Page 45 of Ruined by My Ex’s Dad (Silver Fox Obsession #2)

Savannah

T wo lines. Pink. Definitive.

I stared at the pregnancy test on my bathroom counter, the room suddenly too small, the air too thin.

My hands trembled as I gripped the edge of the marble, forcing myself to breathe through the tightness in my chest.

Pregnant.

The word echoed in my mind, foreign and terrifying.

Not part of the plan.

Not part of my carefully constructed journey back to independence after Miles.

Certainly not part of whatever I was building with Lucas—this complex, intoxicating, still-fragile connection that had upended everything I thought I knew about myself.

I should have known when my period didn't arrive last week. I, who tracked my cycle with obsessive precision, had somehow dismissed it as stress.

But then came the other signs I couldn't ignore: the sudden aversion to my morning coffee that left me gagging over the sink, the tenderness in my breasts that made even the softest fabrics uncomfortable, the bone-deep exhaustion that no amount of sleep seemed to fix.

And this morning, when the smell of Lucas's cologne—a scent I usually found intoxicating—had sent me rushing to the bathroom to dry heave, I couldn't deny it anymore.

I slid to the floor, back against the cabinet, knees drawn to my chest.

Three tests, all positive. No room for doubt.

My body—the one domain I'd always controlled with clinical precision—had betrayed me with perfect biological efficiency.

"Savannah?" Lucas's voice, calling from the bedroom. "Conference call in twenty minutes. Have you seen my blue tie? The Hermès one?"

"Check the closet. Left side," I called back, my voice amazingly steady considering the earthquake happening inside me.

I quickly wrapped the tests in tissue paper and buried them deep in the bathroom trash.

Not ready. Not yet.

The bathroom door opened, and Lucas appeared in an unbuttoned dress shirt, watching me with immediate concern. "Are you alright? Why are you on the floor?"

"Just dropped an earring back," I lied, pushing myself to my feet with fabricated casualness.

"Found it."

His eyes narrowed slightly—Lucas Turner, missing nothing, reading everything.

"You're pale. And you've been in the bathroom every morning this week."

"Just tired. Didn't sleep well." Another lie stacking atop the first. I moved past him, careful not to meet his eyes directly.

"Your tie should be where you left it last night. With the dry cleaning."

I felt his gaze follow me across the bedroom, assessing, calculating.

Not believing me but not pushing. Yet.

"I'll be late tonight," he said finally.

"Dinner with the Japanese investors."

"I remember." I kept my back to him, selecting a dress from the closet with false deliberation.

"I've got that charity thing with Zoe anyway."

He crossed to me then, one hand settling at my waist, turning me to face him. His palm warm through the thin silk of my robe.

"Savannah," he said, voice dropping to that register that always made my skin tingle, "tell me what's wrong."

For a moment, I almost did. Almost blurted out the truth that was ricocheting inside me with increasing panic. But the words wouldn't come. Couldn't form past the knot of fear in my throat.

"Nothing's wrong," I insisted, rising on tiptoe to press a kiss to his jaw. "Just morning brain fog. Go finish getting ready. You'll be late."

He studied me a moment longer, that penetrating gaze that had seen through my defenses from our very first meeting. Then, unexpectedly, he released me.

"We'll talk tonight," he said, the words carrying the gentle weight of inevitability rather than demand.

After he left, I sat on the edge of the bed and allowed the panic full rein. Memories crashed over me like waves, drowning rational thought beneath their force.

"You were a mistake, Savannah. A beautiful, beloved mistake, but a mistake nonetheless."

My mother's voice, soft with wine and regret during one of her rare moments of candor. I'd been twelve, asking innocent questions about why I had no siblings, why she and my father seemed to live in carefully negotiated détente rather than the passionate marriages my friends' parents demonstrated.

"I wasn't ready. I wasn't prepared. But your father wanted you so desperately, and I... I thought having you would fix something broken in me. In us." She'd brushed my hair back, her smile sad, distant. "Never have a child to fix yourself, Savannah. It's not fair to either of you."

The memory shifted, blurred, reformed—I was sixteen now, standing in our kitchen after my first heartbreak, sobbing about a boy who'd chosen someone else.

"This is why I warned you about giving your heart away," my mother had said, pouring herself another glass of chardonnay rather than offering comfort. "Men will always disappoint you. The trick is to need them less than they need you."

I pressed my hands against my still-flat stomach, trying to connect with the reality growing inside me.

A child.

Lucas's child.

Created in passion, in connection, in the most intimate surrender I'd ever experienced. But was it wanted? Was it wise? Was I equipped to be the kind of mother I'd never had?

My phone buzzed with a calendar reminder: client meeting in an hour.

No time for existential crises.

No space for the panic that threatened to consume me. I stood, compartmentalizing with the practiced ease of a woman raised by parents who valued composure above emotional honesty.

I showered, dressed, and applied makeup with mechanical precision.

Transformed myself from a terrified woman to a polished professional through the ritual of preparation. By the time I stepped into the Alder West offices, I'd almost convinced myself the morning's discovery was happening to someone else. Almost.

"You look like hell," Zoe declared, materializing in my doorway after my third client call. She closed the door behind her, eyes narrowing with the same assessment Lucas had performed earlier.

"Spill."

"I'm fine." I shuffled papers on my desk, avoiding her gaze.

"Just tired. Didn't sleep well."

"Bullshit." She dropped into the chair across from me. "You've canceled our lunch three times this week, you look like you're about to either throw up or pass out, and you've been wearing the same mascara for two days straight." She leaned forward.

"That's not tired, Sav. That's a crisis."

The directness—so typical of Zoe, so desperately needed in this moment—cracked something in my carefully maintained facade.

"I'm pregnant," I whispered, the first time I'd said the words aloud.

Her eyes widened, genuine shock replacing her usual sardonic expression. "Holy shit. Are you sure?"

"Three tests. All positive." I ran my hands through my hair.

"And every symptom in the book—missed period, nausea, exhaustion. I can smell everything within a five-mile radius. Lucas's cologne made me gag this morning."

"Wow." She leaned back, absorbing this information.

"So... how do we feel about this? Happy? Terrified? Homicidal toward a certain silver-haired CEO?"

A laugh escaped me, half-hysteria, half-relief at finally sharing the secret.

"All of the above? None of the above? I don't know, Zoe. I haven't processed it yet."

"Does Lucas know?"

I shook my head. "I just found out this morning."

"And you're going to tell him...when?"

"I don't know." I pressed my fingers to my temples, where a headache had been building all day.

"Tonight. Tomorrow. After I figure out what I want."

Zoe's expression softened with rare gentleness. "What are you afraid of, Sav? That he won't want it? Because I've seen how that man looks at you. He'd probably build a nursery made of solid gold by tomorrow if you told him."

"That's exactly what I'm afraid of." The words burst from me with surprising force.

"His... certainty. His control. His ability to make decisions without doubt or hesitation."

"While you're drowning in both?"

"Yes." I stood, unable to remain still, pacing the length of my office.

"A baby changes everything, Zoe. Everything we've built—this delicate balance between his world and mine, his need for control and my need for independence—a child explodes all of it."

"Or consolidates it," she suggested.

"Makes it permanent in ways you've been avoiding."

I stopped, staring at her. "What does that mean?"

"It means you're still keeping one foot out the door, babe." Her tone was gentle but unflinching.

"Still maintaining your separate apartment even though you haven't slept there for a while and are fully living with Lucas. Still insisting on that professional distance even though everyone knows you're together. Still afraid to fully commit to the life you're already living."

The accuracy of her assessment hit like a physical blow. "That's not fair," I protested weakly.

"Isn't it?" She stood, moving to where I'd frozen in place. "Why are you really scared, Savannah? Because it's not about Lucas's reaction. It's about something deeper."

The question pierced through my defenses, targeting the fear I'd been circling all day without confronting it directly.

"What if I'm like her?" I whispered, voice breaking.

"What if I resent this child the way my mother resented me? What if I'm incapable of the kind of love a baby needs?"

Understanding dawned in Zoe's eyes.

She'd been there through my childhood, had witnessed the careful emotional choreography of the Blake household.

Had held me through tearful confessions after too many glasses of wine in college, when I'd finally admitted how unloved I'd felt growing up in that beautiful, empty house.

"You are not your mother," she said firmly, gripping my shoulders. "You never have been."

"But what if?—"

"No." She cut me off.

"Your mother chose emptiness, Savannah. Chose distance. Chose to view you as an obligation rather than a gift. Those were her choices, not some inevitable genetic destiny you're doomed to repeat."

I sank back into my chair, the fight draining from me. "I don't know how to do this, Zoe. I don't know how to be a mother when I never really had one."