” he says in a cheerful voice that fails to notice her coolness. “Make some coffee? Bring me a cup when it’s done. And bring yourself a cup of something, too. I haven’t seen you all day.”

She pushes back her chair and crosses to the coffeepot, her shoulders back and her spine as straight as a poker. The bag crinkles as he retreats to the inner office.

She knows she needs to calm down. She can’t cop an attitude. He’ll never let her get away with it. The worst part is that he wanted her to catch him flirting. She’d bet money on it. It’s his way of making sure that she knows her place.

Maybe she needed the reminder.

The coffee takes a good ten minutes. She makes herself a peppermint tea and arranges both drinks on a tray. Then she musters up a waxen smile and carries it into the office.

“ There she is!” It’s a greeting he’s given before, but there’s a new edge to it. You’d better keep smiling .

Sticking to her role, she closes the door behind her. And when she places the tray on his desk, she leans over to give him a good look at her cleavage.

He makes a noise of appreciation, a sound she’s grown to enjoy. It usually feels powerful, but today it’s crystal clear that he’ll make that noise for anyone. The second she’s left this office to care for her child, a new girl will replace her. She won’t even be here a year.

No more Wedgwood. No more gifts from Tiffany or the Coach store. She’ll be back to ramen noodles and fights outside the windows of her awful little apartment.

With a baby to care for.

The thought causes her to set his cup down with slightly more force than necessary.

“Come over here,” he says, rolling his desk chair back and tossing the wadded-up take-out wrappers into the wastebasket. “How are you feeling today?”

“Lovely,” she lies. She can hardly bear the idea of his hands on her body, but it’s too late to disagree, isn’t it? She circles the desk with tantalizing slowness—or procrastination, depending on your point of view—and then slides her rounded body onto his knee.

His hand is under her blouse and onto her stomach immediately. He makes a strangled growl that causes her to roll her eyes at the bookshelf across the room.

“You’re going to have to hire a new girl,” she says softly. “Eventually.”

“I suppose. Unless you want to stay on.”

“How could I?” she wonders aloud. “Is there a company daycare somewhere I haven’t noticed?”

“You know,” he says as his fingertips creep across her skin, “the family has arranged a great many adoptions.”

Her heart drops. “I don’t want that.”

It’s not like she never considered adoption, but she grew up in and out of foster care, and some of it was pretty bad. No child should suffer that if there’s a rich man on the hook for its well-being. And the well-being of the mother.

Mr. Wincott is going to pay twice as much as usual, or she’ll go to his brother and threaten to tell the papers.

His fingertips reach up to cup her breast. “Have you picked out some good Christian names?” he asks.

Her eyes slide toward the thick book of saints, wondering how carefully he’s read it. “Why, yes, I have. A girl name, anyway. I think I’m having a girl.”

“Do you now?” he asks in a voice that’s clearly humoring her. “And what are we calling her?”

The name was on the first page she opened to. Her gaze snagged on a particular phrase about the saint: an illegitimate daughter . It will be her little secret. And—bonus—the saint’s name is lovely, too.

She turns around, straddling one of his thighs and resting her hands on his chest in a suggestive way.

“Marcus.” She cups his chin, so he’ll look at her face and not her tits. “I’m going to call her Beatrice.”