by Katie Dowe
“Thank you,” he said, his voice pathetically grateful. “It was so nice to meet you.”
“See you,” she said stiffly and walked away, leaving Nicholas to follow her.
She waited until they were in the vehicle and he had driven off before she lit into him. “I don’t need you to make decisions for me!”
“It’s his birthday, Kelsey. I don’t see the harm in going,” he said mildly, knowing she was pissed.
“I don’t want him thinking that…” She stopped and looked through the window at the passing scenery.
“That you care about him?”
She turned to look at him furiously. “Yes! He does not deserve any kind of affection for what he put me through. You have no right to come here and think you can fix what is broken between us. You can’t!”
There was silence following her outburst and he did not respond but continued driving. It was already dark and the clouds were heavy in the sky indicating that they would be getting snow tonight or early this morning.
For the first time since she had harbored the hatred and bitterness in her heart towards her father, she felt ashamed.
He drove them to his apartment and helped her out still without saying anything. She waited until they had gone up and was inside the living room before she said anything to him. “I am sorry,” she muttered as she hung up her jacket.
“For what? For speaking your mind?” He went towards the kitchen and she followed him. His housekeeper came in every day and tidied up and made dinner which they sometimes did not eat until they got there. He took out the dish of roast beef and garden salad and made two plates, pouring her a glass of milk and fruit punch for himself. She had told herself that she was going to cook for him one day, but she had not gotten around to doing it.
“It’s just that you don’t understand.” She poked around on her plate, feeling close to tears and wanting to feel his arms around her. “I can’t forgive him.”
“Can’t or won’t?” he asked her gently, watching her.
She looked up and their eyes met. “It’s too much. I was a child and I did not deserve to be treated like that.”
“And he knows that now.” He reached across and captured hers. “Let me tell you how this works: I am in love with you so everything about you affects me. I don’t like the fact that you are hurting and I am going to do everything in my power to make sure that it is sorted out. I saw him looking at you and know that he is looking for a second chance.” Her hand jerked in his and he held on. “You are right. I don’t know what you went through because I have not been through it. You are a strong and beautiful woman who did not allow the obstacles to break you and you will never know how much I respect and love you for that. I am not saying you should open your arms to him now, baby, but give it a try.”
She felt the tears and this time she did not stop it. He saw them trickling down, and letting go of her hand, he came around to her side of the counter and lifted her into his arms, cradling her like a newborn baby. He sat on the stool she had just sat on and waited with her until she cried into his sweater, gently rubbing her back. Even when she had stopped crying, she stayed there burying her face into his soft cashmere sweater, her eyes closed.
“Think you can eat?” he asked her softly.
She nodded but did not get up.
“How about I feed you?” he murmured.
She looked up at him and laughed in spite of herself at the teasing expression on his face. “I should just take you up on the offer.”
“I am more than willing to do it.”
She looked at him for a moment and then moved out of his arms. She reached for her plate and began to eat. Somehow he managed to reach for his plate and ate with her. He looked approvingly as she cleaned her plate and drank her milk.
“How about a nice hot bath?” he suggested when she finished.
“Sounds good.” She put her hands around his neck as they got to their feet. “Are you this nice to all the women you talk to?”
“Only those carrying my child and who I am in love with,” he murmured as he looked down at her.
“Hmm.” She reached up and took his lips with hers. He responded by pulling her closer and deepening the kiss. “You are unlike any man I have ever met,” she whispered.
“I am glad.”
Chapter 10
“I have never seen him like the way he is now,” Maisie told her quietly, her green eyes thoughtful. Kelsey had finally agreed to have lunch with her after several requests were made. The sun and rain had come for the spring and had melted away the snow and the cold air of winter. Kelsey had been working extra hours to get off a project off the ground. It was a new spicy chicken she had introduced in her restaurants and Nicholas had been flying to and from Texas and the Middle East for the past two weeks. She had to admit that she missed him when he was not there.
“Maybe he is finally growing up,” she said mildly as she dug into her fries. She had chosen one of her own restaurants feeling the urge for fried chicken and the potato salad which was no longer making her nauseous.
“I have a feeling it is more to do with you.” Maisie looked at the beautifully confident woman opposite her and envy stirred in her breasts.
Kelsey looked up at her and took in the well-pampered white skin, the immaculate hair, and makeup and the beauty brought about by a lot of money and time. “Did he sleep with you?”
“What?” Maisie looked at her startled.
“If I can see that you are hot for Nicholas, trust me, so can your husband. Even though he does not approve of me, which frankly I could care less about, it is the main reason for the friction between them.”
Maisie was silent for a little bit as she dug into her salad. “My feelings for him were never returned,” she admitted. “Graham is the eldest but has never been the popular one. It has always been Nicholas not only because of the way he looks but because of the way he treats others.” She looked at the beautiful woman dressed in a chic red linen pants suit that showed the slight bump of her belly and smiled. “He sees no one but you.”
“I should hope so, I am carrying his child.” Kelsey looked at her thoughtfully. “I am very possessive when it comes to that part of it. I am not much for relationships or worse marriage considering I have never been married. I don’t know what goes on behind your doors at home, but you have been together for so long that you have kids. In my experience, children complicate things.”
“He hit me,” Maisie said bluntly. “He was going on about me being with Nicholas and I slapped him hard. He slapped me back.”
“I hope you bloodied his nose,” Kelsey said grimly.
“Nicholas did it for me.”
Kelsey stared at her for a moment and then smiled. “He is quite the hero, isn’t he?” Her voice was unconsciously gentle when she said it.
“He is.” She sipped her drink. “We have not been talking much, Graham and I, since the incident, but he has not approached me about anything like that again.”
“Are you in love with him?”
Maisie had expected the question and she shrugged. “No,” she said honestly. “It was more of a business match than anything else. The children make it worthwhile and for that reason I am determined to stick it out.”
“Is that wise?” Kelsey pushed her plate away and shook her head at the hovering waitress. “Children are very aware of what goes on between parents.”
“I read what happened with your dad,” Maisie told her. “I can assure you that Alexandra and Maurice will never lack for anything. As much as a jerk he is and obsessed with wealth, he loves his children and so do I.”
“Is that enough for you?”
“For now. You are very frank, aren’t you?”
“A woman in business has to be.” Kelsey looked at her contemplatively. “Nicholas told me he is in love with me.” She surprised herself and the woman sitting opposite her by saying it.
Maisie nodded. “I can see that by the way he looks at you and
how he talks about you.”
“He talks about me?” The minute the question was out of her mouth, she felt like a teenager exchanging confidences with her best friend.
“He does,” Maisie said with a quick laugh, looking at her shrewdly. “He is proud of you.”
“Well…” She shrugged and looked down into her drink.
“You have something there, Kelsey. I would give away three quarters of my designer clothes to have it.” She sounded a little sad. “Appreciate it.”
*******
“What are you doing?” He came up behind her and looked into the pot she had on the stove top. She had called him and told him she was going home early and she would be going to his apartment. He had given her a key a long time ago.
“Making my special crispy fried chicken and there is a sauce I am trying out. You are my guinea pig.” She turned her head to look up at him. He brought his head down and kissed her lips slowly, heating up her flesh. She abandoned what she was doing and turned into his arms sinking into the kiss.
“I missed you.” He left her lips and drifted down to her bare neck. She had come in and taken a shower. She smelled like apples and raspberries and something else.
Suddenly, she pushed him away. “My sauce!”
He watched in amusement as she stirred frantically while turning down the flames. He reached onto the counter for one of the pieces of golden brown chicken and bit into it. His eyes widened as he munched. It was spicy but not overly so and was seasoned to the bone! It was the most delicious fried chicken he had even eaten!
“What do you think?” she asked as she perched on one of the stools.
“No wonder you rake in the money,” he said in admiration, stopping short of licking his fingers.
“Try it with the sauce,” she suggested. He did and almost wept at the deliciousness of it. He used the piece of drumstick and scraped the sauce out of the plate.
“Amazing,” he murmured and this time he licked his fingers. “Our children are going to be fat, aren’t they?”
She went still at what he said. He had used the word children without even blinking.
“What?” He looked at her puzzled.
“Nothing.” She shook her head, feeling a strange glow inside her. “I am planning on introducing it for the summer.”
“It is ready.” He reached for two more pieces, and Kelsey laughed at him, causing him to stare at her. It was the first time he had ever seen a genuine laugh from her and it gave him a warm feeling inside!
*****
Spring break came and went and with her meeting a very enthusiastic Alexandra who plied her with questions as to the key to her success. Kelsey found herself liking the girl who looked so much like her uncle that it was uncanny.
He found out that her birthday in June and decided to have a party for her at the manor. They had been to the doctor and discovered they were having a boy. “You wanted a boy?” Kelsey asked him as soon as the doctor put away his instrument and left them alone.
“It does not matter to me the sex.” He helped her put on her clothes and ran a hand over her baby bump, letting it linger there. “I just want him to be healthy and look like you.”
“Funny, I want him to look like you.” She gripped his hands for a moment. “Now I am scared. What if something is wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong.” He kissed her softly and then took her hand to lead her outside. “We are going to have a healthy son.”
He roped in Maisie, Linda, and his mother to help with the planning of it. He also called Kelly and had her invite the rest of the wives and their families. Her birthday was on June tenth and the good thing was that it would be on a Saturday so it was perfect. He had also invited her dad, which he was hesitant about at first but he figured he could take whatever she had to dish out at him. He had wanted to pop the question and make it into an engagement party, but he knew she was not ready.
He wanted so much to marry her that it was quietly driving him crazy! Every time he thought he was making headway, something would happen and he would get discouraged.
A few nights ago, they were sitting curled up on the sofa at his place watching an old black and white comedy when she made a comment that had him feeling down.
“Look at her looking for a happy ending when there is no such things” she had said lightly as she snuggled close to him.
“Happy endings are not all that rare, Kelsey,” he had commented.
“They are few and far between,” she had insisted.
“We could have one if you gave us a chance.”
“Can we not talk about this now?” she had said in agitation and he had dropped the subject.
“What are her favorite flowers?” His mother came into the living room and interrupted his thoughts. He turned to look at her standing there elegant in a pale blue dress with her wheat blonde hair in a ponytail. He scurried in his thought to try and remember the kinds he had seen in her apartment. “Orchids and yellow roses and also daisies,” he said with certainty.
“Not a lot of men remember that, darling.” She came further into the room. “Your father, as much as I adore him, annoys me because he brings home oleander and daffodils when my favorite flower is larkspur.”
“What do you do?” Nicholas asked with a laugh.
“I keep reminding him. “Sarah took her son’s hand and led them over to one of the sofas in the room. He had come over from the office early to see to the arrangements and she thought that was very sweet of him. Her precocious son was growing up and had fallen in love at last. “You have to take the bull by the horns and propose to her, darling.”
“I am afraid of being gored by that same bull,” he said ruefully.
“I am sure that this bull is gentle. I have watched the two of you and I know for sure that she is in love with you as well.”
“Mother, she has been through so much that my heart cries out for her. She took me to where she grew up and looking at the place gave me the creeps. It is not so much how small it was but it was depressing to say the least. She spent a lot of lonely days and nights there with no one to turn to.” He clasped his hands between his legs. “How do I make her understand that I want to give her what she never had before?”
“You keep at it,” Sarah said softly. “You keep at it until she gets it.”
“She is probably not going to speak to me after this party,” he said ruefully.
“I am sure she will appreciate it.”
******
“Where are we going?” He had made her get dressed and told her that he was taking her out for her birthday. She had much preferred that they had stayed in and had dinner just the two of them because she had not been feeling very hot. Besides which, she had discovered that two of her staff in one of the restaurants had been trying to sabotage her by trying to get the health department to give her a bad report. Luckily, it had been nipped in the bud before it became too late. She had fired them and was now suspicious of the rest of them. Usually, she allowed the managers at the various locations to deal with things like these, but it had been over their heads.
“I have to drop by the manor before I take you to dinner,” he told her. She settled back in the seat and closed her eyes. He glanced at her swiftly looking at the bulge of her belly. She refused to slow down, retorting that he was a man running a company and he was not required to slow down so why should she? He had hated to remind her that she was the one carrying their child.
“Would you come in with me?” He had instructed his mother to tell the guests to park around the sides of the house so that she would not see them.
“Do I have to?”
“Please?”
She sighed and got out of the vehicle. She had put on a simple loose dress the color of washed out red with thin straps and had thrown a scarf around her shoulders.
He took her hand and led her to the front door which was swung open by Jerry, the butler. “Good evening sir, Miss Kelsey.” He beamed. “May I take your scarf?�
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“We are not staying long,” she began but stopped as he took it anyway. “It is very quiet. Your parents have already gone to bed?”
“Maybe.” He guided her towards the hall and pushed the doors open. Immediately, the lights went on and the choruses of ‘surprise!’ sounded very loud in the huge room, causing her to jump backwards and connect with his chest. His arms went around her and held her from behind. “Happy birthday,” he whispered.
“You did this?” She looked around at the familiar faces, her eyes lighting on her dad who was standing with his parents.
“Do you mind?”
“No one has ever…” She left the sentence hanging, but he knew what she was going to say.
“I know,” he told her gently as he took her hand and led her into the crowd. Before she could say anything else, people started coming around and offering their best wishes for her birthday. Before long, Kelly climbed up on the makeshift podium and called out for silence. “We have seen that Kelsey was indeed surprised by all this, but we want to know what she thinks of it all. We would like to hear from you.”
It was followed by choruses of, “Speech! Speech!” from the rest of the people gathered there.
Kelsey hesitated briefly and headed forward giving her friend a pained look as she made her way up. She looked at the sea of faces. Even her secretary and some of her members of staff were there. “I frankly do not know what to say,” she began. “This was really a surprise. Nicholas never gave any indication of what he was planning and I understand that I have his mother and his sisters–in-law and Kelly to thank for this. I had several birthday parties when my mother was alive.” She swallowed and saw when her father held his head down and Nicholas started towards her. “I just want to say that this is nicest gift I could ever receive. Thanks a lot.”
He came forward and took hand. “Are you sure?” he whispered.
“I am sure.” She hugged him. “Thank you.”
She mingled, promising to pay back Kelly in kind. She sat around for a little bit with the wives as they were referred to and found that she had never enjoyed herself so much in the company of other women! She spoke to her dad briefly who sang Nicholas’ praises until Kelsey felt she could take it no more! Even in the midst of the celebration, she could not find it in her heart to soften her heart towards him.