by Simply BWWM
“There you are!” The soft pleasant voice filled the air around him, and he blinked and sighed slightly, raising his eyes from his coffee cup to look up at her as she walked toward him.
Monica was wearing a white satin dressing gown with spaghetti straps over her shoulders, the material molding itself around the curves of her breasts and rounded belly before it stopped short at the middle of her thighs.
She went to him and laid her hand on his shoulder. He looked away from her and stood up, stepping over to the sink to place his coffee cup in it. She followed him and rested her hands on his back, rubbing it slightly.
“Nicky, I’m lonely for you!” she crooned, but he walked away from her again and went to the coffee pot, picking up the bag of coffee to put it away in the cupboard. He said nothing to her in response.
Not to be deterred, she went to him again and took his hand in hers, gazing up at him with pleading eyes. “Come on, honey. When are you going to let me back into your bedroom?” she asked with a coy smile. “After all, we are engaged…” she trailed off and lifted his hand to her mouth to kiss his fingers, but he pulled his hand away from her.
“I don’t know,” he said quietly, shaking his head a little. “I’m not ready for anything like that.”
With a frustrated sigh, she pouted slightly and took his hand again. “Nick! We are supposed to be starting a family here! You are going to have to step up and make this a family with me! I can’t do it on my own.”
She planted his hand on her swollen belly, and as his palm curved over the bump, a solid kick landed on him. He blinked, startled, and stared at the baby bump. The realization that his child was inside of her, alive and kicking, growing every moment, hit him hard and he felt frozen to the spot.
A wave of realization, of fatherhood, washed over him. For the first time he fully understood the tremendous responsibility of the future at his hands and the life that he owed to the child that she was carrying, his child, the baby that he had wanted with her so badly for so long. She was carrying it, and she was there with him, willing and trying to create the dream that he had begged her for and hoped for.
He gasped and his expression softened, and she saw it; she saw the transformation in him and she drew nearer to him, lifting her hand to touch his face tenderly. “Nicky,” she whispered softly, running her finger over his lips and chin, and then bringing her hand down to his chest as she gazed up at him with her wide blue eyes.
“Nicky, don’t you remember how we loved each other? How we made love and created this baby? We could have that again, and better, if you would just give us a chance. Just let me in again, and I promise that I won’t hurt you. I’m here to make this work, to have the family that we started when you and I shared such passion with each other, loved each other, and made this child of ours.
Come on, Nicky, let me in. Let me back into your heart and into your bedroom. I know you love me. You’ve never loved anyone like you love me. Now you have me back, and we have this baby, and we don’t need anything else.” She smiled at him and slid her arms around him, holding him close to her.
He was still for a moment as he considered all that she was saying, but his heart revolted, and he gently pushed her back and stepped away from her. “I know what you’re saying, Monica. I do, and I get it. You have no idea how much I get it, but I need some time. I was headed down a different road toward a different life when you showed back up here. I can’t just throw all of that away and pick back up where we left off when things were good. I need some time to wrap my head around this and figure it out.”
Her expression grew dark, and she crossed her arms over her chest as her eyes narrowed slightly. “We don’t have much time left before this baby is born. I want a real commitment from you before then.”
He sighed and turned away from her, walking out the door and closing it behind him, lost in the utter confusion and confliction of two worlds ripped apart with him in the middle.
Chapter10
The weeks passed swiftly, like a blur, but only during the daytime. At night they dragged on with agonizing slowness, seeming to last for eternity, and she found that the dream catcher over her bed did nothing to stop the dreams of Nick, both waking and sleeping dreams, from filling her mind when there wasn’t the business of the day to distract her.
Before she knew it, the classes had started, and she could lose herself in the students and the creativity and the artwork, giving her a reprieve for part of the time. The rest of the time, it was all she could do to keep Nick out of her mind and her heart, and she discovered that she was terrible at it.
A light began to shine at the end of her dark tunnel when Chris told her that he was going to come and see her for a week. He booked a flight, and on the last day of her classes, she drove Diana’s old red car out to the airport and picked him up.
It was as if her heart was awash in love and pure happiness when she saw him, and they embraced and held each other tightly for a long time before she finally let him go. Tears filled both of their eyes, and they were both blissful to have the opportunity to be together.
Chanel took Chris out to the car, and he stared around him at the world of the desert and furrowed his brow. “I thought you said I would like it here. I distinctly remember you telling me that I would like it here. I can’t tell you how much I don’t like this.”
She laughed at him. “I didn’t mean this part. I knew you wouldn’t like this part too much. Give it a chance. You’ll like the ranch. Trust me. Who knows you better than me?” she asked him pointedly.
He raised his brows and shook his head. “No one. No one knows me better than you.” He got into the car, and she drove him the long distance out to the ranch.
When they came out of the walls of the canyon and he saw the valley and the grounds of the ranch, he couldn’t have been more surprised, just as she had been, and he laughed in amazement. “Oh, my god! I do love this! It’s beautiful!” His eyes moved over the landscape and scenery before him in astonishment.
She took him to an empty room beside hers and he met Diana, whom he loved right away and who loved him back just as much. After he had had a few minutes to settle in, Chanel took him on a walk about the grounds to see it all and to get some private conversation in. He brought a shoulder bag with him, carrying odds and ends, including sunblock and a water bottle.
“Diana’s pretty great,” he said with a smile. “I like her. She seems like a good person for you to be around while you’re healing, so that’s a plus.”
Chanel nodded and slipped her arm through his as they walked. “She has been really amazing for me. She’s understanding and comforting, she is so wise and clever, and she’s wickedly funny and kind of naughty. I just love her. She has been good for me.”
He looked over at her then and frowned some. “You told me that you were doing better, and I can see that you are in small ways, but I knew I wouldn’t see how you were really doing until I laid eyes on you. You are as beautiful as you’ve ever been, or more, but you look broken and devastated, and I can’t stand that.”
She stopped walking and looked at him as tears filled her eyes. “You always could see right through me,” she whispered as the salt tears rolled over her eyelashes and down her cheeks. “I’ve been trying so hard to heal, to get over it, to get over him, and it just… it just doesn’t come. There’s just no fixing this. I mean, I know it’s been two months, but in the grand scheme of life, that isn’t a long time. Look how fast I fell in love with him. Now two months later, he’s still right in the middle of me, right in the middle of my heart and my head, in the middle of every thought, and I just can’t get over him!”
Chris hugged her tight for a long minute, then let her go and looked at her seriously. “You’re going to have to let him go, and you’re going to have to heal, because your lover is about to belong to someone else.”
Everything in her stopped and she stared at him as her heart launched itself up into her throat. “What?” she whispered.
“What did you say?”
He sighed heavily and dug into his shoulder bag, pulling out a folded newspaper page. He handed it to her with a sorrowful look on his face. It was the society page, and there in a half page spread was an article complete with pictures, sharing the news of Boston billionaire Nick Thomas marrying the love of his life, Monica Wainwright. There was a photograph of the two of them happily holding one another. She stared at the face of the man she was in love with and saw emptiness in his eyes.
Her stomach tightened, and she was sickened. Pushing the newspaper page away from herself and back to Chris, she turned her head. “I can’t look at it. I can’t. Please take it. Burn it.” Chris pulled it from her fingers and crumpled it up, shoving it back into his bag.
“I only brought it so that you could see that he is moving on with his life, and he’s getting married, and they are having a baby. You need to let him go. He has let you go and moved on. You need to do the same. You have to. You can’t keep holding on to him the way that you are. There’s no good that can come of it,” Chris spoke with a tender and compassionate voice, and then he wrapped his arms around her and held her as she wept.
When she was able to breathe again to some extent and the tears stemmed, she let him go and wiped at her face and eyes. “Diana did say that I could stay as long as I want to. I think I’ll continue to stay out here for a while. I don’t think I could go back yet. I’m not ready to go back yet; it would hurt too much. There are too many recent memories. I just… I need more time to heal.”
Chris nodded. “I understand, honey. You do whatever is best and right for you. Stay here as long as you need to and work on letting him go. I’m always going to be around for you, no matter where I am.”
“I know that. Thank you, my dear one. Thank you so much.” She hugged him tight again, and they walked on once more.
***
Monica’s eyes flashed open and she gasped, gripping her big belly with both of her hands. She flipped her head over and stared at Nick, who was sleeping peacefully beside her.
“Nick!” she reached over to him and grabbed his arm. “Nicky! Wake up!”
He opened his eyes partially and pulled his arm away from her. “Monica, I told you that I’m not ready for any kind of intimacy with you. We’re not doing this. I said you could sleep in my bed as long as you stay on your side of it. Just because we’re married doesn’t mean we’re going to be intimate. I’m not ready yet.”
She scowled sharply at him. “Nicky!” she snapped angrily at him.
He frowned and opened both eyes, looking at her in confusion. “What?”
“I’m not trying to come on to you for sex, you idiot! I think my water just broke!” Her eyes were wide with horror.
Nick sat bolt upright and gasped. “Your water broke? Are you sure?”
She nodded vehemently. “Yes, I am definitely sure.”
“Okay. Let’s go!” He jumped from the bed and ran to her side of it, helping her out of it and then grabbing her hospital bag on the way out the door.
In no time at all, they were checked into the hospital, and she was laid back on a bed in a sterile room, crying out in agony as one contraction after another hit her. Nick stayed at her side, holding her hand and encouraging her, worrying about everything as their child came closer into the world.
The nurses and doctor rushed around her, all of them commenting on how swiftly her labor was going, and Nick grew even more concerned. The minutes ticked by, and her contractions grew close enough together that she was finally able to push the baby from her body, and Nick stared in wonder as a little boy was brought into his life.
Monica passed out in exhaustion, but the doctor and nurses told Nick that she would be all right; she just needed to rest. The doctor handed the cleaned baby to him and gave him a smile.
“An eight-pound son, that’s a healthy boy you’ve got there, dad.” The doctor beamed at him, and Nick blinked in surprise.
Looking up at the doctor, he asked, “Wait… isn’t eight pounds pretty big for a premature baby? She’s not due for another two months. I can’t imagine how big this baby would have been if she had carried him to full term.”
The doctor furrowed his brow slightly and shook his head. “I’m not sure how you’re confused about this, but she’s over her term. She was due last week. This little guy stayed in his mother for forty-one weeks. He’s not premature. He is healthy though, so there’s nothing for you to worry about.”
Nick stared at him. “She was over… by a week?” he gasped, blinking at the doctor.
“Yes, she was. In fact, I told her if she didn’t have the baby by next Monday, I was going to induce her, but it looks like nature took care of it for us.” He patted Nick on the shoulder and got about the business of getting the placenta and other tissues from within Monica as she laid there passed out between them. Nick stared down at the baby in his hands for a long minute before the nurse took the little one from him.
Monica opened her eyes and looked around her room. There were bouquets of flowers on the table nearby, and Nick was sitting on the wide window sill, looking out at the city of Boston before him.
“Where’s the baby? Is everything okay?” Monica asked worriedly as she ran her hands over her belly.
Nick nodded, and spoke with a quiet tone. “Yes, everything is okay. The baby is fine. He’s in the nursery with the nurses.” He got off the window sill then and walked over to her, stopping at the end of her bed as he looked at her.
“He is a healthy, happy, eight-pound, full-term baby boy,” Nick said evenly as he stared at her.
She smiled widely for a moment, then the smile started to fade a little, and her eyes held Nick’s.
“Monica, I wasn’t with you nine months ago. I was in Europe on that three-month business trip. You were home alone in my house nine months ago. I put a ring on your finger, you said you would marry me, and then I left to go to Europe to close out the final business deals that my father had been working on before he died.
I was over in Europe for three months at the beginning of our engagement, exactly nine months ago. There is no way that I could have fathered a baby in you that could be born full term today. I want to know what’s going on right now. Is that little boy mine or not?” He felt in his heart that he already knew the answer, and there was no getting around the truth.
She began to weep and held her hands out to him. “I don’t know what that doctor is talking about! He’s a preemie baby! He’s yours! How can you even ask me that? How could you assume that I would ever cheat on you?”
“I’m not assuming anything, but I am having a paternity test done, and the results will be back soon. I thought I’d give you the chance to tell me how those results are going to come back.” His tone was still even, and his voice was quiet.
“You had a paternity test done?” she asked in a horrified whisper, staring hard at him.
He nodded. “Yes, I did. If that baby is mine, then you have nothing to worry about.” With that, he turned around and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.
***
Chanel walked up the long lane past all of the cabins, empty again as her class had ended and all of her students had gone back to their homes and lives. She liked having them there, but she also loved the peace and quiet of the ranch when there were only a few people around, and she had space and room to think and rest. She reached the big house at the end of the lane and walked into the kitchen, planning on making herself a cup of tea before going into the studio that she had been using to create a new painting.
As she walked in through the wide doorway, she stopped in her tracks and stared. “Nick!” she gasped, unable to believe what she was seeing.
He was standing there before her, leaning his hips against the counter with his hands slid down halfway into his pockets. His blue eyes looked tormented, and when he saw her, he pulled his hands from his pockets and went to her, reaching for her and folding her into his embrace.
/> She didn’t want him to, but she needed him to, and as he closed his arms around her, she breathed in the scent of him. It hit her like a brick wall, bringing back every memory of him, every beautiful moment, every precious happiness and joy, and she wept into his chest, unable to contain the tidal wave of emotion that was crashing through her.
“My Chanel, my love, god, I’ve missed you so much. I can’t believe how much I missed you,” he choked through his own emotion as he breathed her in and kissed her forehead.
He held her a long while and then finally let her go, holding her shoulders in his hands. She raised her eyes to him and stared at him, shaking her head in disbelief.
“What are you doing here?” she asked in total confusion.
He sighed and shook his head slowly. “I had to see you. I had to tell you what’s happened and… explain. Monica had the baby, and I found out that it wasn’t mine.”
Chanel blanched and her jaw fell open. “What? What are you talking about?”