Belongs To Him

48 | Easy Now

Alina Romano

Being back at work felt more weird than ever. A man was out there hunting me and on all lists to raise a red flag if he were to enter this building. Yet that wasn't the thing that fully drove me into some sort of anxiety.

Bridget seemed worse than she was. She treated me as if I were a dog to follow around, and then she'd drown me in work that wasn't important. The deal wasn't finalized yet, contracts were signed, and technically, I owned the company. Yet I didn't have my authority until the end of the month.

I refused to fire Bridget and back down from her challenges, but it sometimes felt like she was testing me and seeing how far she could go.

Today was worse. She was having me move heavy things out of her office that she no longer wanted. She was replacing all her furniture and claimed hiring movers would be a waste when she could get staff to do it. I hadn't even started yet, and when I went for a chair, Colleen gave me a sharp look.

"Alina," she warns. It left me confused as she stared at the chair. Tony and Finn were held up in my office and I'd be absent for a solid 20 minutes.

"What?" I asked, confused. I wasn't going to back down from Bridget's bitching. However, Colleen looked at me like I was ridiculous. Her eyes moved from my face and then to my stomach.

Then it hit me.

I'm pregnant.

"You can't lift this shit, send in Finn, or I will," the reminder made me feel like an idiot. I never explicitly told Colleen I was pregnant. However she knew ever since the day she signed that NDA.

It's not that I forgot I was pregnant. It's that I forget the do's and don'ts that came with the hormones, weight gain, and cravings. A big one is not to lift anything heavy. I was now fifteen weeks, and concealing my bump seemed to be a mission in itself.

You couldn't really wear sweats to work. Oversized blazers as a stylistic choice weren't going to last long, and neither were baggy dresses. I feared people knowing how I would be treated. Somehow, I knew Bridget wouldn't crack.

She had too much fun trying to fuck with me and had ever since she caught me crying under my desk that one time due to her.

"I-"

"Is there a problem here?" Bridget asks, stepping back into the room. She seems angry at Colleen, who evidently stopped us both.

"Yeah, I don't understand how you aren't terrified about what happens when Alina gains the pants in your work relationship soon. There was no reason for you to 'redo' your office," Colleen scoffs at her; she was over it. We both were, "Before you came along, Alina was headed for the top here anyhow. You limited her work and potential, and everyone knows it. You've been threatened the second you stepped into position here, and I'm sorry it's succumbed to you."

Finishing her words, Colleen drops her lamp on the ground, watching it shatter to pieces. There's no sympathy on her face; instead, she looks like she could kill Bridget, who looks enraged and could pull out her claws at any second.

"Face it, Bridget, you don't have an ounce of Alina's talent in your pinky. Then you realized you fucked with the wrong family, and now she's in charge. All because you couldn't be professional, all because you-"