His Sugar Baby

by Fiona Murphy

  Grant looks at me, he smiles sadly as he shakes his head. “I can’t. I thought I could but I can’t.”

  It shouldn’t hurt so much, I knew this was coming. Except it feels as if he’s ripped my heart out of my chest and tossed it into the canal he’s staring at. Clenching my jaw against the screams I want to let loose I nod. “Okay.” I whisper, “I understand.”

  “Bullshit, you don’t understand a fucking thing!” He’s shaking in his anger, for a split second I freeze in fear of him. He sees it and deflates.

  “You really don’t. I thought you could but I was wrong. I’ll go back with Marshall today. You stay here with Robin then when you figure out what it is you want, call me, and let me know.” Grant’s walking away. I watch him run a hand through his hair then the world goes black.

  I come to with a light shining into my eyes. A very portly older gentleman is speaking Italian with censure at Grant. Grant is nodding, taking the verbal slaps with remorse. Then it all comes back with a force that feels crushing. Pushing the man away, I try to sit up. I need to get out of here, away from Grant, now. “I’m fine, go away.”

  The man frowns at Grant before leaving me alone. He says something to Grant, before he leaves the bedroom. I sit up to find Grant has wrapped me up in a robe. I’m sliding into a skirt when Grant comes back to the room. “I’d like you to get checked out at the local hospital. Once your dressed let me know and we’ll go.”

  “I don’t give a fuck what you would like and I’m not going anywhere with you. Leave. You said you were leaving, fucking go already. I never believed you would make it this far, don’t prove me wrong now.”

  My ring catches the light and seeing it is another punch to the gut. “Take this with you, maybe the next woman you buy will take it.” I tear the ring off and throw it across to where he is standing in the doorway. It hits him in the chest before falling at his feet.

  His hands ball into fists, “Don’t you fucking go putting your shit on me. I did everything for you. I’ve turned my life inside out, I’ve turned myself inside out. I’ve gone back on promises I made to myself for you, everything wasn’t enough.”

  “You stopped hiding behind your keyboard as much for yourself as me, big fucking deal.”

  “The big fucking deal was marrying you when I swore I would never marry anyone, never take that chance. I didn’t realize I was falling in love with you but I knew something was happening, something I should have stopped but I couldn’t.”

  The look of torture on his face has me fighting back tears. “What the hell are you talking about, chance? What chance were you taking? I would have signed a prenup if you wanted to.”

  “That I would do to you what my father did to my mother. Maybe it’s all better this way.”

  “What did your father do to your mother?” He shakes his head, he turns to leave. “If you walk out that door and stop talking, you’ll never see me again. I mean it, me or the baby. I’ll go to Frank. He’ll help me disappear. I’m sick of doing all the talking. Right now talk, damn it.” Even though I told him to leave, told him I’d run and hide the idea of never seeing him again terrifies me. I’m grasping at any reason to keep him from walking out.

  “My mother committed suicide because my father cared more about his work than he did her. When I figured out I cared more about getting back to work than the women who slept in my bed one after the other, I promised myself I would never get married. I didn’t want to do the same thing to a woman as my father had done to my mother. I refused to even take the chance, until you.”

  The look on his face has me breathing deeply trying not to cry for him. He shakes his head, running his hand through his hair. “Keep talking, there’s more to it than that.”

  “My dad treated my mom like a servant he had to put up with. He was an engineer for an aerospace company. His life was his work, it was the only thing he cared about. My mom and I were afterthoughts, annoyances, inconvenient intrusions to his work. Sound like anyone you know?

  “At the time, all I knew was I hated the way he ignored my mom when she tried so damned hard to get his attention. She twisted herself into something I don’t think she even recognized.

  “When I was younger he was surprised and pleased by my intelligence, my mom quit teaching to focus on me to please him. She loved teaching and she was a really great teacher. At her funeral there were maybe thirty or forty of her former students there and they were sadder about her death than my father.

  “By the time I was nine though, he had lost interest again and she started having affairs. At first she was careful, but not really, she wanted to be caught. Then when she was caught and he really didn’t care she became depressed. She would leave for days, then weeks.

  I know sometimes it was with other men, but she also spent time with her sister in Oregon. I started to hate her then. I was angry at the way she kept leaving. Then I got even angrier that she kept coming back.”

  Hearing the confusion and pain he went through, I hate his mother for what she put him through. “Why did she keep coming back?”

  “Because she loved him.”

  “Did she ever take you with her?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?” I shudder at the idea of Grant being left alone with a father who barely remembered he was there for weeks at a time.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think she knew. By the time I was fourteen I couldn’t take it anymore. I told her I wanted to take the entrance exam for MIT and go the next year. She lost it completely, told me I couldn’t go because then she would be alone. Considering the way she kept leaving, I was surprised by her reaction. I kind of thought I was a part of the reason she kept coming back, and if I left she would feel free to leave and stay gone.”

  “You stayed for her.” My heart aches for him.

  “Yeah, for a while after, she was more like her old self. But gradually it started all over again. When I turned sixteen and sold my first program I felt I’d bought my way out. I talked to my father instead of my mother and he was more than happy to let me go to MIT.

  “He assured me the money I’d received for the sale of the program was mine to spend as I wanted. He gave me a debit card then moved the money from savings to checking. It was all on me to get myself to MIT, then he told me to close the door on my way out of his office.

  “I didn’t tell my mother. I just left. I called when I landed in Boston but she never answered. I never talked to her again, a week later she killed herself. She called her sister to tell her the why, and where to find her body.”

  “Why did she do it?” What I want to ask is how could a mother do something so cruel to her son.

  “My aunt said it was because she was depressed and she never got the help she needed and that’s all I needed to know. I went through her computer and found about a dozen half-written suicide letters. Basically, she felt with me gone she had no one and nothing to care about anymore.

  “This, us, it wasn’t supposed to happen but it did. It never crossed my mind to fight it. This would be different because he didn’t love her. I love you, so we were going to be different. Only you... I don’t know Anne. You tell me. Can you not love anyone or is it just me?”

  The pain in his eyes cuts me deep almost as deeply as when he told me he couldn’t marry me. I don’t know what to say, all I know is pain right now. I need time to make sense of the jumble of emotions I’m feeling. Grant says my name. I look up.

  “If you ever run, it will never be far enough. I’ll find you.” His blue eyes are as cold as ice.

  It’s a vow that sends a shiver up my spine. This time when he turns to leave I don’t stop him. The door to the suite slams closed so hard the room shakes with the force.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I have no memory of getting to Marshall’s room. I have no idea how long I’ve been standing outside it when the door opens. The minute he sees me he swears. “For fucksake, you didn’t listen to a word I said, did you?”

  “I listene
d to you. I listened and I knew I couldn’t go through with it if she couldn’t recognize she loved me, too.”

  “No, you’re being a fucking female feeling all aggrieved because she didn’t tell you she loved you, too. I’m not feeling a huge amount of affection for this woman because of how she’s turned you inside out, but she does love you.

  “If I hadn’t seen it I wouldn’t still be here now. Okay, yeah I’d be here but I’d be trying to talk you out of it, not telling you that you’re a fucking idiot for thinking of calling it off.”

  “I’m not thinking of calling it off. I called it off. I told her I couldn’t go through with it.” My voice breaks as I say it, then I remember the way she fainted, hitting the floor before I could reach her.

  “She acted like it was no big deal, then she fainted. My fucking life flashed before my eyes when I saw her hit the floor. I couldn’t reach her in time.”

  Marshall pours me a scotch and I take it, throwing it back, needing the burn so I can feel something other than what I’m feeling right now. I hand him my glass for another, with a sigh he fills it again.

  “The doctor thinks she and the baby are okay. He was worried at first about a concussion but he didn’t think she had one after checking her over. I wanted to take her to the hospital to be sure, but she wouldn’t go, told me to fuck off. She threw her ring at me and told me to get the fuck out.” I swallow hard, barely able to get the words out.

  Marshall nods, “That’s good, she should have told you to fuck off a long time ago. I tell you to talk to her, have a fucking discussion with her about her feelings and yours. You do not talk to her, instead you tell her you are not going through with the wedding you planned. The wedding you wanted, that you went through all this trouble to plan.

  “Grant, you know I love you like a brother, but you are fucking lucky the only thing she threw at you was a ring. Right now, if you didn’t look like shit, I’d throw a punch at your dumbass for putting a pregnant, emotionally vulnerable woman through all this shit.”

  Aw fuck, listening to him list it out I want him to take the punch. I hand him my glass. He shakes his head. “No fucking way. You drunk isn’t going to fix this.”

  “I can’t fix this, damn it. She can’t do it. She can’t let go and love me. If she can’t do that, then I can’t trap us in a marriage where she has a foot outside the entire time. I can’t do that to our kid. As much as it hurts now, it’s just me hurting.

  “I don’t want my kids going through this. Anne was quick to call it quits, telling me she never believed we’d make it this far. If she’s always going to be looking for a way out she’ll find one and take it.”

  “Are you seriously telling me you don’t have the guts to wait her out? Which, by the way, is what you should have done. Give her more than a month or two to go from I love you to we need to get married.

  “I get with the baby there would have been an instinct to go there, but you still should have given her a few months to give her time to trust in you. You bought her way into school and you bought a big-ass ring. What you needed to do was put in more time where the focus is on just the two of you.”

  “More time? A month in Italy isn’t more time?”

  “Yeah, but this trip wasn’t really about her. It was to get what you wanted.”

  I shake my head, it wasn’t like that. The room spins. Marshall, pushes me down onto a wide very comfortable couch. “It wasn’t like that.”

  “Shut up and get some sleep.”

  “Call the mayor, cancel the wedding for me. Can you do that?”

  “Yeah, I’ll take care of it.”

  Consciousness comes with too much pain. I roll over to try and go back to sleep. Instead, I fall off the damned couch with a painful thud. Shit, the fall reminds me of Anne fainting and falling, then the whole fucking morning I want to forget.

  Marshall is standing above me. “Jesus man, I was worried you were in a coma. Here, drink some water. You have to be feeling as bad as when you fell asleep, after that fall.”

  Taking the bottle, I down it without stopping. I’m thirsty, and hungry. “What time is it? Did you go check on Anne? Is she okay?”

  “It’s almost ten o’clock at night, you slept the whole fucking day away. Yeah, I went and checked on Anne. Is she okay? I don’t think so, man.”

  “What do you mean you don’t think so?” Fear for her and the baby twists my chest into knots.

  “What I mean, is for a woman who is two and a half months pregnant with a wedding dress in her closet, which she won’t be wearing, I got to tell you she isn’t, okay.

  “I would say she’s about as far from okay as a woman can get. Don’t fucking forget all this hell you are putting her through is because she does love you but isn’t reading the lines from the script you made up.”

  I can’t fucking breathe at the idea of Anne in pain. She’s hurting, I know because I’m hurting, and it’s all my fault. Sitting on the floor I let my head fall against the seat of the couch. “Okay, tell me how to fix this.”

  “Thank fucking god. First go take a shower, you’re starting to stink. I’ll order something up for you. Listen for room service. I’m going to go get a change of clothes from your room. We’ll talk about how to fix this when I get back.”

  I turn the shower on as hot as I can bear it and stand under the water to try and wake up. Marshall was right, asking Anne to marry me after only a week in Italy was too much, too fast. Even with the baby, I should have waited until we were in Paris, or maybe even back in Chicago. Yes, every time I told Anne I loved her and she didn’t say it back was painful, but it’s nothing compared to what I’m going through now.

  Remembering Anne’s words about me buying her, along with her threat to walk out if I didn’t start talking because she was tired of being the only one to talk was a well-deserved punch. If I had put in the time and talked to her like Marshall told me, she’d have felt safer, more willing to believe in me. Anne would never have been able to give me what I wanted, and it was my fault because I wasn’t willing to tell her what it was I wanted and needed.

  I grab a towel to dry off. I look but can’t find a robe. Wrapping the towel around my hips I hear knocking on the door. Damn, that was quick. Then I catch the clock, what the hell? I’d been in the shower for almost twenty minutes? It hadn’t felt like I’d been in there for that long. Where the hell is Marshall?

  Opening the door, the guy is full of apologies for taking so long. I waive it off, telling him not to worry. I sign for the food and sit down to eat. It’s a good steak, but as the minutes tick by I’m growing more and more worried about where Marshall is and why he’s been gone so long. I’m done and pacing when the door finally opens. “Where have you been?”

  Marshall tosses me jeans and a shirt. “Go get dressed.”

  “Where have you been?” He’s not meeting my eyes, barely looking at me.

  “Looking for Anne.”

  I go cold. “Looking for Anne?”

  “Yeah, she wasn’t in the room and her stuff is gone.”

  “Her phone?”

  “It was on the table beside her ring and her credit cards.”

  Sonofabitch, if he’d knifed me it wouldn’t have had me bleeding out this bad. I shake my head no. I run to our room, my heart pounding in my ears until I can hear nothing. I search the suite, going up to the rooftop terrace but she’s not here. She’s gone, she’s really gone.

  The roaring in my ears is taking me over. The smack Marshall delivers to my cheek is painful, shocking me back into the moment. I’m back in our suite, in the room we had made love in only a few days ago. As I remember that night I know she isn’t gone.

  Marshall’s hand around my arm stops me. “Grant, wherever you think you’re going, you need to get dressed to get there.”

  I look down. I’d lost my towel. “Thanks. Give me five then tell me what to say when I find her.”

  “I’ll be raiding your mini-fridge you need more water.”

  Dre
ssed, I take the water Marshall hands me. “Okay, what the hell can I possibly say to make this right?”

  The taxi driver had driven like he was trying to qualify for the Indy 500. I had asked for it, but it was still over an hour since I’d found out Anne was gone. It’s a little after midnight when he screeches to a stop outside the airport. As I get out I hand him Euro.

  I’m scanning the entrance when I see her. Anne is sitting on the floor looking miserable, with only her purse and a small carry on in front of her. She doesn’t see me until I’m a few feet away. For the first time since she fainted in Rome her eyes are silver pools as she looks up at me. Relief sends me to my knees in front of her.

  “I’m so sorry. As crazy as it sounds I loved you too much to get this right. You told me your life wasn’t code I could just punch out and expect to happen, but I didn’t really listen. My life has been code, I’ve just punched out, and it happened the way I wanted—until you.

  “Even then you were the best fucking glitch I’d ever had happen to me. I took it all for granted you were a part of my life, so I could punch out what I wanted, and we would work the way I wanted. Until you didn’t, and it fucked up my world.

  “I’ve had too much money and too many things my way for too long. I got scared, and thought maybe I was wrong and you didn’t love me. In the scenario of not repeating my father’s mistake I never saw myself as being my mother. Yet every time I told you I loved you and you didn’t say it back, I understood what my mother must have felt.”

  Anne bursts into tears then lunges for me, her arms around my neck. “I’m sorry. Oh god, I’m so sorry. I love you but I couldn’t believe it was forever. I was happier than I’ve ever been before and I was so scared any moment something was going to take it all away. I was sure it couldn’t last, it wouldn’t last. It didn’t seem like I deserved you after all I’ve done.

  “How could you really love me and want me? You’re this beautiful, brilliant, billionaire and I’m me, a plus size, GED certificate holder, online college degree haver. Me, a former prostitute, who couldn’t keep her baby alive, who couldn’t hold down a job. Maybe you wanted me for the moment but not forever. One day you were going to realize you didn’t really love me and leave. I was trying to protect myself from the pain of loving you and you leaving me.