by Amie Knight
“Stupid tie, stupid blazer, stupid Dr. Anthony Jackson,” I muttered to myself as I stomped back to the bedroom and pulled my stuff out of the dresser and placed it back on the bed, folding everything neatly.
I’d teach his ass. I’d call my momma and get the hell out of here. He couldn’t tell me what to do. There were other doctors out there who could help me.
Baby girl somersaulted around in my stomach, and I smiled down at my belly despite the crazy day I’d had.
“Team Hope,” I whispered to her, rubbing my hand over my belly.
Then I thought of all the diapers, clothes, and things I’d need to care for her. I thought of all the money I’d need to buy those things. And I realized I was standing in a very nice apartment. For free. So I took all the neatly folded clothes from the bed and slipped them into the dresser drawers Anthony had thrown my belongings in earlier.
I may not have wanted Anthony’s help, but I needed it. It sucked, but I was just going to have to get the hell over it because this entire situation sucked, and I just needed to make the best of it. And that’s what Anthony was. My best bet. My arch nemesis.
After I finished putting my clothes away I texted Miranda and Ainsley my new address for the next couple of months and put my shoes on, deciding I’d need to get groceries. It took way longer than it should have, and I was huffing and puffing by the time I actually got it done. As I went to open the apartment door, I heard a knock, so I looked through the peephole to find the same teenager from yesterday there with a bag of food. I opened the door and he gave me a look like I was going to argue with him again.
Instead, I grabbed the food from his hand and grumbled out a, “Yeah, yeah, I know the drill.”
I closed the door, pushed my tennis shoes off with my heels because I was done trying to bend over anymore today, and opened my food and ate out of the containers on the sofa, savage and all.
The man wasn’t going to let me do anything for myself, but I wasn’t about to turn down food. I was starving and pregnant and until you actually were growing a baby you didn’t quite understand what starving meant. Which meant I was hella hungry. All the time.
The bastard. He’d known exactly what I needed and he’d been ready to offer it up to me on a silver platter even though I didn’t want it.
Yes, Dr. Anthony Jackson had won today, but tomorrow I wouldn’t let him get me riled up. Yes, I’d be cool and I’d keep a calm head.
Tomorrow, I would win.
That Night Ten Years Ago
“Siblings?”
“One. Brother. And you?” I asked.
“Only child. Favorite movie?”
“That’s easy. Forrest Gump.”
“Really?” Her forehead scrunched.
“Am I not allowed to like the movies I like?”
“I’m just surprised.”
“Why? A lot of people like that movie.”
“I don’t know. You don’t strike me as the kind of guy who likes the kind of movies a lot of people like, Doc.”
I smiled at that. She thought I was special. I thought she was, too.
“Okay, what’s your favorite movie?”
“Steel Magnolias, of course.” She made a duh face.
“How cliché,” I threw back at her and she tossed a piece of popcorn at me. The woman was destroying my apartment. She was like a one man wrecking team. There was evidence of her all over my apartment, from spilled food to pieces of popcorn. Her clothes were strewn about along with the plates from our dinner earlier.
“It’s not cliché. It’s a damn southern classic. You can’t be a woman in the South and not have seen it, and you most certainly can’t help but to love it.” She clutched a pillow to her naked chest. “Gah, it makes me cry.”
Damn, she was pretty. I wanted to keep her. She was almost small enough, I thought maybe I could stick her in my pocket and take her everywhere with me always. She’d make for good entertainment, that was for sure. She was funny and sweet and had this innate kind of happiness people hardly ever possessed anymore. She’d be the type of girl you wouldn’t have to try to please all the time. No, Kelly was pleased all on her own.
She rolled over onto her back and her breasts were on full display. I loved that she wasn’t ashamed of her body, and she shouldn’t be because there was absolutely nothing there that wasn’t fucking magnificent. And, God, my cock was already hard for her again and I’d just had her. We’d spent much of the night like this. Tangled up in each other, naked, and hot and whispering into the dark room of my apartment.
I’d never had a night like this before. Where I felt so completely connected to someone. Where it seemed there was only us in this dark space, talking in quiet voices, making love in hushed tones, not because we were afraid someone would hear, but because we didn’t want them to. This night was just ours. Me and Kelly Potter, we were like fucking magic. I wanted to keep the glamour going forever.
I ran a hand through her hair. If I was learning one thing, it was that the woman loved to be petted, stroked, touched. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t really fucking enjoy obliging her.
“So, now that you’re done with school, what are you going to do?” I asked, toying with the ends of her hair that grazed her neck.
She let out a low laugh. “Piss everyone off, I reckon.”
I smiled at her. “Why?”
“Because I don’t want to teach music. I don’t want to be stuck in a classroom all day. I want to travel. I want to see the world. I want to make music.”
That didn’t surprise me a bit. The thought of someone trying to pin down this beautiful butterfly’s wings made me sad. “I take it your family doesn’t want you to do that?”
She shook her head. “No. I mean, I went to school for music education, but it was always a backup plan for me. I have a few friends I’m in a band with. We do okay. I thought I’d travel a bit with them. My mom isn’t crazy about the idea, but she does want me to see the world before I settle down. My dad isn’t really in the picture. He took off when I was a kid, so she was a single mom my entire childhood. She wants me to have a plan. A career, then a husband, then babies.” She let out a long breath. “Her dreams aren’t my dreams, though.”
“And your dreams are to be in this band and travel the world?”
She pursed her lips and then smiled. “No, my dreams are to make it big, Anthony. I’m talking about roaring crowds, blinding lights, deafening music, and my drumsticks. I want to play for millions. For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to play music. When I was only eight I’d begged my mom for a drum set. She knew it was going to be hella noisy, but she’d finally caved and that was all she wrote.”
Fuck, she was amazing. “Those are some pretty big dreams. What will you do if you don’t make it?”
She pulled that plump bottom lip into her mouth and sucked before letting it go with a pop and looked me in the eye. “I don’t know, Doc, but if your dreams don’t scare you, then you aren’t dreaming big enough.”
I must have been losing my mind because if I’d been a woman in a Jane Austen book I would have been swooning my ass off. This woman and her words. They overwhelmed me. Her goodness, her maturity, her sincerity, they were the sweetest thing I’d ever witnessed in my life and even though I’d laid my lips to her countless times tonight I felt a need to kiss her like I’d never experienced. The want rushed over my skin like a thousand tiny stars shooting across the sky.
I leaned over her quickly, but it felt too slow. I needed her now. “Kiss me,” my lips whispered across her own, breathlessly, wantonly.
Sparkling aquamarine eyes stared up at me. “Where?” she whispered back.
“Everywhere.” And I didn’t mean the warm spot behind my ear that she’d already realized was my weakness. Not the dimples in my cheeks that she couldn’t help but to smack sweetly as we lay in bed and talked. No, I wanted this woman to ravish my spirit, my heart.
Kiss my soul, my eyes begged.
I wanted our b
odies, our lips so entangled you couldn’t tell one from the other. Until we were just floating—one. Terrified, exhilarated, but dreaming big, together.
Her mouth touched my own with unwavering intensity, her lips meeting mine, searing through me, tearing me down and all the while building me up. Just like I needed. Of course. It was like she knew me better than I did and all in a few hours. I was a goner.
Oh my God, I could have kissed Anthony. And not because he was so good-looking. This bathtub was freaking amazing, that’s why. I’d passed out last night, sleeping like the dead and doing the pee pee dance all the way to the bathroom, only to spot the most amazing bathtub I’d ever seen in my life.
It was huge and when I say huge it was big enough for me to sprawl out and it still completely covered every inch of my body, even my bowling ball belly. Every woman knew how special and rare a bathtub was that completely submerged your body in water. And this one did. It even had jets. I was in heaven.
I spent longer than I should have in the tub, refilling it twice with hot water and still lounging about when I heard what I thought was a woman’s voice from the other room.
I froze, not daring to move for fear of making a splashing sound.
“Hellooooo,” I heard called out from the other room, and my eyes immediately zeroed in on the bathroom doorknob, which I hadn’t bothered to lock because I somehow thought that locking the front door was good enough. Silly me.
I jumped out of the bathtub as quickly as possible, which wasn’t very fast at all, leaving a trail of what felt like three gallons of water behind me. I grabbed a towel from the vanity and wrapped it around me just in the nick of time. The door flew open and there stood a perfectly coifed middle-aged woman in a startling and superb red dress suit that made me somehow feel underdressed when in truth I was as naked as a jay bird.
“Lucille?” I squeaked out.
She smiled. “Yes, dear, but you can call me Lucy.”
She just stood there in the doorway, taking me in like we were standing in the middle of the living room and I was fully clothed, which definitely wasn’t the case.
She walked toward me and my body locked tight. She reached out and ran a hand through the side of my wet hair, lovingly. Creepily as hell, too. “Well, you’re quite lovely, aren’t you, sweets?”
What in the hell was happening?
“I’m naked,” I finally said, not knowing what else to say.
“Well, I can see that, honey. But you don’t have anything I haven’t seen a million times in a million different ways.”
And I almost laughed because I in no way wanted to know how many different million times or ways Lucille had seen naked girlie bits.
She turned and looked at herself in the mirror, patting her blond-gray hair into place and wiping the red lipstick from the corners of her mouth like she hadn’t interrupted the most amazing bath of my life, like I wasn’t stark-ass naked wrapped in a white towel that did not cover my baby bump.
“Go on and get dressed so you can help me put away the groceries, would you?” she clipped before turning on black heels with red soles and leaving the bathroom the way she’d entered. Very quickly. And I wondered how the hell a woman who worked as a receptionist at a doctor’s office could afford those heels and that perfectly fitted red suit.
And more importantly, how the hell she’d gotten into the apartment even though it was locked.
So I just stood here and stared for no less than a full two minutes before the clattering of cabinets being slammed snapped me out of my daze.
I hustled my ass into some panties, black yoga pants, and a tank top. I skipped the bra because let’s be honest, she’d almost seen me buck ass naked anyway, so what did it matter at this point.
I walked to the kitchen, not quite understanding what was happening. Grocery bags littered every available surface of the kitchen and the fridge and cabinets were wide-open. “What are you doing, Lucille?”
“Lucy,” she immediately corrected me as she placed a loaf of bread in a stainless-steel bread box on the counter.
I nodded. “Okay, Lucy. What the hell is going on?”
“I brought groceries.”
Oh, hell no. I was winning today. And letting Anthony buy me groceries was not winning. It was losing. And I wasn’t losing anymore. I’d written that off yesterday after I’d pigged out over the meal he’d sent me. I was done with his handouts.
“No, no, no. I don’t want Anthony’s groceries. Pack them up and take them down two floors to his place. Come on, I’ll help you.”
I picked up a couple of bags and started toward the front door.
“Oh, no, Anthony didn’t send me over with these. I just thought you might need them and since I was coming over to pick up your intake papers, I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone.”
Oh, no. It was the sting of my nose that told me what was going to happen before it started. The burn in my eyes was the next indication, and I immediately sat the bags down back in the kitchen and tried to suck back the tears that threatened. Why was everyone being so nice to me? Why were they helping me? It just didn’t make sense! And it was overwhelming. It was making me feel too much. Sad that I couldn’t help myself but most of all I felt relieved, and I didn’t even realize it until that moment standing here in the kitchen with gorgeous, perfectly groomed Lucille in her red suit and red-soled shoes, looking like she’d stepped off the pages of a fashion catalogue and me looking like a drowned, pregnant, braless rat. I was so relieved.
I involuntarily choked out a sob I hadn’t felt coming. Damn hormones.
“Oh, honey.” Lucille came toward me and wrapped her arms around me, enveloping me in the scent of expensive perfume and hairspray. She was hugging me. She was freaking hugging me! I wasn’t a hugger. I hated hugs, but her hugs weren’t so bad, so I leaned into her a bit.
“Don’t be upset. I just thought I’d bring you some groceries since I knew there were none here. I didn’t want your little one getting hungry.” She patted my round stomach.
I’d learned quickly that I didn’t like strangers touching my stomach once it started to grow big and round. I felt weird and oddly violated, but I didn’t feel that way with Lucille. She seemed to genuinely care, and she’d brought me groceries out of the kindness of her heart. And I thought maybe she was just a little crazy, which for some reason I really liked.
And even though tears shone in the depths of my eyes, I backed away from her and smiled. I sucked back the wetness that threatened to fall. “Thank you, Lucille. Lucy,” I corrected myself.
She started putting groceries away again, and I helped her. It was silent for about five bags until she asked, “So you’ll accept my groceries but not Anthony’s?” She had a small smile playing at her lips.
I shook my head back and forth, exasperated. “That man. He’s a big tyrant in a tiny bow tie.”
She laughed and nodded. “Yes, and he’s so bossy.”
“I’ve been here less than two days and he has literally done nothing other than tell me what to do.”
“Oh, sweetness, he loves to be in charge. He lives for it.”
“How do you do it?” I asked and she raised her eyebrows questioningly. “Ya know? Work for him?”
She chuckled low. “I don’t know. Some days I want to murder him. He’s pushy and dictatorial.” She laughed again. “I’ve quit five thousand times and he’s probably tried to fire me five thousand more, but I’ve worked for him since he opened his practice.” She shrugged.
“Yeah, he’s a pushy bastard.”
“He is.”
“And he’s high-handed.”
“Mmmhmm,” she agreed.
“He’s sneaky, too.” He was. The man just brought me up here and was like here you go. Welcome home! “And he wears those ridiculous bow ties!” I continued.
She placed the cheese in the fridge and turned back to me with a small grin on her face. “But he does look handsome in them, doesn’t he?”
I nar
rowed my eyes at her before turning away and placing the chips in the pantry. “I guess,” I huffed out.
“He has really nice eyes, too,” she said softly.
I thought of Anthony’s nice eyes. They really were pretty. I’d adored them ten years ago and now they were just as pretty and a bit wiser.
I found myself nodding even though I didn’t want to agree with her. Because, damn, those eyes. What? I was pregnant, not dead!
“He works out every day, too, so he’s nice and fit.”
I got big eyes. Oh, God, I didn’t want to hear about how fit Anthony was, because I couldn’t think about that. I couldn’t think about the muscles and abs he was probably rocking underneath those sexy blazers that seemed to fit him like a glove. He’d been pretty damn fit ten years ago, too.
Before I knew what was happening, “Oh, I remember,” slipped past my lips.
I paused, putting away the groceries in shock I’d said that, but also praying like hell Lucille hadn’t heard me. I’d said it quietly, after all.
That woman didn’t miss a beat, though. I should have known.
She arched a perfectly drawn on eyebrow at me. “Oh, do tell, darling.”
I blushed under her scrutiny. She worked with the man. I couldn’t tell her we’d had dirty, mind-blowing sex one night ten years ago.
“From the flush of your cheeks, I’d say whatever it is you’re trying not to tell me is pretty juicy,” she sang out, and I laughed.
“Well, let’s just say ten years ago, before he was all of this”—I gestured around to the apartment even though it wasn’t his because he had an identical one right below me—“we had a little bit of fun.” I laughed because I felt ridiculous talking to this older woman about mine and her employer’s sexual escapades.
“And now he’ll be the one to save your baby’s life. Seems serendipitous to me.”
I sobered at the thought. Was it fate? Would Anthony be able to save my baby’s life?
“Will he?” I swallowed hard, feeling like every bit of my fear and doubt was somehow lodged in my throat.