The first thing Ethan thought when she said it was that she was lying.
The second thing he thought - half a second later, looking at her face - was that she wasn't.
"Say it again," he said.
Serena Ashford sat on the edge of his white linen sofa with her hands folded in her lap like she was waiting for a delayed train. She had not touched the water he'd set in front of her. She was wearing a blue button-down shirt and dark jeans, her brown hair pulled back, no makeup. She looked twenty. She looked like exactly what she was, which was a Columbia sophomore who had no business being in a fourteen-million-dollar penthouse on East 73rd Street.
"I'm pregnant," she said. "About eight weeks."
Ethan stopped walking. He hadn't realized he'd started pacing. He turned and looked at her and felt something crash open in his chest that he did not have a name for and did not want one.
He thought: This is not happening. This is a play. She rehearsed this. Someone sent her.
"We used protection," he said.
"We did."
"Then-"
"Protection fails." She said it with no particular emphasis, like she was correcting a statistic in a term paper. "About two to three percent of the time, with consistent use. I've had a blood test. I've had an ultrasound. I can show you the paperwork if you need to see it."
She reached for the tote bag beside her feet. It was canvas, faded, had the Columbia University insignia on the side. She pulled out a manila folder and set it on the coffee table between them.
He stared at it.
He thought: I'm not picking that up. If I pick that up it becomes real.
"Why didn't you call me?" he said.
"I didn't have your number."
He looked at her. "You could have found it."
"Yes." She met his eyes for the first time since she'd started talking. Hers were brown, steady, not wet. "I didn't want to call you. I wanted to figure out what I was going to do first. And now I have."
There it was. He felt the shape of it before she said it. She hadn't come here to cry. She hadn't come here for comfort. People who came here for comfort hunched their shoulders. They twisted their hands. They looked around the room for something soft to focus on. This woman had walked into his apartment forty minutes ago, waited for him to stop pretending he had calls to take, sat down on his sofa, and told him she was pregnant with the exact same affect she might use to report a minor scheduling conflict.
He was almost impressed. He was also furious.
"Okay," he said, keeping his voice level. "Okay. Let's not panic. This is fixable. I know a doctor - she's completely discreet, she handles these situations all the time, I can have my assistant-"
"I'm not terminating the pregnancy."
Silence.
"Serena-"
"I've thought about it. It's not what I'm choosing. I'm not asking your opinion on that choice."
"I'm not asking you to - I'm just saying that if you want to-"
"I don't."
He looked at the ceiling. He breathed out through his nose. He thought: All right. New plan. She wants money. Fine. This is what money is for. I can make this clean.
"Then let's talk about support," he said, shifting gears the way his father had taught him to shift gears in any negotiation - quickly, without acknowledging the failed approach. "You shouldn't have to worry about finances. I'll set up a trust, whatever you need for the child, for yourself-"
"I'm not asking for money either." She paused. "Well. A modest amount, for the child's expenses. That's part of it. But that's not why I'm here."
He sat down across from her. Slowly. He put his elbows on his knees and looked at her.
"Then why are you here?"
She reached forward and opened the manila folder herself, turned it so it faced him. He looked down. There were documents. Legal-looking documents. He made out the words marriage license before he looked back up at her.
"I want to get married," Serena said.
The silence lasted four full seconds.
"Excuse me," Ethan said.
"I want a legal marriage. A marriage certificate. Not for money, not for your name in any social sense - I'm not going to your charity galas, I don't want your credit cards. I want a document that says this child was born to two married parents." She turned one of the pages. "I've had a lawyer draft preliminary terms. Pre-signed divorce papers, effective ten months from the date of marriage - that gives enough buffer for the baby to arrive and for the paperwork to process. The child waives all inheritance rights. Child support would be-" she looked at a figure, "-four thousand dollars a month, until the child is eighteen, adjustable for cost of living. You would have no required parental duties. None."
Ethan stared at her.
He thought: She's insane. I slept with an insane person.
Then he thought: No. She's not insane. She's thought this through more carefully than I've thought about anything in the last six weeks. Which is the more disturbing problem.
"You want to marry me," he said slowly, "so that you can divorce me."
"Essentially."
"And you want - nothing. No lifestyle. No access. No-"
"No. I want to go back to my apartment in Morningside Heights and finish my degree and raise my child. I want ten months of legal marriage on paper, and then I want my name back and a clean break." She looked at him steadily. "I'm not in love with you. I'm not under any illusion about what that night was. I need something specific and this is the most direct way to get it."