Victoire took several deep breaths to calm herself down. She could feel her blood pressure rising sky-high, and her heart raced as she grew dizzier by the moment. But breathing helped, and she gripped the railing and slowly eased herself to her feet, her belly jutting out and impossible to miss now.
"You misunderstand me. This isn't a debate or a negotiation, Teddy," she said shakily, but considerably calmer. "You've made every decision for me while I was gone. You chose what would happen to my marriage. You decided I was going to be a single parent. You decided that the person I love most in the world didn't love me anymore. You decided this wasn't going to be a traditional family, but I never agreed. You're the one who chose it for me. Now it's my turn to make a decision, and she - whatever you want to call her - will not be part of my daughter's life. And you do not have the right to waltz over, tell me my life as I knew it is over, and demand control over my unborn baby, too. I'm her mother. I've carried her for nine months. You weren't even there for conception."
The baby kicked, and she rubbed the spot on her belly to soothe it. "You say you've changed, that things are different here. You want me to accept that I've lost my family. All right. If you really gave up our marriage for some girl, then there's nothing I can do about it, and I'm not going to pine after someone who chose someone else. But that was completely your choice, Teddy. And now I'm letting you make another one: either you have full access to my daughter, unsupervised like you want. Or you demand your girlfriend be part of my unborn daughter's life barely ten minutes after destroying mine, and you lose the right to be with my daughter unsupervised. Either way, she won't be part of her life. That's my contribution to this mess. She already has my husband - she doesn't get my daugter, too. Now you get to decide what role you play. And if you know me at all, you know I am not bluffing. Not when it comes to my child."
She stepped toward the door and set her hand on the latch. "This can be easy, or this can be nasty. It's completely up to you. And if you ever loved me at all, if you even remotely love your daughter, then you'll do the right thing for the first time in this whole mess and make it easy on all of us. And if your girlfriend has any respect for you or your family, then she'll do the same. So what kind of person are you going to be, Teddy? What kind of person is she? Because either way, this is the one demand you will not get no matter how unfair you think it is. You want to see unfair? Put yourself in my shoes."