Love in New York ; Cherish My Heart

by Shirley Hailstock

  After he set her down in the middle of the room, he kissed her before saying, “I’ve got something for you.”

  She glanced at their gold wedding bands on their fingers. “I’ve already got everything I need,” she said.

  “Humor me,” he insisted. He kissed the top of her head then went into the closet where they’d stored their carry-on bags on the top shelf.

  While he was in there, Petra took her shoes off and wiggled her toes in the plush carpeting as she waited on him.

  Returning from the closet, Chance handed her a white bag that had come from a pharmacy, judging by the logo on it. She assumed it was a package of condoms. But upon opening it, she saw that the cardboard box inside was a home pregnancy kit.

  “Is this some kind of a joke?” she asked.

  He stood there, stunningly handsome in his cobalt blue suit, his eyes dancing with humor. “I wouldn’t joke about something this life changing.”

  Suddenly weak in the legs, she sat down on the bed. He seriously thought she was pregnant.

  “Do you know something I don’t? Because it seems to me I should be the first to know whether or not I’m expecting a baby. It is my body, after all!”

  Chance came and sat beside her on the bed, his gaze seeking hers, and when their eyes met he said, “I’m not certain I know something you don’t. But I do know your body, Pet. For months I’ve made a thorough study of it, from the top of your head to the tips of your toes. I know how you feel when you’re in the throes of passion. I know how you feel when you’re relaxed as opposed to tense. It was about two weeks ago that I noticed you weren’t enjoying it as much—”

  “You’re talking about my breasts,” Petra said. “They have been kind of tender, but I figured it was just my hormones acting up.”

  Now that she thought about it, she’d been so content, she probably hadn’t been paying as close attention to her body as she should have. She’d been feeling powerful in her sexuality, as if nothing could touch her. However, she was an adult and should know that there were consequences to sexual intercourse, and one of the biggest was pregnancy. Could she be pregnant?

  She got up. “I’d better go pee on a stick.”

  Chance got up to follow her. She spun around. “Where’re you going?”

  “I’m going with you.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “But we’re married. I’ve seen you naked.”

  Petra laughed. “There are some things that should remain a mystery between a man and a woman.”

  Chance laughed. “Are you getting moody on me already? And you’re probably only three months pregnant.”

  “Stop making predictions, Nostradamus!” she cried, laughing so hard there were tears in her eyes. She went into the bathroom, shut the door in his face and locked it, imagining him standing outside the door, his arms akimbo, laughing at her.

  In the bathroom, she sat down on the edge of the bathtub and read the instructions on the box. After peeing on the digital test strip, she cleaned herself, avoiding looking at the digital display all the while. She opened the door and strode out of the bathroom, carrying her dress over her left arm and the test strip in her right hand.

  She handed it to Chance. “You read it,” she said as she walked to the closet to hang up her dress. “But wait until I get back.”

  “You’re making me crazy,” Chance complained.

  She came back to him and took a deep breath. “All right. What does it say?”

  He looked down at the test strip. “A big, fat yes!” Chance exclaimed happily, then picked her up and spun her around with abandon.

  Petra laughed along with him. “My mother is going to have a heart attack! She always said, ‘You’d better not bring a baby in this house until you’re married!’”

  “You are married,” Chance said, crowing with delight.

  Petra couldn’t contain her merriment. To think that in the space of less than a year after meeting Chance, she’d broken every rule she’d made for herself: she’d fallen in love, gotten married in a chapel in Las Vegas and found out she was pregnant!

  She peered into his face, finally realizing what her selfless new husband had done. “You wanted to get married quickly because you suspected I was pregnant, and I’d told you I definitely didn’t want to have children until we were married.”

  He nodded. “I was covering all my bases, Pet.”

  She slowly slid down his muscular body until her feet hit the floor. Looking up at him, she said, “We’re going to be parents. Have you contemplated what that means?”

  “It means our lives will change for all the right reasons. Kids are worth the sacrifice. And I promise you, I’m going to be a hands-on dad. I’ll change diapers, get up in the middle of the night, take him or her to school when the time comes, be a soccer dad. You name it, I’ll be there for you and our child.”

  “I know you will,” Petra said. She gave him a worried look. “How should we tell our folks?”

  “Let’s discuss that some other time,” her handsome husband said with a mischievous glimmer in his beautiful golden-brown eyes. “We’re on our honeymoon.”

  Chapter 13

  “Chance! Chance Youngblood! Over here!” screamed a man with a video camera as he rushed toward Chance and Petra the next morning as they were leaving the hotel to go to the airport.

  Chance barely had time to put himself between the man and Petra before the guy shoved a handheld video camera in his face and demanded, “Is it true that you and Petra Gaines were married in a chapel here in Las Vegas yesterday?”

  Chance knew he probably looked menacing on camera, because anger was the initial emotion he felt at this intrusion. Petra was clutching his arm as she kept her face turned away from the odious man and his camera.

  “No comment,” Chance said decisively. He saw that their hired car was waiting at the curb. He recognized the driver from yesterday standing beside the car.

  “Why Vegas?” asked the guy, an average-size African American in his early twenties with dreadlocks and wearing jeans, a black T-shirt with the logo of a well-known gossip show etched on it and black Reeboks.

  Chance and Petra kept walking toward the car waiting in front of the hotel, but the reporter was impeding their progress in an attempt to get him to make a comment. Chance made it a habit of not commenting whenever he encountered the paparazzi. He supposed he and Petra were lucky they weren’t being bombarded by more reporters from gossip shows. Someone from the chapel had probably recognized him and dropped a dime on him for profit. No matter how careful you were, if they wanted to dig up information about you, there were ways to do it. It came with the territory. But he knew Petra must be feeling violated, so he did his best to protect her from being exposed.

  Finally, they were at the car and the driver, knowing the drill, put himself between them and the reporter as he held the door open for them. Chance helped Petra into the back seat, then he climbed in after her, the reporter still recording. “Help a brother out,” the guy pleaded. “You’re CEO of the biggest network that caters to black folks, and they want to know if you and Ms. Gaines are married, and if so, why you chose to do it in Vegas. Couldn’t you give her the wedding of her dreams if she’s the woman you love?”

  Chance turned his back on the reporter, and continued to block the guy’s view of Petra. The driver got into the car and pulled away from the curb. “I’m sorry about that, Mr. Youngblood,” he said with sincerity.

  “It’s not your fault,” Chance told the driver. Although it might be, he thought suspiciously. Anyone could have told that reporter where to find him and Petra.

  Concerned about Petra’s state of mind, he held her close to his side. “It could have been worse,” he whispered. “Hopefully, we won’t run into more of them at the airport.”

  They were flying commercial. He didn’t use the company jet excep
t for emergencies, like when they had to get to Adam quickly, or specifically for business. Trips for pleasure were done the regular way, just like everyone else.

  She looked at him with sober eyes. “Is that what I have to expect by being on TV?”

  “They’re annoying,” Chance told her. “However, most of them know their boundaries. If you don’t speak to them, they move on to something more salacious. The good news is, those promos for the show are reaching an audience. He knew who you were.”

  “Lucky me,” Petra said sarcastically.

  He coaxed her to relax and sit back on the car seat. She laid her head on his shoulder. “I haven’t even told my sisters we were going to elope. They’re going to freak out when they see that online. Do they even check their facts before broadcasting gossip all over the internet?”

  “That’s another reason I don’t talk to them,” Chance told her. “No matter what you say, they’re going to say what they want to. When you’re in the public domain, they can say what they want, with the exception of slanderous comments that they can be sued for. They know how far to go. And Youngblood Media has many lawyers on retainer who’re always happy to get litigious if the need arises.”

  He placed his hand on her stomach. “How’re you feeling today?”

  “I’m great,” she said softly, looking deep into his eyes. Leaning toward his ear, she whispered, “I think marriage agrees with me.”

  “Me, too,” he said, and kissed her gently on the mouth.

  * * *

  They were not accosted at Las Vegas International Airport; however, when they got off the plane at JFK, there were several reporters waiting to hopefully interview them. Petra guessed the reporter who failed to get a comment in Las Vegas had alerted NYC colleagues, because these reporters were from the same gossip show.

  Chance made sure a car was waiting to take them to Harlem, and once they were through the reporters, they got in it and the driver sped off.

  “I see the news has spread,” Chance said to her once they were alone. “You probably should phone your family and let them know what to expect. I’ll phone mine.”

  Petra didn’t look forward to phoning her parents, but she knew it was the right thing to do. She would prefer to tell her sisters she had eloped. They wouldn’t be judgmental. They would be happy for her and congratulate her. Her mother, on the other hand, would want to know why she’d chosen to elope. Didn’t she know that parents dreamed of being present when their children got married? Didn’t she know that parents, especially if they had daughters, considered it a rite of passage to symbolically give their daughter away to the man of her choice?

  She dialed her mother’s cell phone number. When her mom answered, Petra said, “Hi, Momma. How’re you and Dad?”

  “Congratulations,” was the first word out of her mother’s mouth. “I was just online, and guess what popped up in the entertainment section of my home page?”

  Petra frowned, which caused Chance to frown too. She placed her hand over the cell phone and said, “She knows.”

  He gave her a sympathetic look. Petra spoke into the receiver. “Exactly what did you hear?”

  “That you and Chance got married in Las Vegas!” her mother almost shouted. “Some woman who was also waiting to get married was interviewed. She said she would recognize Chance anywhere, but she didn’t know who the pretty lady he was marrying was.”

  “Excuse me a minute, Momma.” She related what her mother had said to Chance. “Mystery solved about who called the gossipmongers.”

  To her mother, she said, “I hope you’re sitting down, Momma.”

  “Give me a second,” said her mother. “All right, I’m sitting.”

  “It’s true, we got married yesterday. And more good news—I’m expecting.” She waited on pins and needles for her mother’s reaction.

  Her mother screamed. Petra held the phone away from her ear. Then she heard her father’s calm voice. “Petra,” said her dad, “we’re happy for you, darlin’. Your mother is unable to speak right now. She’s too busy dancing around the room, actin’ a fool. That’s a good sign. Put Chance on the phone.”

  Petra did her father’s bidding. Chance smiled as he held the phone to his ear. “Mr. Gaines?”

  Petra cried, “Put it on speaker!”

  Chance did and then held the phone away from his ear. “I’m here, Mr. Gaines,” he prompted her father.

  “Chance,” said Alphonse Gaines. “Welcome to the family. I know you two didn’t do things the way most of us deem is the proper way, but the results are the same and we couldn’t be happier for you and Petra. Virginia and I were already on the way to becoming parents when we married, too. So you’re not alone.”

  Petra could have died from shock then and there. That meant Lauren had been a bun in the oven when her parents tied the knot.

  She could hear her mother in the background calling her dad a blabbermouth. She laughed softly.

  “Thank you, Mr. Gaines,” said Chance. “I’m honored to be a part of the family.”

  “Take care of my little girl,” Alphonse said.

  “I will, sir,” Chance promised. “With all of my heart, I will!”

  “That’s good enough,” Alphonse intoned. “Goodbye, now. Your mother-in-law is about to kill me.”

  “Good luck, sir,” said Chance.

  “I’ll need it,” Alphonse replied, just before hanging up.

  Chuckling, Chance handed Petra’s cell phone back to her. “I really love your parents.”

  Petra gave a contented sigh. After that conversation, she loved her parents more than ever.

  Their revelation about their shotgun wedding, though, weighed on her conscience. She phoned Lauren.

  “I was getting ready to call you,” Lauren said without saying hello. “Then Momma and Daddy phoned me and told me I was on the way when they got married. Obviously it’s something that upsets Mom, but hey, these things happen.”

  Petra breathed a sigh of relief that she was saved from having to tell Lauren. She went on to tell Lauren why their parents had phoned her and spilled the beans.

  Lauren laughed. “Oh, Dad let it slip. I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes!”

  Both of them laughed at that. Then Petra said, “You heard about me and Chance, too, then?”

  “That you’re married? I heard that on TMZ. Chance did a good job of keeping your face off that video, by the way. This is so bizarre. We tell each other everything. But regardless, I do want to say congratulations, and I love you!”

  “I love you, too,” Petra said. “And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you all we were planning to elope. Chance and I kept it to ourselves. But I am telling you now that we’re expecting. I guess Mom and Dad were leaving that up to me to tell you. I just got off the phone with them.”

  Screaming in someone’s ear obviously was a trait passed down by Virginia because Lauren also screamed shrilly in her ear. “Didn’t I tell you that you would be next?”

  “Yes, you did,” Petra said, remembering that day she’d been playing with C.J. and Lauren had walked in to try her hand at making her give Chance a try instead of running from love.

  “You let yourself get caught, sis,” Lauren said, laughing.

  Petra smiled into Chance’s eyes. He seemed to be enjoying her end of the conversation. “Yeah, I let myself be caught and I couldn’t be happier. Okay, sis, love you. I’m going to phone the other girls now. Give my nephew a kiss for me.”

  “Will do,” Lauren said warmly.

  After she’d hung up, Petra smiled at Chance. “Now I see why people post news on Facebook. Informing everybody takes time.”

  “My turn. I’ll phone Mom. Dad loses his phone too often,” Chance responded, dialing a number on his cell phone. He cleared his throat before speaking: “Mom, I guess you’ve heard.”

  * * *

 
Unlike Petra’s mother and sister, Chance was greeted with laughter instead of screaming from his mother. He put his hand over the phone and whispered to Petra, “She can’t stop laughing.”

  He put the phone on speaker. Petra’s eyes lit up when she heard his mother’s tinkling laughter. “I thought you were going to hit that guy when he said you could have given Petra a dream wedding instead of going to Vegas. And have you two seen the story on TMZ online? The headline is, Youngblood Media CEO Gets Jungle Fever.” She laughed some more. “The good news is, this is great publicity for the show. Now, to the important point here, son. You are not going to cheat me and our joint families out of a wedding. For this little stunt, you owe us a church wedding.”

  “Mom, that’s not why I phoned,” Chance interrupted her. “Well, yes, I phoned to tell you we got married yesterday, but that’s not all. Petra and I are expecting a baby.” He waited expectantly for a scream this time, and his mother didn’t disappoint him.

  She shouted, “James! James! Our baby is going to be a father! Petra is pregnant!”

  His father was on the line in two seconds flat. He was laughing hysterically, too. “Good God,” he said once he had his laughter under control. “Our first grandchild. You’ve made us so proud, my boy, so proud! Debra, go crack open the champagne. We’re toasting to the newlyweds and expectant parents!”

  He heard his mother giggling in the background, and then the sounds of her going through cabinets in the kitchen where the two of them had apparently been when he’d phoned.

  Soon, there was the distinct sound of a cork being pulled from a champagne bottle, followed by the drink being poured into flutes, no doubt—his mother had a habit of always matching the appropriate glass with the appropriate beverage.

  “To you and Petra!” his father said. Chance heard the tinkling of glasses being touched together, then he imagined his parents drinking from their flutes.