1. Gianna

"Seven months," I whispered. Swallowing hard, I choked back the wave of nausea that rushed through me as I processed his words. How was it possible that I'd been totally in the dark for so long?

With a loud sigh, he sat back and crossed his arms over his broad chest, making his polo shirt pull tight along his shoulders. Jake was the type of guy who got away with things because he was pretty. Not rugged, not sexy, not suave, but pretty. And it worked for him. Blond hair with just enough wave to make it look like he'd spent time crafting the perfect style. High cheekbones, straight nose, white teeth. But even pretty couldn't fix this.

"Tell me you're joking," I finally snapped, causing a few heads around us to turn our way.

Jake shifted in his seat and angled toward me. "Here we go with the bitch face," he huffed under his breath.

I heard it a lot. Resting bitch face. As if I had no control over it, when the truth was that the expression was purposeful. Sad was pathetic. Angry was powerful. Plus, if anyone deserved to be bitched out, it was Jake Caderson.

With long, thin fingers, he tapped the white tablecloth so hard that the ice in his water glass rattled. "Don't make this a bigger deal than it has to be."

A scoff escaped me at those words. He had to be joking. He acted as if I were overreacting. As if we hadn't been planning to move in together this weekend.

My gritted out "Are you fucking kidding me?" didn't feel like an overreaction.

I opened my mouth, ready to lay into him, but my soon-to-be ex-boyfriend held up a hand, cutting me off.

"I brought you here to tell you about Libby in hopes that you'd be reasonable about it. The last thing I want is for you to embarrass us both." He lifted his chin, gesturing around my favorite restaurant.

I'd been coming here for birthdays and celebratory dinners most of my life. The little family-owned Italian restaurant with the best manicotti in all of New York. The same manicotti that was trying to work its way back up my throat.

I pushed my plate toward the center of the table, hoping that would end my desire to throw up. But it did no good. The marinara wasn't causing the nausea. It was the realization that Jake had spent last night in my bed, knowing what he was planning to do.

What an asshole.

And who in their right mind chose a person's favorite place to do something like this?

Saturday and Sunday, as in three days from now, we had plans to move into our new apartment. Since my dad was selling his house and Jake's lease was up, we had spent weeks this spring looking for a new place. A little over a month ago, I'd found the perfect spot.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and breathed past the hurt clinging to the mad growing inside me. My hands shook, so I fisted them in my lap. There was not a world where I would look anything but pissed off.

"I have no intention of embarrassing myself." Teeth gritted, I looked across the restaurant, unable to even stand the sight of him. A huge part of me wanted to toss my cosmo in his face and storm out. But more words had to be said. One sentence could end an eighteen-month relationship, but it didn't untangle it.

"Glad we agree." He nodded. "I didn't plan to get Libby pregnant—it was supposed to be a quick fling you never found out about."

My hands twitched toward my drink again, because what the fuck?

"But now that she's hit the third trimester, she's making more demands. I'm sure you can be sympathetic to that."

Sympathetic? To whom exactly? Jake? My attention was drawn to the knife on the table. What was the minimum sentence for assault in New York? Maybe a jury would be sympathetic to me for castrating him.

"The last few months have been rough for her."

Oh, he meant sympathetic to Libby. Not happening. Though the bulk of my anger was directed toward him, the woman he was cheating on me with knew we were together. So I had zero sympathy for either of them. Jake and I worked for Doucette Designs in New York City. He was a vice president of design, while I was an artist on staff. Libby worked in legal in the corporate office in Pittsburg. She came out to New York fairly often for new client contracts, although I hadn't seen her in a couple months. Probably because she was showing and knew she'd better steer clear of me.

"So," Jake hedged with a long breath out, "for obvious reasons, I had Stan take your name off the lease."

My attention snapped to his face as my stomach sank. He was rigid in his seat, his muddy brown eyes darting around like he was planning a quick escape. My heart pounded like an angry bass drum, the deafening sound starting in my chest and moving to my ears.

He did not just say he stole my apartment. Right?

"Stan did what?" Stan was the realtor that Jake insisted we use when I found the perfect place. The top two floors of a brownstone that had been converted into an apartment with two bedrooms and an open kitchen and living area with an actual working fireplace. It was over the budget we'd set, but I'd had money saved and used it to pay first and last month's rent and the realtor fees. From there, we could split the rent and make it work. I had been nervous about it, but Jake had talked me into trusting our relationship, trusting in the two of us enough to make the two-year lease commitment. With my money…

My stomach roiled, and the manicotti threatened once again to make an appearance.

What was I thinking?

He finally looked at me, his jaw locked tight. "I'm the reason we passed the credit check. I'm the tenant they wanted. And since Libby is transferring to the New York office—you know, because of the baby—she's moving in with me." His eyes narrowed. "And you can't afford the rent on the place on your own."

It galled me that he was right. Without shutting off my cell phone and Netflix and selling my car—and eating nothing but ramen for the next two years—I couldn't afford it. I'd used the eleven thousand dollars I'd saved while living at home with Pop for the last few years to get us locked into the lease. Because I'd loved the place.

And I couldn't stop myself any longer. I pushed to my feet, grabbed the almost full martini glass, and threw my drink straight into his face.

"What the hell," he sputtered, swiping at his eyes as the pinkish liquid ran down his pale cheeks.

"I better get my deposit back. And the realtor fees I paid." I swiped my purse from the table and stomped out, head held high, as the people at the surrounding tables gawked. Oddly enough, I wasn't at all embarrassed.

I drove home, fueled by a mix of the adrenaline and the desperate need for comfort.

In the driveway, I scanned the under-contract sign in the yard. Although the idea of moving had been scary, my brother and I had pushed for Pop to sell this place.

He'd had a heart attack at the end of February, and since the best cardio rehab in the country was in Boston, my brother, Chris, convinced Pop to make the move. He hadn't even been in the rehab facility a whole ten weeks before he found a new home. Between all the Boston Revs baseball games he could attend and the time he spent with Chris, his sunshiny girlfriend, and their pet puffin, Pop was as happy as I'd seen him in years.

He deserved retirement and all the happiness that came with it. As a teacher and coach, as well as a single parent for the past twenty-two years, he'd done more than his fair share of struggling through life.

The only issue was that he was closing on the house in a week. On June first, the house I grew up in would have new owners, and I'd be homeless.

I shuffled inside and closed the door behind me. Other than my bedroom and the sofa Pop didn't want, the house was mostly cleared out. We'd been planning to use Jake's furniture in the new place.

I took a deep breath and swallowed back the pain ricocheting through me. I should call Mila; she'd eat ice cream with me and tell me I was too good for the jerk. But her gentle sweetness would probably make me cry, and I wanted to be pissed, not sad. Linc would have no problem heading out to a bar to get drunk. But I couldn't make either call. The I told you Jake was an ass conversation he'd insist on wasn't one I could stomach right now.

Deep down, I had known it for a while. But I was almost thirty, and at this point, good enough seemed like all I was capable of having. That thought had another shot of anguish ripping through me. No one should settle. My family and friends had been telling me that for years. But so many people, including me, would kill for a man who was fairly good-looking, somewhat successful, and half-decent in bed.

I scanned the shell of a room. Six days to find an affordable apartment in New York. Like that wasn't an impossible task. I swallowed and closed my eyes. Staying with Linc wasn't an option. He and his boyfriend were in an adorable studio in Brooklyn with no space for guests. Mila might let me crash for a day or two, but she had two roommates, so that wasn't a long-term fix.

But fuck my life. There was no way I could find a solution today.

What I could use was a hug. But in this house, even when I wasn't alone, hugs were few and far between. I couldn't ask for a better family, but neither Pop nor Chris was the touchy feely type, and like so many times since my mom died, I craved a hug. Not that I'd whine about it.

Nor would I harp on any of this. I was pissed and embarrassed, but what I didn't feel was the soul-crushing sadness that should come with losing the man that I was supposed to love. That probably said more than I was ready to admit about my relationship with Jake. But it didn't change the fact that tomorrow morning, I had to go into work and face him—along with the rest of the office—and somehow come to terms with the fact that the very pregnant woman my ex had cheated on me with would now be working in my office daily. After I dealt with all that, I had to find an apartment. Hopefully one without a security deposit, since I couldn't imagine Jake rushing to give my money back. I had a work bonus coming, but not until I finished my current project a month from now.

But whatever. I wasn't going to let an asshole ruin my life.

"I've got this." I squared my shoulders and put on my tough-girl mask as I whispered to the empty room.