by S. Ann Cole
With the stretching silence between us, I became aware that music was playing in the car. The yelling and tension seemed to have drowned out the sound earlier. But now the words were floating around the confinements of the car and I recognized it as Chris Brown’s All Back, a song that I’d grown to love over the past few weeks. Ever since Nicole had told me that Lovello only listened to that particular song, I’d searched it up on YouTube and, just like that, it’d become one of my favorites.
The familiar words made me relax a bit. I sat back and tilted my head against the window, watching the cars that flew by and singing along to the words of the song. Clearly not liking that I was singing his song or maybe the feelings it might have evoked, Lovello furiously punched a button and switched it to another song called Deuces by the same singer.
Only halfway through, and the song began to rile me with all its harsh and insensitive words. I leaned forward and tried to switch it, but it only kept repeating instead. So I just punched the ‘pause’ button to shut the damn thing up, then huffed back in my seat.
Hearing a stifled sound from Lovello, I turned to glower at him and found that he was biting down on his lower lip, suppressing a laugh.
Asshole.
Snatching my cellphone from my handbag, I dialed Trudy, but it only rang out. That was all I needed to know that she’s the one who told him. Trudy was wont to ignore my calls whenever she knew she’d done me wrong.
I navigated to Blackberry Messenger and sent her a message.
Axia: How can you call yourself a friend, when you can’t even keep a secret?
Trudy: I’m truly sorry, Axia. He was very scary. I didn’t just go to him and tell him. He already knew.
Axia: What the hell’s that supposed to mean? How could he possibly know? I found out less than twenty-four hours ago.
Trudy: Idk. He summoned me up to his office the minute I got to work. And when I went, all he said was, “confirm it”. I was gonna lie, but he threatened that if I lied to him, he’d drop my project. What was I to do?
Trudy: Be a goddamn FRIEND!! That’s what you should’ve done.
Trudy didn’t reply, which meant she was either angry at my selfishness or ashamed of her weakness. Lovello careened the car into his neighborhood, then punched in the pass code when he revved up to his residence, and drove down the cobblestoned driveway to his humongous home. Oh, how long it had been since I’d been to this place. For some strange reason, I felt like I was at home. As if this was where I belonged.
Lovello parked at the front of the house and hopped out of the car, then stood waiting for me to get out, too. What did he expect? That he could just drag me off a doctor’s bed, bark off my head, bring me to his home and all would be well? That I’d comply with his every command? That I’d carry the child because he said so? How’s he even so sure that the child is his anyway? Better yet, how did he know I was pregnant? Tish and Trudy both denied being firsthand at relaying such information. No one else knew.
“Get out of the car, Axia,” he ordered.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “No. You won’t tell me what to do.”
Frustrated, he ran his palm over his face. “Believe me, I don’t want to tell you what to do either. But I really don’t want to risk harming my baby by manhandling you. So just be a good little girl and get out of the car.”
“How did you know?” I inquired.
“Don’t worry about that. C’mon. Out of the car.”
“No. Not until you tell me how you knew.”
Lovello slammed his door and marched around to the passenger side, rending the door open. “Do you really want me to toss you over my shoulder again, Axia? What, you only respond to rough treatment?”
Indolently, I picked at my fingernails like a bratty teenager, muttering, “Do what you will, Nelson. I’m not the one who wants the child. You’ll be doing me a favor by inducing a miscarriage.”
Lovello blinked at me, a thin shade of vulnerability veiling him. Hurt flashed refulgently in his eyes. He was showing me everything. He wanted me to want the child as much as he did. He wanted me to be ecstatic and rhapsodic like most new mothers are.
This is not a fairy tale, Pretty Boy. And I’m no golden-haired heroine. I’m a contemporary bitch, with a tough and contemporary kind of love. You should’ve thought about it before you got engaged in this love story. You don’t always get what you want. Deal with it.
“Nicole told me,” he said.
What? How could Nicole have known that? “I don’t understand. How could she possibly know that?”
“A few weeks ago when I was in Dubai, she phoned me and told me she paid you a visit, and that you were puking all over the place. She said she thought — no, that she knew you were pregnant.” Lovello shrugged. “But she also told me you were sleeping with Trev, so I didn’t care much for her words.”
That miscreant bitch. “So what made you believe?”
Lovello heaved a sigh, obviously petulant that he had to be explaining shit to me. “When I saw you in L.A. you were abnormally pale and ill-looking. I mean, you were sleeping in a public place. A blind man could’ve been in your presence and tell that something was wrong, Axia. So I began calling your father to check up on you, thinking he might know and would hopefully confirm it. But he kept saying you were okay. My next prey was Trudy. I watched her closely. Any sketchy move, and I was on to her. Yesterday when she told me you fainted, I just knew. What I didn’t know was that you’d want to abort my … my child.”
Despite being apart for shy two months, the man was so sure that the baby was his. “It’s not your child. It’s … Trev’s,” I lied.
Lovello’s slate-grays turned glacial, all vulnerability gone. He pinched the bridge of his nose as he glanced around his yard. A fountain was right next to where he parked, springing water and creating that soothing waterfall sound. Mixtures of various birds’ chirps and tweets echoed around us, while the leaves of the shedding trees and plants whistled as the air hissed through them. It was very early in the morning, and chilly, despite the glaring sun in the sky. Such a beautiful morning with such horrendous acts taking place. Humans were destructive creatures. Without us, the earth would be one constant globe of beauty. Without humans ruining Mother Nature, she’d be ruling all. Responsible for all the earth’s beauty. To hell with us unappreciative, corruptive humans.
Lovello suddenly grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the car. “Nice try, Axia. Trev wouldn’t sleep with you. He likes you too much.” Picking up my handbag, he added, “And even if it was Trev’s, it’s still a Nelson.”
He kicked the car door shut and hauled me up the steps to his house, dragging me through the double doors. We were instantly greeted by Rosa in the foyer. “Good day, Mr. Nelson. Miss Blacksille.”
Thrusting my handbag to her, Lovello ordered, “Rosa, prepare the quarter opposite yours and rehire Donna. Assign her to Miss Blacksille.”
“Okay. Donna to stay in second quarter like me, and Miss Blacksille to live here?” Rosa asked in her heavy Spanish accent.
“Yes. And…” He trailed off as he turned to me, yanked my hand to pull me up to him, then began sweeping his thumbs across my face, searching for God knows what. Right then, my senses grew alert and I almost moaned. I hated that I loved his touch so much. “Prepare some chicken soup for Miss Blacksille. Take it up to our room.”
Our room?
“Okay,” Rosa nodded. “Mr. Lenton present, sir. I give him key for guest house like you said.”
“Good. Send him to my study in thirty.”
Rosa nodded again and rolled off, and Lovello continued on, dragging me like a rag doll up the stairs.
“Who’s Mr. Lenton?” I asked.
He didn’t look at me when he said, “The security that’s going to make sure you never leave this house. At least not until you’re six months in.”
“You can’t do that!” I protested, as he pulled me down the hall.
“Oh, but I can, Miss Blacksille,” h
e drawled. “Medieval-style, baby. You don’t get to see the light of day until I’m positive that baby is safe.”
“You can’t treat me like that! You don’t own me!”
Lovello stopped his long strides and released his hold on me. Turning to face me, he tilted his head to the side. “I don’t?”
“No. You don’t.”
He took a step toward me, and I took one step back. Another step toward me, then I took another step back. This repeated until I was backed up against the wall, and there was nowhere else for me to go as he closed in on me. With one final step, he closed the gap, no air passing between us. I momentarily stopped breathing, my heart palpitating in my chest, goose bumps rising on my skin, my tongue drying and sticking to the roof of my mouth.
He pressed his palms flat against the wall, caging me. And that was it. His nearness, his all-masculine scent, his hot, minty breath on my face, all sent excited arousals shooting to my core, soaking my panties. Lovello’s perfectly sculpted lips parted as he lowered his head and gently brushed them against mine. Not kissing me, but teasing me. I wanted to taste his tongue, oh how I wanted to taste his tongue.
Back and forth, he only brushed his lips against mine, never giving me his tongue. When I couldn’t stand it any longer, I lifted my hands to wrap them around his neck and pull him down to me. But with agile movements, he grabbed my wrists and stopped me, tutting. “None of that, lady.”
Bringing my hands above my head, he manacled them with one hand, then used his free hand to undo the button and zipper of my jeans. He dipped his hand inside my panties and slid his fingers through my slick, wet folds. The feel of his fingers on me again for the first time in almost two months was so euphoric that it almost brought me to tears.
“Your mouth says one thing, but your body says something completely different,” he whispered against my ear. He withdrew his hand from my panties and popped two of his arousal-covered fingers in his mouth, smiling loutishly around them. “Whenever you become confused about who owns you, Axia, always remember the person who makes you both wet and dry at the same time.” He tapped two fingers against my mouth. “Dry up here…” Then lowered his hand and tapped two his fingers over my throbbing core. “ … And wet down here.”
With a smug grin, he pushed away from the wall, grabbed my hand and continued down the hall to his room. The man got me all aroused just to leave me hanging? It felt like forever since I’d been touched like that.
Opening the door to his majestic bedroom that I’d missed so much, he led me in and sat me down on the bed, then stood before me with his arms folded across his chest. “After getting something warm in your stomach, I want you to get some sleep. Your eyes are bloodshot and you are far too pale.”
He paused, waiting for a protest, then continued when he heard none. “Call your doctor and have her do what she needs to do in making sure that you’re healthy and prescribing your prenatal vitamins. If you play fractious, Axia, you know I’ll simply get my own doctor assigned to you. After all that, I’ll take you in to do an ultrasound. But you’re never leaving this house without me, got that?”
“You can’t treat me like a prisoner. I’ll call my father…”
He couldn’t cage me up and treat me like that. I was a twenty-six–year-old woman, with my own business, my own life, my own millions. How dare he try to reprimand me like a hare-brained filly, all because of a bloody fetus inside me.
Lovello shrugged. “Call him if it suits you. I’m pretty sure he won’t object to my actions once I tell him what you were doing. I’m quite aware of your father’s principles. I know he’s a religious, upstanding man who won’t support this kind of bullshit. And you don’t even want to let Marcello Nelson get a whiff of this news, sweetie. It wouldn’t be pretty. He can ruin you with just a wink of his eye. I’m sure you know that.” He crouched down to level his eyes with mine. “Just accept it, Axia: there’s no getting out of this pregnancy.”
At those last words, sweat instantly stained my palms, and I rubbed them up and down my jeans-clad thighs. My heart began racing at the frightening realization that I was really going to carry a child. On their own, my legs started bouncing uncontrollably and my teeth were chattering so hard that my gum hurt. It suddenly felt really hard to breathe. Really hard. Then a spate of tears streamed down my face as my whole body started to shiver. I couldn’t control anything that was happening to my body. It was acting of its own volition.
“Axia?” Lovello’s voice was an echoing sound. He sounded so far away, like he was in a tunnel. Waves of his one word crashed over my head.
“Axia?” Panic striated his voice this time.
I barely felt his touch as he wrapped his arms around my shivering body and lifted me up to lower me rightfully on the bed. “Breathe, beauts, breathe…”
The tears kept flowing and my limbs kept trembling, as the words ‘I’m pregnant’ and, ‘I’m going to have a baby,’ rolled over and over in my head. Lovello climbed into the bed with me and pulled the duvet over both of us. He wrapped his warm body around me like an ivy, cradling me to him. “Shh … breathe, beauts…” he soothed.
After a few passing minutes, the shivering abated, and the rapid palpitation of my heart subdued. But the tears deluged all the more, accompanied by sharp hiccups and heaves. “I-I-I’m scared, Love.”
Those were words I never used. Though there were quite a few things that scared me, getting me to admit it was never a probability. ‘I’m scared’. ‘I don’t know what to do’. ‘Help me.’ They were all things I never said. Ever.
Now all it took was a latent Nelson to demolish me. Mentally, physically, emotionally, I was deteriorating. And I was frightened to death because there was nothing I could to sustain myself. My strength was non-existent.
“Don’t be, beauts,” Lovello whispered. “It’ll be okay. I’ll take care of you. For the rest of my life. I’ll take care of you.”
XXX
When I woke up the room was dark, indicating that night had fallen. Like a caterpillar, my body was wrapped up in a thick duvet, while the air-conditioner was on full blast. I looked to the open doorway and saw Lovello’s silhouetted frame leaning against the door jamb with his arms folded across his chest — at least, I thought I did. Because when I murmured a “hey” through a yawn as I rubbed my bleary eyes, the silhouetted frame vanished. Maybe he was never really there?
Feeling starved as if I could eat a cow, I unwrapped myself from the duvet and climbed out of bed, deciding to grab a quick shower first. I would most likely have to don one of Lovello’s T-shirts and boxers since I no longer had any of my stuff here.
There was a glass of orange juice with garnish sitting on the nightstand and, not caring if it was left there for me or not, I guzzled it down. It only served to aggrandize my already gargantuan appetite.
That power-sleep was much-needed and much-deserved. I felt rested and a bit clear-headed, and somewhat giddy about the fact that Lovello and I were kind of getting back on track. Maybe that’s what’s giving me an appetite again? Making me feel energized, rejuvenated and ready to love him ten times harder than before?
Yes, I loved him. With all my heart. And for the first time since I found out I was pregnant, I felt good about it. I think it was because of Lovello’s eagerness for me to carry this child. How badly he wanted it. There’s something about a man not being afraid of responsibilities that magnifies their sexiness. Some men would’ve caught a stroke at the news of pregnancy in a relationship as short as ours. Especially when they thought they were playing safe.
Then there were the men who would don their running shoes and sprint to the other end of the earth faster than Usain Bolt, leaving a woman to raise a child on her own. What the heck do they have to be afraid of? They’re not the ones who’re going to suffer sickness and shit for nine long months. They’re not the ones who’ll grow out of shape, get stretch marks and deflated boobs. They’re not the ones who’re going to have a baby’s big-ass head forcing its way t
hrough their pleasure source. What the hell are they running from?
What, exactly, do men fear about being a father? A woman has every right to fear, to run from all this, to scream bloody murder, because all the burden is laid on her, while men are still allowed to look ‘oh so fabulous’ and carry on with their charming awesomeness. All a woman needs from these dipshits is support and kind words, and a helping hand when the baby arrives. And they’re running from that?
Assholes.
So maybe it was knowing that I wouldn’t have to raise a child on my own anymore that gave me a lighter, more acceptable feeling about the situation? Or maybe it was because he’d said those words: “I’ll take care of you. For the rest of my life. I’ll take care of you.“
A smile crept across my face. Yeah, it was most definitely because of those words. Impatient to jump under the rain-shower, I trundled to the en suite bathroom and stopped short when I saw my stuff. My robe, toothbrush and all my toiletries were all there.
As the thought that he had kept my things came to mind, I dismissed it and continued on to the shower. He wouldn’t have done that. He hated me. He’d been screwing around with every skunk in a skirt, so he wouldn’t have kept my things around. I’m figuring he just found a way to get past Bill into Crissida Cove and got them. It would make sense, seeing that I was forbidden to leave this house.
I hopped into the shower and turned my face up to the steaming water. Damn, I’ve missed this shower.
Some fifteen minutes later I emerged from the shower fresh and thoroughly scoured. As I padded into the bedroom, Rosa knocked on the open door then popped her head in. “Miss Blacksille?”