by Sherie Keys
"Hello, Brandy!" he said with a smile.
"Hi." Her throat was sore from crying and he knew that she sounded off.
"What's going on? You don't sound good. Are you alright?" Concern gripped his heart.
She didn't know how she was going to say it or continue, but she knew she couldn't go back, she knew she had no choice but to move forward and go through with the intention for her phone call.
"Kyle... I'm so sorry. I have given a lot of thought to it and I just can't see you anymore,” she said quietly.
There was silence on the other end of the line and he listened to her words, but they strangled him and he couldn't find a way to speak. He wasn't sure he had heard her right. There had to be a mistake.
"What?" he asked uncertainly.
She closed her eyes and drawing a deep breath, she forced herself to say it again. "Kyle, I need to stop seeing you. This has to be it for us." Her voice sounded weak, though her words were strong.
He blinked and his heart began to ache horribly as tears stung at his eyes. "What... why are you saying this? What happened? What are you talking about?" He couldn't figure out how to express his confusion at what she told him.
"I love you, Kyle, and the more I'm with you, the more I fall in love with you. I can't keep seeing you when you don't love me back. It hurts too much. I'm sorry. I didn't know I was going to fall in love with you. That wasn't part of the plan at all; it just kind of happened, and now here we are.
“I'm in love with you and you don't love me, and I'm only going to keep on being your paid lover for as long as you want me in your arms, and that's not enough for me anymore. It was at first, but it's not now. I want more now, Kyle. I want you, and I can't have you, and you don't want me. That leaves me with nothing, so it's time for me to go."
She couldn't believe she had said it; she had gotten it out and told him just what she had been thinking and feeling, and as she heard the words come from her, she knew that she was doing the right thing, but she didn't know it would hurt her as much as it did. Her heart felt like it was ripping in half.
Kyle couldn't believe what he was hearing. She was breaking up with him.
"Wait!" he said anxiously. "There has to be something we can work out... something we can do! I can't let you go like this. I can't lose you!" He felt a pain tearing at his heart; a pain he had never known, and he didn't know what to do.
She shook her head. "There's nothing we can do, Kyle; you don't love me. You aren't leaving your wife for me. There is no future for us as a real couple. I'm just a paid lover to you, and I can't keep on going like this. It hurts me too much. I have to let you go,” she told him through tears.
He was astounded. "I don't know what to say to you," he told her as he found himself lost in bewilderment.
"Say goodbye to me,” she answered him sadly. "I'm so sorry it has to be this way, but I just can't keep hurting myself by staying with a man who doesn't love me back or want me like that. I'm sorry. I want the best for you, too." She bit her lip and then added. "I love you. Goodbye." And with that, she hung up.
Kyle held his silent phone in his hand and tried to draw a breath, but his heart was breaking and wracked with pain and he didn't know how to make it stop. He set the phone down and sat in a chair, staring straight ahead to nothing. She was leaving him because she loved him too much to be with him. It was a cruel irony, and one he was not at all prepared to deal with.
He felt numb all over his body as he sat there and tried to work out the thoughts in his mind and the emotions in his heart. They were a riot of chaos and he could find no way to untangle them.
He tried to tell himself that it was fine that she was gone. He hadn't really meant for anything to start between them anyway; he was a married man and had developed a weakness for her because he was profoundly lonely and she was the only woman who touched him intimately in his weekly massages. She was the only other woman he confided anything to, and he hadn't confided anything to his wife in so long that he realized it would be a more honest statement to say that he only confided in Brandy.
He thought over their conversation for a long time and in the end, he realized that she had been right. She was in love with him and he was determined not to be in love with her. How could he be, he wondered to himself. If he let himself believe his own heart, then he would be in love with one woman and married to another, and that was going to make an even bigger mess than the one he had already created for himself.
He told himself that it was the right time to let her go, as his own feelings were growing stronger for her and if he had any hope of keeping from falling in love with her, then letting her go now was the best thing he could do.
With his heart broken and his body aching with the pain, he took a deep breath and told himself that she was right and it was the best thing to do. He told himself to let her go.
Brandy spent the next week feeling horribly sick and sad, crying herself to sleep every night struggling with the pain of trying to get over him. She went to school, she went to work, and she did not hear from him at all. She was worrying, however, about her health. She had been throwing up every day, more than once a day, since just before she broke up with Kyle and it had begun to worry her.
When her period didn't show up on time, then she knew that things might have gotten worse than she had originally thought that they might be. She went to the drugstore and bought a few pregnancy tests. When she got home, her heart beating rapidly in her chest and her body tense with nausea, she opened the first one and read over the instructions three times before she performed the test and then waited for the results. She was sure that those were the three longest minutes of her life. The test showed positive. She opened the second test and repeated the procedure, and waited. It also showed positive. After the third test told her that it was indeed true and there was no getting around it, she looked at her reflection in the mirror and began to cry.
She was going to have a baby. Her options ran through her mind and she knew that there was only one thing she could do. She had to keep her baby. She couldn't let it go. The realization of the truth and the look at the road ahead filled her with uncertainty and despair, but when it came to the child in her womb, there was only one choice, as far as she was concerned.
She called Alice and her friend came to her house. When Alice saw her, she knew that something was horribly wrong.
She hugged her tight and sat with her. "What is it? What's going on?" she asked worriedly.
Brandy told her. "I'm pregnant."
"Oh no..." Alice said, her eyes wide and her voice low. "Have you told Kyle?"
"No," she admitted. "I don't know how I'm going to do that. We broke up. I told him it was over between us, and now it is far from over between us. I don't know how I'm going to call him back and tell him that I'm having his child. He doesn't love me, so how is he going to love this baby?" She wasn't at all sure what she was going to do about telling him that she was going to have his child.
Alice sighed and held her hand. "Well, you have to tell him solely because he has a right to know, but beyond that, the choices he makes will be up to him. You can tell him and then leave the ball in his court.
“All of your plans should be for you and your child, and not considering him in any of those plans unless he chooses to be a part of them. He needs to support you financially, and he obviously has the means to do so, but you can't make plans around what he may or may not want to do until you talk to him. One thing is certain though; you are not through with him. Not for the rest of your life."
That truth cut at Brandy's heart and she sighed heavily. She didn't know how she was going to tell him, but she knew Alice was right. She had to tell him. She had to let him know; it was only right. If he decided that he was going to be a part of their child's life in any capacity, he was going to be around her and there was no getting away from that. She was never going to be done with him now.
"What are you going to concentrate on now?" Alic
e asked her softly. "What's your plan?"
Brandy leaned back in her chair and drank her water. "I'm going to keep going to school as long as I can, and I'm going to keep working; I have to, there's no way I can afford to go to school and live in New York and have a baby. So, I'll just have to try to find a way to make it all work. Hopefully, he can help me with it."
She closed her eyes and then looked back at her friend. "Isn't that ironic timing? I break up with him and he doesn't want me to go, and then I find out I'm pregnant, and now I have to call him back up and let him back into my life."
Alice nodded. "It's ironic, alright."
***
Kyle's phone rang, and he saw that it was an unfamiliar phone number.
"Hello?" he answered.
"Hello lover..." a sultry feminine voice drawled out.
Kyle pursed his lips. "Let me guess; Candice?" he asked with a sigh.
"See? You know me already. Good," she answered him. "When can I come and see you?" she asked in her hungry drawl.
"You can't come see me, Candice. We are not going to be lovers. I'm not interested in your offer."
"Are you sure, Kyle? Because you know that if you don't take me on as your lover, I'm going to get into contact with your wife and tell her all about your little tryst that weekend on the island. She'll be none too-"
He cut her off. "Candice, don't threaten me. That might work for some of the younger men who are afraid of you, but I really don't care what you do. You see, you aren't the only one who can play that game.
“I can just as easily tell all of your friends as well as Veronica's, how you tried to blackmail me into screwing you and that I turned you down flat because I'd rather have you go to my wife with something that you know nothing about, than have you laying beneath me in a bed. You are a disgusting woman with idle threats and no sense of self. Don't ever call me again."
He hung up the phone, and was certain that in her circle of friends, if any of them found out that she had been turned down the way she was, it would be horribly embarrassing for her. He was sure that he had just rid himself of the problem of Candice.
Chapter7
Brandy had just finished a massage when Hannah called her to the front desk.
"You've had a special request last minute appointment,” she told her. "Your lady is in the sauna right now. She'll be in to your room in about five minutes, so please go prepare for her,” Hannah said.
"Thanks!" Brandy replied. She was grateful for whatever extra money she could get now, knowing she would need it soon enough. She went back to her massage room and readied it for her next client.
She had moved things in it around and redecorated a little bit; there were too many memories of her in that room with Kyle. She felt that with even a little change in the look of it, she'd be able to make new memories and let go of the old ones that broke her heart when she thought about them. It was bad enough thinking about the future when she would have to tell Kyle that she was carrying his baby, without living in the past and constantly reminiscing about things that they had done that had made the baby.
There was a knock at the door and she opened it to see a stunning blonde woman standing there. She beckoned her in and the woman came and sat in one of the two chairs in the room.
"You're Lorie, right?" Brandy asked with a smile as she reached out her hand to greet her new client.
"No, that's just the name I gave to make my appointment,” the slender blonde woman answered, flashing her blue eyes at Brandy.
Brandy was surprised and stopped short for a moment. "Oh... well, what would you like me to call you?"
The woman stood up slowly and looked down her nose at Brandy. "You can call me Mrs. Jamison. Mrs. Kyle Jamison,” she answered with a wicked smile.
Brandy drew in her breath sharply and her eyes widened.
"You're... you...” she gasped.
The woman nodded. "That's right, you little whore. I'm Kyle's wife."
Brandy covered her mouth with her hand and reached for the table to balance herself a bit better. "I don't know what to-"
Veronica cut her off. "Don't say anything to me. I don't want to heart your voice. Just listen to me." Veronica indicated that Brandy should sit in the chair, and Brandy nodded and sat down, looking up at the wife of her ex-lover who had her fixed in an icy stare.
"So. You are the one. You are the little whore who my dear husband has been screwing. I knew he was coming down here to this place too often. Spending too much time away from home." She shook her head in disgust.
"Well, thanks to one of my dear friends who just happened to see you two while she was out at the island for a weekend getaway, I now know just what's been going on, so don't try to deny it."
Brandy sighed and leaned back in her chair, feeling a little queasy.
"I'm going to tell you what I want you to do, and you're going to listen, and then you're going to have two days to make up your mind and come up with an answer for me." She began to walk back and forth in the small room, pacing slightly like a big cat before it pounces on its prey.
"First, you are going to stop talking to my husband and stop seeing him immediately. I don't want any contact between the two of you at all, for any reason, at any time. That has to happen immediately. Second, you do not tell him you saw me. I don't care how or why you explain it away to him, but you break it off with him today, and then that's it. You're done with him for the rest of your life. Just don't mention my name. Third, if you do that, I'm going to give you a settlement.
“I'll give you fifty thousand dollars to disappear into the night and never come back again; ever. He never hears word one from you again for the rest of both of your lives. Lastly, if you don't do these things, I will inform your boss and demand that she fire you. I will take your immoral behavior to the attention of the state and demand that your license be stripped from you and that you not be allowed to work in massage in New York ever again." She topped pacing and turned fully to face Brandy.
"Do you understand me?"
Brandy understood her just fine. Obviously, the woman didn't know that Brandy had already broken up with Kyle. That part of it aside, she was demanding that Brandy stay out of his life for good. That was going to be hard to do with a baby. She thought of what Veronica had said about her losing her job and her license, and again, her thoughts went to her baby.
She couldn't live without a job and her career, much less try to raise a baby without those things, but she also couldn't keep the truth from Kyle and not tell him about his child. She thought about the money that Veronica had told her she'd give her for her exit and silence, and it was a good offer, but it wasn't going to allow her to tell Kyle about the baby or allow him to be a part of the baby's life. It could help her in a new life, though, a life on her own with the baby and without Kyle. "I don't know what to say yet. I am going to need some time to think about this. It's a lot to consider," Brandy told her quietly.
Veronica nodded. "I don't think there's that much to consider, but I will give you two days. At the end of two days, I want an answer. If you are a smart girl, you will take my offer. My husband loves me and he is never going to leave me, so don't go getting any romantic ideas in your head that he will ever be interested in being with you or that he will ever leave me for you, because that is never going to happen.
“He's mine, he's staying with me, and there's nothing you can do about that. If you have any brains at all, you will just take the money I am offering you and get the hell out of here. You'll never talk to him or see him again, and nothing will change that."
She walked to the door and opened it, looking over her shoulder at Brandy. "I'll be back in two days. I want an answer. Think carefully about this. The choice you make is going to affect the rest of your life."
With that, she turned and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her. Brandy stayed seated in the chair, not sure what to do, or how to go about fixing the situation. She called Alice and asked her to meet f
or coffee.
Half an hour later, they were sitting across from each other.
"What's going on? What's this crazy news you have to tell me?" Alice asked impatiently.
Brandy sat down and sighed. "Well, I had a visitor today."
"Who was it? Kyle? Did you tell him about the baby?" she asked; a barrage of questions spilling from her.
"No," Brandy said, leaning closer to Alice. "It was his wife."
Alice's eyes grew enormous and she gasped. "His wife? How did she find out about you?"
Brandy sighed. "Kyle and I were away that weekend when we went to the island, and while we were there, one of Veronica's friends saw us together at an ice-cream parlor, and the friend went and told her about me. I have no idea how she found out my name or where I work, or any of that. Maybe she found it in Kyle's phone."