“That’s one way to put it. And you know what happens sometimes when people have sex? Try and stay with me. I know your intelligence is surprisingly limited for such a successful businessman.”
Blake sat back hard in his chair, understanding beginning to dawn, along with utter shock. “Kelly, I—”
“No, Blake, I. You don’t get to take over this one, even if you were a part of it. I, Blake. I’m pregnant.”
Even though he’d heard it coming, Blake almost dropped the phone. He took a deep breath and put it up to his ear again, worried that he had misheard what she had said.
“I said that I’m pregnant,” Kelly repeated. “In case you didn’t hear it the first time. Pregnant. Knocked up, Blake. Is that clear enough for you?
“Are you sure?” he blurted and Kelly’s laughter was chillingly bitter.
“Yes, I am positive. In fact, I have several positive tests to prove it,” she replied.
“Are you sure it’s mine?” Blake asked, before his brain caught up to his lips.
He could hear by the sharp breath she took that he had hit way too low that time.
“Yes, Blake. I know without a doubt that this child is yours. It’s ours, actually, and that means you are going to have to be more involved in my life whether you like it or not. I don’t know why you keep pulling back and hiding from me, when what we have—had—is something special, but you can’t do that when you have a kid. Do you understand?” The anger in her voice faded to sadness that left Blake as guilt-ridden as he was bowled over by the news. “I could have kept it a secret. I chose to tell you because I think you deserve the chance to be a father.”
His instinct was to blurt that he would pay for the kid, of course, take care of all its necessities, but then the image of him offering Kelly many before came floating to the fore and he caught himself and instead asked softly, “What are we going to do?”
At that, Kelly’s voice once again came sharply through the line. “What did you say?”
“Kelly, I don’t know what to do,” he replied, and she laughed once more.
“Oh Blake, tell me what else is new,” she said. “Why did I even try? I should have known. Forget you.”
The dial tone came through the phone as she hung up on him, leaving Blake feeling like he’d been snake-bitten all over again, only this time he’d done the poisoning.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Kelly
Six Weeks Later
“Kell. I’m sorry,” Anna said sympathetically, reaching across the diner’s table to touch her arm. “Could he be more of an asshole?”
“Knowing Blake, I wouldn’t put it past him.” Kelly mindlessly stirred her caffeine-free iced tea. “It’s my fault too, you know.”
“Kelly—”
“No. It is,” Kelly insisted. “Not the pregnancy thing. I mean, yes, I obviously share in the blame, and so does the pill. But mostly, I should never have gotten involved with the kind of man who is obviously never able to make up his mind or commit about anything that isn’t business-related.” She laughed sadly. “Anna, if we were married—” the thought send a stab of pain through her, because if she allowed herself to, she could see all the good times they might’ve had—“he’d have a steady mistress. His work. He loves it more than breathing, eating, sleeping. Or me,” she finished quietly, scooting back a little so the waitress could put a bowl of chicken noodle soup in front of her. “Thanks.”
“Plenty of women raise their kids alone,” Anna reminded her. “You’ve worked too hard and been through too much to simply let something like this get in the way of her dreams. Kelly, you’re going to be an amazing mom.”
Kelly blinked back tears—she’d cried more in the last months than she had in her whole life, damn Blake and hormones—and tried a tentative mouthful of soup, praying it would stay down.
“You’ll teach your baby,” Anna went on, “that no matter what, they can make anything they want in life happen. Anything.”
“I couldn’t make him love me.”
“You know what I mean,” Anna chided. “You’re going to raise your baby with the same courage your mom raised you. You’ll make sure your child knows the value of standing on his or her own two feet. You will, Kelly. Even after just a few months, I know that about you.”
With a sigh, Kelly put her hands on her stomach and looked down at herself. She wasn’t far along at all, and from the outside, there was no way to tell that she was with child.
“You know I can’t stay at the gallery.”
“What?” Anna said in total shock. “Wait. Why? Kelly! You’re not thinking of quitting!”
“I already did,” Kelly said tiredly, and it took the next hour to explain her reasoning to her well-meaning, extremely unhappy friend.
***
“Okay, thank you for getting back to me so soon. Yes, I have a job lined up just up the street from there. I do have the money for the first and last month’s rent. Yes, I understand that. No, it’s just me for now—in a few months there is going to be a little one to join me. Thank you.” Kelly hung up the phone and took a deep breath.
She looked around the apartment she was no longer going to get to keep. It had been three weeks since she had told Blake that she was expecting, and major changes were taking place in her life, yet again.
More rain in my life recently than in the middle of a freaking hurricane.
In the end, her decision had come down to multiple factors, which Kelly ruminated over as she moved around slowly, continuing packing up her belongings, which had multiplied since she’d arrived in New York.
One factor was Blake. She wanted nothing to do with him anymore, frankly. He’d hurt her one too many times, and a girl could only take so much. When his kid was born, she’d figure something out so he could be involved, if he even wanted to be. But for the time being, she didn’t want him—or Hawk—to know where she was.
Then there was working at the gallery, which required her to be constantly on her feet. She had to lift heavy pieces of artwork and worked many evenings, curating shows for young local talents that she’d followed around the city for research purposes—more footwork. Maybe if she hadn’t been so sick, she could have worked out a compromise, but the doctor had now confirmed that she had hyperemesis gravidarum, basically meaning that she puked a whole lot more in her pregnancy than other women did. It might quit. It might not. But intense physical activity was a recipe for disaster. So Kelly had given up her dream job.
Of course, that had meant she was also going to have to move out of the apartment, and though it was something she thought was upsetting at first, she decided that overall it was going to be a good thing. The last thing she needed in this studio was to have the neighbors banging on her door and telling her that her child was being too loud when she couldn’t get her baby to fall back asleep in the morning.
Though there was sadness in the fact she was leaving, Kelly did her best to be as optimistic as possible. She was going to miss this apartment, and she was going to miss all the things that it represented in her life, but most of all, she was going to miss Blake.
“How many times in six weeks?” Anna asked from nearby, where she was taping a box closed, and reading Kelly’s mind as always.
“Once. Just once,” Kelly said with a sigh. “The man know he’s going to be a father and he doesn’t even bother to follow up with me to see if I’m healthy. If the baby—his baby, our baby—is healthy. Or if we need anything. God. How did I misjudge his character so badly? I just can’t stay here anymore, Anna. You understand by now? Right?”
Reluctantly, Anna nodded. “Keeping the job you still think he helped you get … it’s making you feel as though you have the chance to be with him somehow. Even if it’s just going to dinner every now and then.”
Kelly nodded, kneeling carefully, keeping a close eye on the nausea, and reaching for the same bubble wrap she’d used to pack her paintings out of Element Island. Now more than ever, she needed to be thrifty
.
“I want a relationship with the man, but it’s not going to happen. He doesn’t want anything to do with me, Anna. How much more obvious could it be?
“He’s an idiot,” Anna said firmly. “It’s his loss, girl. All his. Think about it. You’d probably have to take care of him as much as your baby, he’s got such a juvenile mentality. I know your heart is broken, but besides that, losing him is all gain for you.”
“I can’t lose what I never had,” Kelly replied quietly and Anna hugged her sideways.
“Can your stomach handle pizza?”
Kelly smiled faintly. “Doubtful. But order it anyway. I’m always willing to try.”
As Anna got up to find her cellphone, Kelly get packing and thinking things over. The bottom-line was that Blake’s flight instinct was too strong for her to really trust him, and if he were ever interested in earning her trust again, he would have to start by proving that he was someone who she could depend upon at the best of times and at the worst of times. She wasn’t about to put her baby’s
well-being in jeopardy just because a billionaire man-child didn’t have a sense of responsibility.
She’d tried one last time to reason with Blake, writing him a letter and hand-delivering it to the office. She’d made it look as official as possible, praying the secretary would deliver it. Assuming he’d received it and read her words, asking him to please man up and be responsible for his baby. She’d let him off the hook about their own relationship, telling him she got it. He wasn’t interested. All she’d asked was that he please consider giving his baby a father. She had refrained from reminding him that her own dad had been a deadbeat, which had resulted in her mother’s difficult life.
But she hadn’t heard back. Of course.
Kelly shook her head, too tired to cry any longer. Brooklyn would be good. She would be able to afford the cost of living a lot better and would be able to save a little, putting it toward her baby’s future needs. Everything from here on out was about the baby. She had no resentment about that at all, and patted her stomach, whispering,
“It’s just you and me for now, Bean. Maybe one day your daddy will want to meet you. He’s not a bad man. Not at all. Just lost. Maybe he’ll grow up around the same time you do.”
“Pie’s on its way,” Anna announced, walking back in and smiling as she caught Kelly in mid-conversation. “Hi, Bean. Your mama’s one awesome lady.”
Smiling in spite of the sadness, Kelly hugged her friend and they went on the business of her packing her whole life up all over again.
It’ll be a new beginning. This one was good. The next one will be even better.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Blake
“She’s not answering my calls,” Blake said in frustration, slamming down his phone so hard the conference room table rattled.
Irritatingly, Cole laughed. “Now you know how it feels. It’s awesome to know you’re being ignored by the one you love. She tried so hard to give you the news about the baby—you must have pissed her off royally for her to have gone off the grid like this. Kelly doesn’t strike me as someone who just quits.”
“She walked out on me in the hospital,” Blake began, then caught himself. It had been a long time coming, but he was finally manning up. “Because of everything I said. Right. Okay. I have to find her.”
He leaned back in his chair, mentally running through avenues he could pursue to chase Kelly down. Because he would find her. He had to, for any number of reasons, first and foremost to apologize and promise he’d be there for her and the baby, if she would possibly still let him. And even she refused, he wouldn’t give up. Not this time.
“I’m terrified,” Blake said bluntly, glancing sideways at Cole. “How the fuck are you handling impending fatherhood without losing your shit every few minutes? It’s a whole life depending on—”
“Who says I’m not losing my shit?” Cole interrupted in amusement. “You ought to see me I’m excited for Dana to have the baby, but I can tell you without a doubt that I am terrified. I have no idea what I am doing, and I don’t think that I magically will at the end of a few months, to be honest.” Cole shook his head with a laugh, and Blake gave him a look. It did make him feel better that Cole didn’t think he was completely ready to be a parent either, but at the same time, it didn’t take away all his stress.
“I just don’t want to be the same kind of dad that Dad was.” There. He’d said it. The three brothers never spoke of their dad in any tone that wasn’t respectful, but now he’d laid the facts bare.
“Business was his baby,” Hawk said from across the room, where he was messing with a chair that Blake wanted to replace, but which Hawk insisted was fixable. “We were just the heirs.”
It wasn’t something Blake ever thought much about, but Hawk was right. His father had been gone almost his entire childhood, drifting in and out every few weeks. When he’d been there, he’d been a nice guy, yeah, but he’d missed every birthday, football game, graduation, and major life event in between. He and his boys hadn’t even had a semblance of a conversation until they turned 18 and were suddenly summoned each in their own turn to discuss “The Family Business.”
“If you don’t want to be that kind of dad, then don’t be that kind of dad,” Hawk went on.
Blake looked at him with raised eyebrows. “Oh, and you suddenly know what it’s like to be a parent? You hardly know how to hold down a job, so how do you think you are qualified to give parenting advice?”
Cole rolled his eyes. “At this point, Hawk’s more qualified than you are, Blake. So shut up and listen for a change.”
Admittedly humbled, Blake did as he was told.
“I’m not a father and I don’t ever intend to be one,” Hawk said, unperturbed. “But I can tell you this. I am going to be one kick ass uncle, and I will do anything for my nieces or nephews. When you two piss them off, I’ll be the guy they come to in order to blow off steam.” Hawk gave his brothers a trademark smirk before going back to messing with one of the chair’s casters.
“I figure Dana’s going to help me figure things out,” Cole admitted. “It’s not fair to put even more responsibility on her than already carrying and delivering our baby, and I’m reading all the books and taking all the classes, but it seems like moms just get it automatically more than dads, maybe. Or that could be BS. I don’t know. All I’m saying is, Dana and I are going to lean majorly on each other. No reason you can’t do the same with Kelly. Parenthood has to be a partnership.”
Somewhere along the line, Cole, at the very least, had outgrown them all, Blake reflected, shaking his head. “The question is whether Kelly has any interest left in partnering with me.”
“Have you talked to Kelly about it?” Hawk asked, his voice muffled as he shoved his head up under the chair.
“She’s not answering my calls,” Blake reminded him. “She doesn’t want to talk to me anymore. Not that I blame her in the slightest. I should’ve called her immediately after that conversation.” He swore and massaged the cramp that had suddenly hit his thigh, making it tighten so painfully that beads of sweat dotted his forehead. Through gritted teeth, he went on, “I was in shock. It’s not an excuse. I’ve screwed this up from the very first day I met her. There’s no way she’ll ever want to talk to me again.”
“Dude, in my experience, chicks always want to talk, especially when they’re mad at you,” Hawk said wryly. “I bet you she’s probably just as freaked out about this as you are and is hoping you’ll chase her down and make things right.”
“Trying,” Blake reminding him yet again. “Her work won’t tell me where she lives, for obvious reasons. I put a private eye on it. I know, I know,” he preempted his brothers’ protests. “Maybe that was a mistake too. Whatever. I need to see her. And I can only do that if I can find her.” He was about to continue when at that moment Lisa, his personal assistant, knocked on the door.
“Excuse me, but if you aren’t busy, there’s a man here who s
ays he urgently needs to speak with you.
***
“What do you mean it was empty?” Blake bellowed.
Nicholas, the private eye currently sitting across from the three Parker brothers, didn’t flinch. “The landlord says she vacated the premises two weeks ago, which concurs with the timeline of when she quit her job.”
“Quit her what?” Blake was sure his head was starting to spin. “Why would she do that, for God’s sake? Kelly’s a smart woman. She chased me down to tell me about the kid, not to ask me for money. I know that as deeply as I know that I’m an ass. But how is she planning on providing for her baby—our baby, dammit—without work?”
“New job,” Nicholas said simply. “I’m working on tracking her next steps. It may take a few more days.”
“Then what are you doing sitting here? Get out there and track!” Blake roared.
Calmly, Nicholas gathered up the documents he’d brought along with him and departed the room. Once the door closed, Blake’s brothers finally weighed in.
“Piss off the PI who’s canvassing the city for your girl. Nice move. Brother, you really may want to consider some kind of therapy and/or medication,” Cole informed him.
“You better be paying him a hell of a lot,” Hawk added. “I wouldn’t take that shit.”
Blake could not have cared less about the exceedingly-well-compensated PI’s feeling. “I can’t believe she’s just gone—where the hell would she go?”
“Screw the PI,” Hawk said succinctly. “You want advice, Blake? Listen close, because I’m not repeating this. You’ve screwed up and screwed up and screwed up some more. Now is the time to put things right. Think.” He leaned forward intently. “You were the one who spent the most time with her. You know that girl. I’m guessing you might know her better than you know yourself. What do you think she would do in a time like this? You love her. You’ve never loved anybody before. Odds are you know her well enough to know the kind of decision she would be making.” Hawk looked at him square in the eye, and Blake clenched his jaw, nodding, and thinking. Hard.
Dared to Love (The Billionaire Parker Brothers Book 3) Page 10