July 1999
"I don't know what else we can do," Sia sighs, closing the manila folder she's holding and dropping it onto the table that's covered in identical others. "Every time we get even a hair closer to this guy, he evades us."
Emily exhales, trying to deduce if this wave of nausea is going to pass or if she needs to bolt from the room.
She hasn't told anyone at work that she's pregnant. She hasn't even told David.
"Emily?" Sia says quietly.
"Sorry," Emily clears her throat, willing the nausea away. "Yeah. He knows what he's doing..."
Sia tilts her head at Emily.
"Why don't you take the rest of the day off?" Sia suggests. "You've gone from paler than usual to green, and I will not be happy with you if you throw up in my office."
Emily half-smiles at the mock-serious tone.
"I'm fine," she assures Sia.
They've worked for the CIA together for a year and a half. She's the closest thing Emily has to a friend.
"You're green," Sia repeats.
Emily takes a breath, closing the folder she's been trying to focus on. Sia watches her.
"How far along are you?" she asks plainly.
Emily's gaze moves to meet Sia's. They exchange looks: one knowing, one stubborn to share.
"Eight weeks, give or take," Emily finally murmurs. "And I'd rather people not know."
"Does a certain Englishman know?" Sia raises an eyebrow.
Emily glances at her tiredly as she leans forward to let her head rest against her palms.
She has always been a private person. She and David have kept their...whatever it is, quiet.
"Obviously this was a…surprise," Sia states.
"Quite a startling one," Emily exhales, reaching for the nearby can of ginger ale.
"Must be some kid, then, if it got through all of those barriers," Sia teases.
"Better cure cancer or discover another planet," Emily mutters. "I wasn't exactly planning on motherhood."
"Really?" Sia asks, surprised.
"I'm not exactly motherly," Emily replies dryly.
"Says who? You?"
Emily looks at her, puzzled.
"You'll make an amazing mother, Emily," Sia says, her tone softer than Emily thinks she's ever heard it. "I've watched you work cases for almost two years. You're compassionate, strong, smart, kind…. The only thing a little off here is the other half of this baby. But with you as its mother, I think it'll all work out."
She gives Emily a knowing look. It's no secret that Sia doesn't like David. She finds him pompous and narcissistic, too into his own self and not good enough for Emily.
"When are you going to tell him?" Sia asks.
"What makes you think I'm going to?"
Sia scoffs a little chuckle. "You're not going to abort this baby, I know you well enough to know that. But we both know David doesn't exactly scream 'father of the year'."
Emily lets her brow raise and fall in dry agreement. She exhales, taking another sip of ginger ale but halfway through she realizes that this bout of nausea isn't kidding around. She bolts from her chair and hurries from Sia's office, leaving the woman standing there, shaking her head.
"David, we need to talk," Emily murmurs as he nuzzles her neck, his hands beginning to wander.
She knows whatever this thing is with David isn't set in stone. He's not exactly known throughout the company as a monogamous family man. But she still wants this baby to have a father. David, however, is more concerned with undressing Emily than listening to her.
"We can talk after," he says into her ear, his breath tickling her.
She blinks slowly, wanting him but still wary of the nausea, which is doubled because she's nervous about sharing this news with him.
He finishes unbuttoning her shirt and begins to slide it down her shoulders as he stands behind her, letting his fingers trace along her torso. He kisses her neck so he can taste the sweetness of her skin.
"It's important," she says, opening her eyes and turning around.
His eyes are immediately drawn to her breasts and he pulls her toward him, eager for her. He grabs for her chest and she inhales sharply. She hadn't expected the tenderness to start so early. She doesn't want him or anyone else near her chest right now, it's so sore.
"David," she says, more firmly.
She grabs his hands, forcing him to stop and look at her. She looks into his icy green eyes with their thick, dark lashes.
She loves to way he looks at her, constantly hungry and her body is his only craving. This relationship they've been fiddling with has been more about passionate, clawing sex than meaningful intimacy. She may love the look in his eyes when he feasts them on her, but she's never sat down and considered marrying him.
The last few days have given her a chance to think about everything, and she knows he won't be thrilled by the news. He's never expressed any desire about being a father, and the one time Emily saw him around a child, a coworker's toddler, David had gone from revulsion to blunt disregard, as if the child simply wasn't there.
He looks into Emily's eyes now and grins, his handsome face and piercing eyes making him look like a modern-day Adonis.
She knows what will happen after she tells him. She's half tempted to let this moment happen — one last fervent night together — before she risks tossing it all away. Because she would. She would already choose the baby growing inside her over the man standing before her, his perfect body carved in marble and his hands eager to fill his palms with her.
She stares into the verdurous green of his eyes and does what is familiar to her — she disengages further. She never lets herself get too close, and she has a talent for unlatching herself from people altogether.
"I'm pregnant," she says, her voice quiet but solid; unwavering.
The spark in David's eyes is extinguished and replaced by a hard glitter. His hands, one palming her ass while the other presses against her back, pulling him to her, at once go limp. He releases her and she feels it fully. But it doesn't hurt.
"I…" he begins, taken aback. "We were careful."
Emily shrugs slowly. "Nothing's 100 per cent," she replies, suddenly very aware that she's shirtless.
She leans forward, behind him, and plucks her shirt from his bed.
"I know we haven't really had a conversation," she begins, comfortably sliding the shirt on.
"No," David replies, his tone suddenly firm and serious; not typical in the way he speaks to her. "We haven't."
Emily buttons her shirt.
Her heart beats a little more obviously in her chest but to David she seems as she always does — stoic, enduring Emily Prentiss, an agent he admires and a woman he lusts for.
"I'm not that type of man," David says, as Emily lifts her hair from the back of the now-buttoned shirt. "Fatherhood has never…appealed to me."
"I figured," Emily replies. "I don't expect anything from you. But I think you should be a part of the baby's life. She — or he — should know you."
David takes a step away from her and for Emily, it's a wall he's helping her build.
"Emily," he begins, now avoiding her eyes.
She hides the tiniest half-smile, a little surprised by his attitude. He sees it, though.
"What?" he asks, his eyes tracing her lips; offended by the smirk.
"Nothing," she replies, allowing the grin to show more as she bends down to zip up a boot. "I've just never seen you this way."
"What way?" he frowns, and she sees the hard, glacial man he is to the rest of the world.
She zips up the other boot and stands up to face him fully.
"Pitiful," she shrugs, "for someone who wants the world to think he's such a great man."
She sees his jaw clench and considers it payment for her time.
"Look, David," she says, sliding her arms into her jacket as he stands there with his shirt undone, still half-swollen against his expensive, tailored suit. "I never expected us to get married. Hell, I never expected us to turn into anything real. But this baby is real, and I'm keeping it. You can either be a man and take responsibility, or you can…"
She conjures up the little half-grin again, tossing in a look of derision just because she can.
"Be David," she finishes. "Your call."
On the way back to her London apartment, Emily's adrenaline causes her left leg to jostle constantly.
She doesn't love David. She never did.
So why does she feel so wired right now?
She's spent so long making sure she's always composed; immovable, that it takes a literal shifting of her focus for her to let her guard down when she's alone.
Only Emily Prentiss has ever seen Emily Prentiss crack.
She hurries into her flat and locks the door before darting to the bathroom and retching out the contents of her stomach.
When she's empty, she sits on the hard tile and stares out the doorway into the stylish but rather un-lived in space. She's rarely here. It looks more like a hotel than the home of a 29-year-old woman.
I have to move, she realizes, her palm coming to absently rest against her abdomen. I have to get a two-bedroom. For the baby.
The sentence…for the baby…strikes her as so unfamiliar that it feels foreign in her mind. But she's never been one to back down from anything. She was raised by Elizabeth Prentiss to be strong and dauntless.
She gets up and rinses her mouth out in the bathroom sink. Holding back her long, dark hair she looks at herself into the mirror. She stands up and stares into her own eyes, already wondering if the baby will have these raven-coloured eyes, or if they'll inherit the frosty green of David's.
What if she has to look into David's eyes for the rest of her life?
She pushes the negativity from her mind. Whatever happens, whoever it is who's flourishing in the warm cocoon of her belly right now, she will love them.
She will love him or her enough for both she and David, because she knows this baby will never call him Daddy.