Kevin nodded. “I hope so. Jacob, I have to tell you, I feel like my whole life depends on it.”
Chapter7
Kevin felt as though he could not be tied up in more knots. His wife was pregnant, after having first told him that she had a hysterectomy and could not have children, and then admitting to him that she had lied to him about the medical procedure only because she didn’t want children with him.
Because of her lie, he had gone outside of their marriage and found another woman who agreed to conceive and carry his child through in vitro fertilization. He had fallen in love with the in vitro mother of his child, Marina, while she was still pregnant with their daughter, and more than anything, he wanted to marry her and raise their baby girl, Maddie, together.
Kevin was a man ruled by morality and extremely high values, and because he was married to Ellen, he would not consider cheating on her with Marina, and he had committed himself to reconstructing the broken marriage that he and Ellen found themselves.
Ellen was having constant affairs with men outside of her marriage to Kevin and completely abstaining from her marriage bed. She had spent two weeks with Kevin in Hawaii and during that time, she had finally made love with her husband. Now, a month later, she had discovered that she was pregnant, claiming that the father of her child was Kevin, stopping him from divorcing her just as he had made up his mind to take that step so he could be with Marina and Maddie.
It was a tangled web, indeed. Marina had fallen in love with Kevin, and had recently admitted it to him, and while she struggled with her love for a married man and the father of her child, her ex-fiancé Lamar had returned, deeply remorseful of having left her at the altar and determined to win her back and become her husband and Maddie’s step-father.
Marina wanted Kevin desperately, but she also knew that it wasn’t right to go after a married man, and she realized that her chances of him getting a divorce and marrying her were pretty slim. She knew what she wanted, but she knew she probably couldn’t have it, and that left her with the choice of either being alone or allowing Lamar the chance to love her again.
Kevin had his car pick Marina and Maddie up at their house and he took them to the boardwalk for the day to enjoy the sunshine and to spend time with the woman he loved and his beautiful baby girl.
He lavished his love on them, being careful to keep his closeness to Marina as simple as possible, so that he wouldn’t hurt her. He had asked her for time to make a decision about whether or not he would be getting a divorce and leaving his wife for her, or stay with his wife and keep their relationship a platonic arrangement.
Marina had been waiting patiently and quietly, and it had been more than a week. As they walked down the boardwalk together, she felt it was time to bring it up to Kevin again.
“I know I said I would be patient and wait for you to make up your mind, and I have been, but being out with you like this today, like a family, it makes me want your answer. Have you thought anymore about it? Have you decided about divorcing your wife?” Marina asked, as her heart pounded nervously in her chest.
Kevin had known that it would come up. He felt horrible about making her wait for such an important answer. He had gone over and over the conversation in his head, trying to decide if he would tell her that Ellen was pregnant, trying to decide if he would let her carry the pain and burden of that news.
He had finally decided against it. It was not something he wanted her to worry about unless it was confirmed that he was the father of Ellen’s baby and then he would have to stay with her. She was his wife, and if she was pregnant with his child, he would not break his home to be with the woman he loved and wanted more than anything. He had made a commitment to Ellen at their wedding, with the intention of having a family with her and it looked as though that was exactly what was happening.
He sighed. “Marina, I know you want an answer, and I wish I could give you one right now. I wish I had the right words to say the outcome that we are both hoping for, and that is to be together.” He stopped walking and turned to look at her, placing his hand on her cheek. “I want you more than anything in this world. I love you so very much, but I cannot make a choice about what can happen with us right now.”
She blinked back the tears that stung her eyes and swallowed the sadness that choked her. “Why not? Shouldn’t it be simple? Shouldn’t it be easy to choose the woman you love?”
He gazed at her, looking into her blue-gray eyes and losing himself in them for a long moment. How he wished he could be with her and keep her at his side for the rest of his life.
“Marina, I wish it was that simple, but it really isn’t. There have been some developments with Ellen. There are some legal issues that have complicated my ability to make an immediate choice. You and Maddie are my only real happiness and I want to be with you both, all the time, but the problems with Ellen have gotten out of hand and it is much more complicated than me just choosing between the two of you. There’s a great deal at stake, much more than money, and it will be a little while before I know what my real options are; what I can do and how it will affect everyone involved in this.”
He leaned toward her and pressed his lips gently to her forehead, pulling her close to him and holding her against him for a moment. They closed their eyes and they breathed each other in, then he let her go and looked down at her.
“Please give me a little more time. I am so sorry to have to ask you to be patient and wait, but I’m afraid that is exactly what I need to do. Could you please find it in your heart to wait just a little while longer and give me just a little more time? I hate making you wait, but there’s really nothing that I can do just yet. Please?” he asked softly, running his fingers down the side of her beautiful face.
She felt as though her heart was being pulled apart and it was almost more than she could bear. She closed her eyes for a moment and breathed in, soothing herself and calming the waves of emotion that crashed through her. She could give him more time. She was in no hurry to be in a relationship. She was focused on herself and Maddie and making sure that she gave Maddie a good start, but she didn’t want to be stuck in limbo forever, either.
Kevin waited nervously for her answer. He hoped she understood how much she meant to him and how much he truly wanted her, but he could not give her a decision until he knew for certain what was happening with Ellen.
She opened her eyes and looked up at him. “I’ll wait. I want to be with you, I want to raise Maddie with you as a family, but I understand that there is a lot going on for you right now and I can wait a little longer. Please don’t make me wait too long, though, Kevin. I can’t sit on a shelf and hope you choose me someday. If you aren’t going to be with me, then let me know soon so that I can try to fall out of love with you and get on with raising my daughter as your friend.”
Her honesty cut at him and he closed his arms around her tightly and embraced her. He wanted to beg her not to try to get over him, to stay in love with him and be his forever. He couldn’t stand the idea of her being with another man, but he also couldn’t promise her that he would be able to be hers.
“Thank you for giving me more time. I’ll try to get it sorted out as quickly as I can.” He kissed her warm cheek. She closed her eyes as his lips touched her skin and wished with all of her heart that he could be that close and even closer to her every day of her life.
They turned and strolled down the boardwalk, hearts heavy but glad to be together. They spent the better part of the day talking and laughing, playing with their baby girl and enjoying the warm sun and fresh sea air. It was a rare day that they were both very glad to spend together.
After Kevin returned Marina and Maddie to her house and hugged them both goodbye, kissing their cheeks as he left, he headed back to his own home, sorry to be going there. He walked up the rounded staircase to Ellen’s room and opened the door to find that she wasn’t there. He searched all of the upstairs and went downstairs to look for her. She was nowhere to be see
n.
He knew she was home. Her new Lamborghini was in the garage. He walked out behind the house and stood beside the pool, looking around the gardens. There was no sign of her, but after a few moments, he could hear voices and he walked toward the sound. He realized what he was hearing before he got to the source of it, and it turned his stomach and steeled his body.
He walked into the maintenance room at the back of the pool house. The door was open. He stepped onto the concrete floor and slid his hands into his pockets, looking with disgust upon the scene of his wife with her clothing half peeled off and pushed aside. She was bent over a work table as the newly hired model-beautiful pool man stood behind her, his hands grasping her breasts, his pants dropped down to his knees, and his hips grinding into Ellen’s. They were both in the throes of pleasure, gasping and groaning loudly.
Kevin cleared his throat and raised his voice. “Ellen!”
She turned and looked over her shoulder at him and gave him an extremely annoyed and intolerant look. The pool man looked horrified as he turned to see Kevin, but Ellen reached her hands around herself to grab onto his hips and hold him inside of her. “Don’t stop, Jose, it’s no one we need to worry about.”
Kevin sighed. “When you have a minute, please come to my office, Ellen.” He looked at them both and shook his head, then turned on his heel and walked out. He didn’t think he would ever be used to seeing her in intimate situations with other men. But because of the cameras around the house and their non-existent relationship with each other that resulted in a complete lack of respect toward Kevin, he had seen quite a bit of it, both in person and on video. It no longer surprised him, though it disgusted him immensely.
He strode into his office and poured himself a drink. Then he sat at his desk to work until she came in. He focused on everything in the moment, rather than letting himself think about what she was doing outside in the pool maintenance room with the pool man.
He hadn’t fired any of the staff that Ellen had been having sexual flings with on Jacob’s orders, because Jacob was building a case. There were four men on payroll and under his employment, that he was aware of, that were screwing his wife all over his property and his house, and Jacob had insisted that he left her to it, saying that he was giving her just enough rope to hang herself.
It was Jacob who saw to the hiring of the new male staff, and it hadn’t escaped Kevin’s attention, or Ellen’s, that all of them were extraordinarily fit and stunningly handsome. It didn’t take her any time at all to get the four he knew about into her bed or her body, and it was something she indulged in frequently.
Forty-five minutes later, she sauntered into his office in a string bikini that barely covered her beautifully sculpted body. Her long sable brown hair was hanging loosely around her shoulders and her dark eyes were sharp and fierce. She sat down on one of the couches and waved at the couch opposite her.
“Come sit over here if you want to talk with me. I don’t like sitting at the desk with you; it makes me feel inferior to you, and I’m not.” She spoke in an even tone.
Kevin watched her for a moment and then stood up and walked to the couch she pointed at and sat opposite her.
“Can I offer you a beverage?” he asked.
She laughed at him and shook her head. “Always so polite. I’ll have whatever you’re drinking.” She answered dryly.
He stared at her. “I’m drinking whiskey. May I get you something else?”
She scoffed. “Water is fine.”
Kevin frowned at her. “You aren’t drinking alcohol while you’re pregnant, are you, Ellen?”
She shook her head. “Not a chance. I’m staying healthy.” She patted her stomach. “I have to take care of this little cash cow.” She had made a point of telling Kevin that she expected to be treated like a queen since she was having his child, and that she wouldn’t be getting a divorce from him because he was now locked into their marriage as a result of the baby in her belly.
He wiped his finger over his brow and looked at her. “That’s something I want to talk with you about.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “What is it?”
He handed her an ice water and looked at her earnestly. “Your frequent trysts are a danger to the baby, and I want you to stop having intercourse.”
She gaped at him. “You think you can control me? You can’t! I can do whatever I want to do, and it’s not your business what I do!” she hissed at him.
Kevin kept his tone level. “I mean it, Ellen, you could hurt the child. Besides, it may have completely escaped your attention, but we are in fact married, and you should not be having sex with the staff all over the house we share.”
She leaned forward and glared at him. “I’ll do whatever I want to, Kevin dear, and you can keep your opinions to yourself. If I want to take a lover now and then, I will, because I need the affection. You and I aren’t intimate, so what other choice do I have?”
He held his tongue in check and was silent a moment before answering her. “You have several choices. I don’t sleep with anyone else. I don’t have extra marital affairs or sex with other women in our home or anywhere else for that matter! Perhaps you could show a little restraint when you are in our home and act like you are actually married!”
“Oh no, Kevin, you aren’t out sleeping with other women, you’re out having children with them! You didn’t just go out and find some woman to have an affair with, no; you went out and started a family with another woman! That’s far worse than me getting a little love in my lonely life!” she snapped angrily at him.
Ire rose in him. “I only found a surrogate mother because you told me you had a hysterectomy after we were married! You spent all of that time before we were married telling me how much you wanted to start a family with me and how anxious you were to have children.
“Once we were married, you left our marriage bed and hibernated in your own room. You almost never made love with me. When I brought up having children, you would push the idea off and when I pressed the issue again, you told me you had the hysterectomy, and then you told me to go have a child on my own! It was your idea.” He paused and took a gulp of his whiskey.
“I never would have even thought of it if you hadn’t come up with the idea for me. So I did… I listened to you and I went to find a woman to have a child for me, but I didn’t sleep with her, it was an in vitro fertilization and you know that full well. You’re the one who sneaked into my office and read through her file!”
“I wouldn’t have had to sneak if you had been honest with me right from the beginning and told me what you were doing!” she fired back at him.
“Nothing in this office is your business!” He stated that firmly. “You are very well taken care of, you lack for nothing, I am completely dedicated to you, and you have no reason to go snooping in here!” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I was saying, you told me you’d had a hysterectomy and then you tell me almost a year later that you lied to me, that not only is it possible for you to have children, but that you are pregnant with my child! I wouldn’t have believed you if I hadn’t seen the paperwork from the doctor!”
Her foul look turned into an evil grin. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me. That’s why I got the medical confirmation. Now I can stay forever, and you will always have to take care of me.” She smirked. “I’m never going to divorce you.”
He watched her for a long moment. “Then you had better stop sleeping with the staff and any other lovers I’m unaware of, and I mean immediately.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, “I will have lovers as long as I want to. Someone has to give me affection. Now, if you want to start talking about sacrifices, I would be willing to make a trade. I’ll stop seeing my boys if you stop seeing that woman and her kid. I mean completely. No visits, no phone calls, no messaging; nothing. No contact whatsoever. You stop seeing them and I will stop having fun with the guys.” She smirked coolly at him.
He felt embers of anger burning
brightly in him. “You can’t ask me to do that! That’s my daughter you’re trying to keep me from! There’s absolutely no way I’m going to stop spending time with my daughter. None. That won’t happen!” he raised his voice.
She shrugged and shook her head. “Well then, don’t ask me to quit. I’ll do what I want to. You can’t control me any more than I can control you, so we are either going to have to make a truce, and that was my offer to you for a truce, or you can just let it go and forget about it, because nobody tells me what to do.”
He knew there was only one other reason she might listen to. “What about the baby’s health? If it’s so important for you to have this baby to stay in this marriage, then why would you jeopardize the health of the little one you are carrying by having intercourse with so many different men?”
She just shook her head at him. “Don’t pull that on me. I’m taking care of myself and this baby, and the two of us are going to be around here for the rest of your life.” She curled the corners of her red lips up into a Cheshire cat smile and then stood up and walked out of the room.
The Baby Shower Page 40