I nodded and then, as she sat and placed her purse on the floor, I snapped out of the shock of seeing her here. “Wait a second.” I placed my hands on my desk, extremely wary of this. “What are you really doing here? We’ve maybe exchanged a handful of words our entire life and you’re suddenly here because you need to tell me the truth about something?”

“You have every right to be suspicious of my visit.” She crossed one impossibly long leg over the other. “If it was you coming to me, I’d feel the same way.” She smiled weakly, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I know Brock isn’t here. That’s why I came down today.”

A chill settled over my skin. “How do you know that?”

“I was with him for years. We were engaged and we shared several mutual friends who work for your father,” she explained. “It came up in casual conversation that he was there.”

Casual conversation my ass. I did not like the idea that someone working there was keeping tabs on Brock and reporting back to Kristen. Instinct warned me that I needed this conversation to stop right now, before she could spew any “truths” at me. I didn’t know Kristen well. Brock never said anything bad about her, but I couldn’t fathom that there was some altruistic reasoning behind this visit.

“I’m actually really busy today,” I started. “So I’m not—”

“Did Brock tell you that I was pregnant?” she cut in.

I stopped—stopped talking and maybe stopped breathing. It took several moments for me to force out one word. “What?”

“I guess he didn’t. I’m not entirely surprised.” She tilted her head to the side. Icy blonde hair slipped over her shoulder. “You probably aren’t even that surprised. You’ve known him since you both were kids, so you know he’s not much of a talker.”

Brock was a talker—with me, at least. The room felt like it was spinning. “You were pregnant?”

Thick lashes lowered as she slowly nodded. “It was not too long after we got together. Maybe a little over two years into the relationship. I was on the pill, but I wasn’t exactly taking them regularly.” She laughed softly. “I wasn’t very responsible back then and . . .” She took a deep breath. “Since you’re with Brock now, you know how he is. He likes to . . . fuck.”

My stomach turned sour and a dozen mental roadblocks flew up.

“The pregnancy didn’t . . . it didn’t stick,” she went on before I could respond. “It really tore me up. I didn’t want to get pregnant back then, but once I found out that I was, I was happy, and he was happy. I wanted that baby, and I wanted Brock. I loved him, and when I lost the baby, I was a mess.”