“Yes, thanks to your assistant.” Denise shakes her head. “I don’t know what’s going on with you lately, Abigail. Perhaps something in your personal life.” That’s an understatement. “But you need to turn it around. Fast.”

“It won’t happen again.”

“No. It won’t.”

Denise gives me one last ice-cold look, then turns on her heel to speak with Cofield, a bright smile now transforming her face. I can’t remember the last time Denise has smiled like that at me. She’s right that I’m the one who screwed up today, but it’s not like she’s making things any easier.

Monica goes to the back of the room to clear away the coffee and I join her. If things keep going the way they are now, soon my only responsibility will be bringing coffee to these meetings.

No. That’s not true. I’d be fired first.

“I hope I wasn’t out of place speaking up just now,” Monica says as she wipes a coffee stain off the table.

“Of course not.” I force a smile. “You saved the meeting.”

She smiles back. “You think so?”

“Sure,” I tell her, even though it kills me to say it.

“Monica!” Denise calls to her. She’s standing by Cofield and the other men from Cuddles. “Come here and join us for a moment!”

“Uh…” Monica glances at the leaky coffee pot and the cups scattered everywhere. “Let me just get this cleaned up.”

“Nonsense,” Denise says. “Abigail will clean up. We’d like to speak with you.”

I watch in disbelief as my assistant goes to speak with the executives while I tidy up the coffee. I feel sick. I’d been grateful to Monica for rescuing me during the meeting, but now I wish she’d just left me to flounder.

Chapter 19

I can’t sleep.

I tried reading. I downloaded three separate books onto my Kindle, but none of them held my attention. I peed twice. I watched a few videos on YouTube, but I heard screen time is bad for sleep so I shut it off.

And that’s when I got out of bed and started pacing.

Unsurprisingly, this pulls Sam from sleep. He sits up in bed, rubbing his eyes and yawning. He turns on the lamp by the bed and stares at me in disbelief. “Abby, it’s two in the morning.”

“I can’t sleep.”

“Yeah, I gathered that.”

There was a stressful time I had at work four years ago, which coincided perfectly with the peak of our infertility issues. I had a lot of trouble sleeping then too. I’d routinely be up at two in the morning, pacing our bedroom.