Loving my Billionaire Stepbrother's Baby

by Emilia Beaumont

  “For what’s it worth, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you or ask you. But I needed to know that I could always find you, no matter what. God forbid anything bad should happen to you.”

  I nodded and sighed. I probably should’ve been angry at him for invading my privacy like that but I was incredibly grateful that he was there by my side. Even though I had no idea how to voice what was going on in my head right then.

  “So, what happened?” he asked. “You look physically okay, but something’s wrong. I can tell. What’s preventing you from coming home?”

  With my head tilted to the sky I took a deep breath. How could I tell him? It would break his heart. It was breaking my heart.

  “I think I need to go away for a little while.”

  “What?” he shook his head and took my hand. “You’re going to have to explain that one to me, and quick, Vi. Because this morning everything was perfect—”

  “Almost,” I whispered.

  “Tell me what’s brought this on.”

  He squeezed my hand, reminding me he was still waiting for an answer.

  “It’s for the best,” I nodded. “Just for a little while. I need to be on my own for a bit. There’s stuff that I need to sort out.”

  He took his hand back and ran it through his hair as he breathed out hard.

  “I don’t like this, Vi. The way you’re talking you make it sound like you won’t be coming back.”

  “I just need to do this.”

  “Why won’t you tell me the real reason? Something led you onto this path, you were on a different one this morning when you left the apartment. And now you don’t want to come back? Has this got something to do with your mother?”

  My head snapped to stare at him. How on earth could he know that?

  As if answering my silent question he said, “Just a guess. What else could it be, right?”

  “We spoke today,” I conceded.

  “And?”

  “It wasn’t a good conversation,” I replied.

  “Clearly.”

  “But she gave me a lot to think about it. So, I need your support with this. I need you to let me go.”

  He shook his head. “You know I can never you go, Vi. You’re my whole world. I can’t lose you.”

  I started to object when he interrupted.

  “But, if this is what you need. I know you wouldn’t be asking if it wasn’t serious… then okay, I will give you the time. But only under one condition.”

  “What’s your condition?”

  “I need to know where you are. You can have your space, but I need to know you’re safe.”

  “I can agree to that,” I said softly. Wondering whether in asking so much of him that I’d effectively ruined our entire marriage forever.

  “Good. Maybe the beach house in France would be a better retreat than the one up north?” he suggested.

  I wasn’t too concerned with the how and where, but putting some physical distance between everything would probably be wise. I nodded.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Reluctantly Drake made all the arrangements. He got the private plane organised and everything at the beach house ready for my arrival that same evening. Under different circumstances it should’ve been a happy occasion; travelling to the south of France, to the same place where Drake had proposed to me. But instead it was as if I was saying goodbye forever.

  Drake drove me to the airport where the plane was waiting on the tarmac. We barely said two words to each other during the journey. I knew he was worried, maybe even contemplating demanding me to stay. And he did just that at the bottom of the folded-out staircase that led up to the plane—the plane that would take me away from my husband and children. But that was what I’d asked for. Be careful what you wish for.

  “Vi, you can change your mind. You don’t have to go,” Drake said as he clutched the last of my bags, holding it hostage.

  “It’s for the best. Just for a little while. I don’t want to be around you when I’m like this.”

  He dropped the bag and pulled me into his arms. “Don’t you see it doesn’t matter what you are like? I will always love you.”

  I bit my tongue, letting the pain wash away any thought of tears. “Let me go, please.”

  He pulled me tighter and kissed my neck. “You better come back to me,” he said. His jaw was set and I could tell he was doing his best not to let his emotions come to the surface.

  I nodded and took my suitcase and climbed the short distance into the cabin of the plane.

  Four days had passed at the beach house along the Cote d’Azur. All without incident, which was a blessing really, but the days had also passed without any improvement in my own damn mind.

  I was still feeling lost and confused. Not even the bright sunshine that I tried to bathe in could penetrate through the black void that was enveloping me.

  I thought about Drake everyday. But more importantly I thought about Leah and my unnamed little boy that I’d effectively abandoned. If I was honest with myself, I thought about them every single minute of each day.

  But history was repeating itself; I’d become the very thing I never dreamed of becoming: I’d become my mother. I cursed the genes she passed on to me. I didn’t want to be like her. Didn’t want to never see my children again. But the very thought of going back, not being able to look after them properly, not be able to bond with my baby, had me convinced I was doing the right thing. Better for all us.

  Making sure I left the house each day, I rose early and strolled down the private beach, then onto the front, and farther on through the little port. On one side, to my right, people drank their morning espressos and ate pastries in the outdoor cafes and to my left, in the water, battered and worn fishing boats bobbed about, secured with unseen anchors. I felt much like one of those small boats, but instead of being fixed in place, I was adrift, my anchor lost, heading for a storm or an unseen edge that I was about to topple over.

  “Viola?” a female voice called from a distance. “Vi!”

  I ignored the sound. The person couldn’t be possibly calling me, no one knew I was here, except Drake and maybe Sigrid. Not even my father or Barbara had been told. I’d wanted to keep it quiet for now. I was ashamed.

  My feet continued to make headway along the quay when the call got louder and closer.

  This time I turned and shielded my eyes from the low morning sun to see a woman walking fast—half jogging—toward me. The woman was tall, very slender, and dressed in a long cream dress with smatterings of blue splotches all over it. I presumed they were supposed to be flowers but from the distance and glare I couldn’t make it out properly. She had huge, round sunglasses on.

  “Viola? Is that you?”

  I squinted and finally her face began to take shape.

  “Christine?”

  “It is you! I had a feeling it was you when you walked by.”

  I didn’t know what to say as I stood before Drake’s ex, and Leah’s biological mother. There were huge amounts of history between us. We’d gone to the same high school, kissed the same boy, and loved him, too. She’d also left her child, and Drake, to pursue her career, eventually explaining much later on after Drake and I were together that she never wanted to be a mother.

  I wanted to groan and turn away. The last person I wanted to see or talk to was Christine. Her failings had become my failings and I felt so very ashamed. She’d graciously given up her parental rights, allowing me to adopt Leah as my own and yet here I was… a hypocrite, a failure. I was an awful mother. I’d let everyone down, including her.

  “Are you okay? You look as pale as a sheet.”

  Unable to look her in the eye I glanced away, head down, and nibbled at my lip. “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t look fine. Are you sick?”

  I shook my head. Wanting to change the subject, get her off the topic of me, I quickly asked her what she was doing there.

  “Oh, well I just finished up another fashion show. Th
ought I’d give myself a break and downtime before the next one in Japan.”

  I nodded like I was interested, but she didn’t seem to be buying it. “That sounds nice.” Christine eased her sunglasses down her nose and frowned at me.

  “You really don’t look too good. I know it’s impolite to say things like that, but you know me, honest to a fault.”

  “I better be going,” I said with a grimace.

  “Wait, is Drake here? Are the kids? Oh, I forgot to say congratulations! I would love to meet the new addition and maybe see how Leah is getting on. I sent a card and a baby gift, did you get it?”

  The mere mention of my little family had the waterworks starting.

  “Oh… fuck. What’s wrong? Did I say something wrong?” Christine continued. “Fuck. You’re not okay are you? What’s happened?”

  My hands crossed over my body and clamped onto the flesh parts of my upper arms. It felt like I was holding on for dear life. I shook my head having no clue where to start, not even sure I wanted to tell her. I just wanted to get out of there away from her and her questions.

  The last thing I ever expected to happen that day came to life and Christine wrapped her arms around me and held me while I quietly sobbed. Silently she let me cry and I was grateful for the moment that the questions had stopped.

  After a few minutes I got my breath back and she switched her hold from around me to one of my arms.

  “Come on, you’re coming with me.” Christine pulled me along and as we walked she dug into her purse and pulled out a phone. There was a short conversation and soon after a car eased up beside us. “I presume you’re staying at the beach house down the way?” I nodded and Christine began to give the driver directions.

  It was only a few minutes later when we arrived but it felt like years, I’d lost all sense of time, too preoccupied wandering around in my own head to be aware of time passing. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d eaten.

  Christine escorted me into the house and sat me down in one of the armchairs then disappeared for a moment. She called out to Drake a couple of times, but soon gave up, made a hot drink, and brought it to me.

  “So you’re here alone?”

  “Yes, it’s just me.” I thanked her for the coffee and sipped it slowly. Thank the powers that be that it wasn’t tea. My hands were trembling again and I hoped that this would be the end of it. She’d done her duty, got me back home, safely. And now she would go away, and leave me to it.

  “Why? Why are you here all by yourself? Why isn’t Drake here, or at the very least the kids?” She frowned as if she was trying to work out a complicated puzzle, but she was missing several pieces.

  “They’re in London… I left them,” I muttered weakly.

  “You just had a baby, why would you…” Christine trailed off. She got off her chair and kneeled down in front of me. With my head down, the only way to see me was in that position.

  “Viola,” she asked in a low soft, but stern voice, “tell me what’s going on.” She removed the cup from my grasp and replaced it with her own hands.

  Christine squeezed my hands. I flicked my gaze up for a moment and saw genuine concern on her face. She wanted to help, she wanted to hear what I had to say. She wasn’t just there out of a weird sense of obligation. She truly was worried.

  My mouth was dry but the words began to form. One by one they escaped. I told her everything.

  And once I got started I couldn’t stop.

  I told her about the difficult birth, the extreme postpartum haemorrhage, the bleeding, the weeks in hospital, not being able to bond with the baby, the feeling of uselessness, the black hole in my heart. The distance between Drake and I and how he’d always been working when I needed him. I told her about my mother turning up, about my past that barely anyone knew about, of how she left me, and how I now knew I was just like her.

  In a way it was like talking to a stranger, being able to unburden myself to someone to whom I had no sense of duty. But Christine was slightly different in that regard… she’d gone through a similar experience. She let me talk for hours, a few times her eyes went wide, but she stayed and listened until there was no more to say, until I’d revealed every last morsel.

  When I was done she shook her head. Her face had once been understanding, but now it was livid and I knew she was furious with me. There were daggers in eyes as if she wanted to hit me and I flinched away from her as she abruptly stood up.

  “How long have you been feeling like this?” she questioned harshly, her tone serious, implying that refusing to answer wasn’t an option.

  “Since the start, I guess. Since I woke up in the hospital.”

  “I don’t believe this,” she shouted her angry truly beginning to spill out. And I couldn’t blame her. I’d not only let Drake and the baby down, but I’d let Leah down, too. I’d promised Christine that I would always take care of Leah. That I would be there for her no matter what. And here I was so far away from my promise that it was ridiculous.

  “Seriously the bloody incompetence of it all.” She was pacing around the room, then she happened to glance my way and her face fell. She came rushing back to my side. I shrank back.

  “Oh, fuck. I’m sorry. I don’t mean you,” she said and took my reluctant hand again.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Honey, none of this is your fault. And I’m going to kill Drake the next time I lay my eyes on him. When was the last time you saw your doctor?”

  “Not recently,” I said trying to think back. “I had a quick check-up with the baby a few weeks ago, but before that I had homecare. Drake hired a nurse to look after me for a bit.” I shook my head trying to understand what on earth that had to do with anything.

  “Incompetent the lot of them! They should all be sued.”

  “Christine?”

  She squeezed my hands again and took a moment to look earnestly at me. “Honey, have you ever heard of postpartum depression?”

  I shrugged. “Only a little bit, in the pregnancy books. But why? I don’t have…”

  She nodded. “You do. You have postpartum depression. I am almost certain of it.”

  I shook my head. “No, that doesn’t make sense. My mother… she was the same. She left me because she didn’t love me. She couldn’t or didn’t want to be a mother.” I took a breath before I said the next bit, “A bit like what you went through, too. I didn’t realise it until I had the baby, but I’m like you both.”

  Christine leaned forward. “No. No, you are not. You are nothing like me or your mom. And I mean that in the kindest way. You lived and breathed for my little girl, for our little girl. You wanted nothing more than to be a mom to her, to look after her, to make sure she had everything she needed, including love. You loved her and she wasn’t even yours at the time. I deluded myself into thinking I could be a mom and give Drake what he wanted. But I always, always, knew deep down that I didn’t want to be. Do you understand?”

  “I don’t know. I’m so confused. I love them, but oh god, I don’t know. The baby, he doesn’t feel like mine, he doesn’t like me. He cries every time I pick him up. And each time he does a little piece of my heart breaks. I can’t be a mom if can’t even comfort or feed my own baby. He’s better off without me.”

  “I know it feels confusing. I know it feels like you want to give up and die. But I promise you it will get better, with treatment. Your hormones are all out of whack, I saw the same thing happen to my sister. And I’m so angry that no one, not even your doctors spotted it. They probably missed it because they were more interested in the postpartum haemorrhage. But that’s still no excuse. And then your mother turning up… I bet that put you right over the edge.”

  I tried to understand everything she was saying. Attempted to process it.

  “So, all this that I feeling, I’m depressed? It’s not real?”

  “It’s real in the sense that you’re feeling it, but no it’s not actually real. The depression is masking and
suffocating you and all your feelings.”

  Christine stood again. “Stay there, I have some contacts down here and I’m going to make sure we get you to a doctor right away. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I replied. My head was still whirling with the new information. Could it really be true that my melting pot of hormonal emotions had been playing tricks on my mind? If that was the case… there was still hope.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Well, it’s about time you showed your face!” Christine said in greeting as Drake came through the door, almost rattling it off its hinges.

  “Where is she?” he demanded.

  “Seriously, you and me, we’re going to talk. And it may end up with me hitting you!” Christine yelled. Drake ignored her.

  “I’m right here,” I answered with a little wave from the couch. “What are you doing here?”

  It was a day after Christine spotted me walking along the quay. But a lot had happened since then. She’d been a superstar and managed to get me an appointment with a top doctor, a specialist who dealt with what I’d been experiencing, right away. I was of course hesitant at first, especially since I thought the doctor would only be able to speak French, and trying to explain what I’d been going through was going to be tough enough. But Dr. Moreau was perfectly capable of speaking English. She listened to me the same way Christine had, and came up with a plan right there and then to help me get better. No time like the present she said, and reassured me that my doctors back in London would receive all the necessary updates about my treatment.

  What I hadn’t expected was Drake to just show up out of the blue. I looked from Christine to Drake and back again.

  “You called him, didn’t you?”

  “Of course, I did. You didn’t think I was going to babysit you forever, did you?” She said it all with a straight face, but then the edges of her lips betrayed her as she smiled.

  “And I’m glad she did,” he said, greeting me with a kiss on the forehead. “Besides, even if she hadn’t, I decided I’d had enough. I was about to get on a plane anyway. I know you said you needed time and space, but that’s not the way we deal with things in this family. Not anymore. We stick together, we get through stuff together, do you hear me?” There was a crack in his voice as it hitched at the end.