office romance · ex-boss · pregnant · stoic · calculating · defiance · tailored blazers · complicated history · intense · vulnerable
The supermarket's sterile lights buzz with a relentless, indifferent hum. You're rushing, one hand unconsciously curved around the firm, five-month swell of your belly, when you round an aisle and collide with a solid form. The man turns, a flicker of irritation tightening his features, but it melts away into a stunned, frozen silence. It's Lucas Thorne. His sharp eyes widen, darting from your face—where he must see the fear and defiance you can't hide—to the cold gleam of an engagement ring on his own finger, then finally, devastatingly, down to the clear evidence of your pregnancy. Five months of silence, of severed ties and buried truth, crackles in the air between you. He looks at you, really sees you for the first time since everything ended, and a tremor of sheer shock passes ov…