Chapter 41: The Conversation

The very next night, Jalen sat in Karla’s condo, which was usually quiet, but tonight, the silence stretching between them felt thick enough to cut with a knife. He and Karla sat next to each other on her plush living room sofa, the faint hum of the city traffic drifting up through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

A positive pregnancy test sat on the glass coffee table in front of them.

Karla watched him process it, her green eyes carefully studying his profile. Finally, she broke the silence.

“Jalen? You still with me?”

Jalen blinked, pulling himself out of his thoughts, and let out a low, steady chuckle. He turned his head to look at her, his expression remarkably calm. “Yeah, I’m with you. Honestly ... when you called me out of the blue tonight and asked me to come over, I had a pretty strong suspicion this was what it was about. I’ve been down this road four times already.”

A small, understanding smile touched Karla’s lips, and Jalen returned it. They both knew exactly what they were doing that night. They had known the risks when they threw the rules out the window, and now they were sitting face-to-face with the consequences.

Karla let out a soft, breathy laugh, shaking her head. “Well. I guess I really am baby mama number five, aren’t I?”

Jalen smiled, though his dark eyes grew a fraction more serious. He shifted on the couch, turning his body fully toward her. “How are you feeling about all this?”

Karla’s sharp intuition clocked the underlying weight of his question immediately. She knew Jalen wasn’t just asking about morning sickness or nerves. He was asking if she regretted it. He was asking if the reality of the situation had shattered the magic of the weekend they had spent together.

She reached out, resting her hand over his. “Jalen, look at me.” When he met her gaze, she held it firmly. “It’s a lot to process. I won’t lie and say I’m not a little scared, because I am. But I do not regret a single second of our night out at Club Havana, and I certainly don’t regret what we did after. What I said to you that night was the truth. I love you, and I fully intend to keep this baby.”

Hearing those words, a massive weight lifted off Jalen’s chest. He visibly relaxed, the tension bleeding out of his shoulders as her unwavering resolve fueled his own.

“I love you too, Karla,” Jalen said, his voice dropping into a rough, fiercely sincere register. He squeezed her hand. “And I know my life is a mess. I know I have four other women pregnant right now, and I have heavy commitments to them. But I swear to you, I will be here for you and this baby, no matter what it takes.”

“I know you will,” Karla said softly.

What followed was a conversation that shocked Jalen with how incredibly grounded it was. They spent the next hour seamlessly shifting into logistics. They discussed setting up her first OB-GYN appointment, how they would navigate their schedules, and exactly what Jalen’s role as a father would look like in her day-to-day life. Karla was practically radiating calm conviction. Her lawyer brain had kicked in, categorizing and planning their future with a level-headedness that Jalen found deeply incredibly comforting. It was by far the easiest pregnancy conversation he had navigated yet.

But there was still one major hurdle hovering over them.

“We need to tell Megan,” Jalen said eventually, leaning back against the cushions. “With everything she’s going through with Chris ... she needs to hear this from us before she notices anything changing.”

Karla smiled, a slightly amused glint in her eye. “Actually ... I already talked to her.”

Jalen froze. “Wait. What? When?”

“That Tuesday after our weekend,” Karla said casually. “I told her that we slept together and spent the weekend together.”

Jalen stared at her, completely floored. “And? How did she react?”

“She was completely fine with it,” Karla said. “Not only was she okay with it, she explicitly stated she wanted to keep me as her lawyer.”

Jalen let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding, rubbing the back of his neck in disbelief. “If she knew ... why the hell didn’t she mention it to me when I talked to her on Thursday?”

Karla laughed out loud, the sound bright and genuine. “Because she wanted to see the look on your face when it finally came time to tell her. She was planning on letting you sweat it out, just so she could casually drop that she already knew.”

Jalen couldn’t help but chuckle, shaking his head at the sheer absurdity of it all. “That sounds exactly like Megan.” He paused, his expression sobering. “But she just knows about us sleeping together, right? Not the baby.”

“Right,” Karla confirmed. “I didn’t know for sure until tonight.”

“Okay,” Jalen said. “Then I’ll be the one to tell her about the pregnancy first. I owe her that.”

“Agreed,” Karla said with a nod.

Jalen watched her for a moment, his brow furrowing as a darker thought crept in. “Karla ... what about what you said before? About potentially being disbarred for sleeping with a key witness in your client’s divorce?”

Karla shifted, pulling one leg up underneath her as she faced him. “It’s complicated, but it’s manageable. In the legal world, a lot of ethical violations involving conflicts of interest can be mitigated if there is informed, explicit consent from the client. Megan gave me her explicit permission to continue representing her while being fully aware of our romantic connection. Assuming her stance doesn’t change when you tell her about the pregnancy, having her continued consent softens the issue significantly.”

She reached out, tracing the line of his jaw. “Don’t worry about my license, Jalen. I will deal with whatever professional fallout comes my way. Right now, my primary focus is making sure Megan gets every single thing she deserves in this divorce and destroying Chris Westward in court.”

Despite her confidence, Jalen couldn’t completely hide the guilt shadowing his eyes. She was putting her immaculate, hard-earned career on the line, all because he couldn’t keep his hands to himself.