“Aisha?” she called softly enough to be heard but not disturb her friend if she was sleeping. No answer. Aisha wasn’t on the couch in the parlor, or on the floor, or in the kitchen. In fact, it looked like she hadn’t made it home last night. That was understandable, she had barely made it home herself. She smiled as she thought back to the night just past. Normal Zara would be dreading facing the day after fucking someone that wasn’t her boyfriend and doing it in a club none the less. But yesterday’s Zara had been bold and assertive, she liked yesterday’s Zara.
She went into the kitchen and started preparing some bacon and eggs, as thoughts of the night past kept on assailing her memory. They had fucked three times, once in the club, then he had accosted her when she had gone to the bathroom to clean up, and taken her there in the bathroom stall—that was the best sex of her life, and then when they had gotten a vehicle to take her home, a very nice ride that Nathan had brushed off as belonging to the company. He had gone down on her and made her pussy happy before sliding his dick in, and making her have multiple orgasms for the first time in her life. She had been oblivious to the fact that there was a driver who had probably heard all her ‘oh gods!’ coming from the other side of the privacy partition, she had never wanted the night to end.
When she was done cooking breakfast, Zara carried her plate to the parlor and started to eat. Her memory was foggy of how she had gotten to bed, or what time she had even gotten in for that matter. Zara didn’t care. She had had a fun night, something she didn’t have often, and for that she was very grateful. In fact, she could still feel the pressure that had been applied between her legs, evidence of last night’s escapade.
“At least I never get to see him again,” she said, right before going back to her room to get ready for work. Though a part of her hoped that that wasn't the case.
“Are you sure you can go to work today?” Aisha asked Zara for the tenth time that morning.
“Yes I can, this is too important,” Zara said, forcing herself to get up and go to the bathroom to get ready. It was a Sunday morning, exactly three weeks after their night out, and Zara was feeling the reoccurring illness she had been having of late. It was becoming more frequent. It started with her tummy hurting like she had been punched really badly, causing her to throw up all its contents into whatever she could find—last night it had been her favorite hat as she hadn’t been able to make it to the bathroom. Her breasts hurt as well, they felt really heavy like her period was on its way, but she knew that couldn’t be right because she wasn’t due for another seven days or so.
If Zara hadn’t used a condom that night, she would have thought she was pregnant, but she had, so she knew for a fact that there was no way that was the problem.
“I still think you should go see a doctor Zara,” Aisha said, moving to lean against the adjoining door between the bathroom and the bedroom. “Your symptoms look a hell lot like morning sickness to me.”
“I will save myself the trouble and the money, I am not pregnant,” she said, rinsing her mouth as she finished brushing. She didn’t know how many times she had to tell Aisha she wasn’t pregnant before she let it go.
Today especially wasn’t the day for Aisha to mess with her as they had succeeded in bagging their first high profile client today—thanks to their Instagram page—and there was no way she was going to stay home on such an important day.
“Oh, you have checked?” Aisha asked, surprise evident in her voice
“I don’t need to,” Zara threw back irritated.
“But you have had sex recently Zara. Don’t you think you are being a little silly by not even considering it?” She could hear the annoyance start to build up in Aisha’s voice, and she didn’t understand why. It was almost as if Aisha wanted her to be pregnant. If she was pregnant—which she wasn’t—she would want to be oblivious to the fact for as long as possible, now wasn’t a good time to be pregnant.
Zara sighed heavily, rinsing her face and turning to look at her friend in an attempt to ease her worries. “I am not pregnant, you know how I know? Because I used protection, ok?” she said. “Stop worrying about me.”
“Oh, because no one has ever heard of a burst condom, yeah?” Aisha said sarcastically. Moving to their makeshift dresser, she pulled out something hidden between her clothes and then came back with a parcel in her hand.
“What is that?” Zara asked, looking cautiously at it.
“It’s a pregnancy test. Go take the test now.” Aisha threw the parcel at her.
“I don’t need to,” Zara said stubbornly, vaguely wondering why her best friend had a pregnancy test on her. “I’m not preg—”
“Pee on the damn stick right now before I force the pee out of you,” Aisha said so sternly that Zara knew she wasn’t playing.
“Fine,” she grumbled, opening the pack. “I can’t wait to see the dumb look on your face when it comes back negative.” She moved to the toilet, sat down and peed on the stick. This was just Aisha over reacting. She wasn’t pregnant. She couldn’t be pregnant. She probably just had the flu or something, that was what it was. Nothing a little chicken noodle soup couldn’t cure, even though she had finished a whole pot of chicken noodle soup three days ago and she still wasn’t any closer to feeling better.
“So?” Aisha asked as Zara bought out the stick from under her.
“It has to sit for a while.”
“For how long Zara? Tell me what it says,” Aisha said. When Zara didn’t say anything for a whole ten minutes, just looked at the stick with a dumbfounded look on her face, she prodded, “What does the damn test say, girl?”
“Positive.” Zara cleared her throat. “It says positive.”
***
“That is such a lovely necklace ma’am,” Zara said. “It complements your dress so well.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” The rich white old lady whose hair she was styling smiled widely.
Zara had found out at a very young age that compliments to a rich person were an old tune to them, they had heard them so often from people trying to pull one over on them that it meant nothing to them anymore, unless it came from someone of equal social standing. Therefore, she never just gave a compliment, she made sure it meant something before she did.
The events of the morning were not forgotten by Zara, but she had chosen to push them to the farthest part of her mind, not wanting it to affect her big day. She would deal with the fact that she was actually pregnant later, right now all she wanted was to do a good job and succeed at it.
Zara didn’t want to think about the fact that she was very broke and pregnant as well. Baby food didn’t come cheap. This was just the start of her career and a baby was the last thing she should be having right now. She couldn’t even fathom what had gone wrong. The only explanation that seemed plausible was that the darned condom must have broken during one of their rounds of sex, and neither of them had realized it.
“Mrs. Lampert, I just want to thank you again for picking us to do your hair and makeup, it is truly an honor,” Aisha said, from the other side of the room where she was making little tiny braids for a young girl, possibly Mrs. Lampert’s granddaughter. The Lamperts were old money, highly respected and acknowledged members of society. Anyone who was important in town had had to have kissed their asses at one time or another to get to where they presently were. It was going to be a huge career boost for them to have the Lamperts as one of their referrals. They simply couldn’t screw up. It helped that Mrs. Lampert looked pleased so far, although Zara had the sense that she had been sizing her up from the minute she had walked into the room. It was an unsettling feeling, but she tried not to pay it too much mind.
“Oh don’t thank me, dear, you come highly recommended.” She gave Zara a knowing smile. Zara wondered what it was that she knew. “My son saw your work on Instagram and suggested I try you. I just moved back to town you see, and my regular hairdresser, unfortunately, couldn’t come with me.”
Aisha and Zara’s eye
s met and they exchanged smiles at the possibility of having a regular client who happened to be as rich as Mrs. Lampert. This job alone was paying them almost ten thousand dollars, which was more than they had made so far on any other job combined, and it was all thanks to their Instagram page.
They had been steadily building their social media pages, since that was the only form of marketing they could afford, so it was a fulfilling feeling hearing that their page had gained traction.
“That’s very good to hear Ma’am!” Zara smiled. “We will treat you well.”
“Well, I sure hope you do, that’s my beloved mother,” said a voice that sounded familiar to Zara said as it approached them. They both turned in reflex to see who the voice belonged to as he rounded the corner—the son to whom they owed this gig to—but only one of them froze.
“Good morning Sir,” Aisha said smiling and stretching out her hand to shake his as he approached, but his eyes were fixed on Zara’s startled face. “We hear you are the reason we are here,” Aisha continued, oblivious to the tension building up in the room.
“Well, what can I say, I go after what I like.” He maintained his gaze on Zara, his words sounding like they were meant for her and only her.
“I’m Aisha, Sir.” As Aisha kept talking, it was obvious to Zara that she was a bit nervous, but that was only because she knew that anytime Aisha got nervous, she talked too much sometimes even saying words she wasn’t supposed to say.
“Please, just call me Nathan.”
Nathan. Zara thought. Her one night stand Nathan? The guy who had given her the best orgasm of her life Nathan? The father of her baby Nathan? Her hands shook and the comb she had been using dropped from her fingers as the implication of what this might mean flooded her mind.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, turning her back to him in panic and hiding her face behind her hair as she went back to styling Mrs. Lampert’s hair. Did he know she was the same girl whose pussy he had eaten in a toilet stall of a club bathroom, or was he genuinely a fan of their work?
“This is Zara,” she heard Aisha say towards her.
She was sure Aisha would be wondering why she wasn’t kissing the ass of the man who had referred them, but Zara just couldn’t risk it. The purpose of a one night stand was that you never had to see the man again. Didn’t he know that? And how the hell had she missed that he was a fucking Lampert? She was in so much deep shit. She was pregnant with a Lampert. They were going to take her baby from her! Zara suddenly felt so nervous. She had been trying so hard to decide if she was going to keep the baby or not, but at that very moment, the idea that anyone would try and take her baby from her was all she needed to make her decision. Her hands sub-consciously went to her stomach. She wasn’t going to let anybody try and take her baby away, not even a Lampert. She knew she was broke and this was the wrong time to have a baby, but she was thirty-eight, unmarried and as far as she was concerned, this was as a good time as any to begin bringing life to the world.
“Zara?” Aisha called. “What are you doing? Say Hi.”
“Hi,” Zara said, turning back to face him. Maybe he wouldn’t remember her. After all, it had been dark that night and she had been totally made up. Today all she had on was jeans and a t-shirt. There was a very strong possibility that he didn’t know who she was right? Zara thought to herself.
“I’m Zar—”
“Yes, Zara, we have met,” Nathan smiled, cutting her off and kicking every hope that she had had to the side.
“You have met?” Aisha asked in shock.
“Yes, fortunately.” He gave Zara a seductive smile like this had been his plan all along. Zara couldn’t take it, she looked away. “On our first encounter, she mistook me for a valet at one of my clubs.” He laughed. “Told my mom about it, she had a fit.”
“My son, a valet?” his mother scoffed from her perch on the seat. “Can you imagine?”
“Wait…no…” Zara could see that Aisha was piecing everything together. However, everyone in the room—including Zara—was unprepared for what she said next. “Wait so this your baby daddy?!”
***
Zara was in shock. She couldn’t believe what Aisha had done. It was like she was deliberately setting out to hurt her. How could she say that aloud? Something Zara hadn’t even fully processed yet. That was the problem with having a best friend that talked too much, she just didn’t know when to shut up.
“Aisha!” she screamed at her, her feelings written all over her face. “That wasn’t your secret to tell, what the hell is wrong with you?” She was physically holding herself back from flinging a brush at her with everything she had. Aisha knew how she felt about rich people. She knew what Zara had been through being poor. They had both gone through that childhood together, so why would she do this to her?
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking,” Aisha said, but she didn’t sound sorry at all, she sounded calculated.
“You are pregnant?” Nathan asked, his mom echoing him.
“Please excuse me, Ma’am, I suddenly don’t feel so good,” Zara said, avoiding the question. She actually was feeling really ill all of a sudden. She took her bag and left the room as fast as she could go without actually running. She made it all the way to the foyer before someone tugged at her hands, dragging her back. It was Nathan.
“Were you going to tell me?” he asked, looking her squarely in the eyes, his expression unreadable.
“Does it matter?” she asked with a sigh. She wanted to be anywhere but here right now.
“Of course it does. It is my child too, isn’t it?”
Zara noticed that he phrased it as a statement, like he was positive that the child she carried belonged to him.
“Is it?” Zara was sick to her stomach, the lunch she had eaten earlier threatening to come up.
“Stop playing games Zara,” Nathan said, releasing her arm so his hands were free to run through his hair. He couldn’t believe what was happening. He had tracked her down because he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her, and had wanted to get to know her outside of the club. He hadn’t felt this way about a woman in a very long time. He had talked about the mysterious girl he had met at the club to all his close friends and family until his mother had come up with a plan and convinced him to go along with it. It had been that plan they had been implementing when Aisha had dropped the news.
They hadn’t even had a first date yet and they already had a child that they were going to be sharing together. He should be freaking out, but he wasn’t, he was excited.
“Don’t worry,” Zara said, mistaking his thoughtful expression for fear. “It can’t be yours, we used a condom.”
“Sure,” Nathan said sarcastically, the thought of the baby being anyone else’s but his did not sit well with him. “Because condoms never break.”
“Why does everyone keep saying that?” Zara asked sounding pissed. She couldn’t take it anymore, she needed some air. “I need to go,” she said.
“Yea, you are right,” he agreed with her. “Let’s go.”
“What?” she asked startled. “No, not ‘we’, ‘I’. I need to go, alone.”
“Too bad, you aren’t going anywhere without me until we have cleared this up.” He took his jacket from the coat rack near the door and proceeded to lead her out of the house by her upper arm.
He was going to be a father. Nathan couldn’t believe it. Never in his life had something like this happened to him, and Nathan had had his fair share of reckless days. But never reckless up to the point of getting a woman pregnant. He had had women deliberately try to get pregnant by him so they could get the privilege of carrying a Lampert heir, but none had ever been successful. As he drove to the nearest Starbucks, he dared a glance at the woman seated in the passenger side of his car. She was looking straight ahead, her gaze unreadable. Nathan wondered what she was thinking about.
It had crossed his mind vaguely that she may be just like every other girl he had ever met, trying to trick h
im into a marriage, or at least child support. It could all be a ruse orchestrated by her friend and her to implant themselves into his family. But when that usually would have made him mad, he found himself wishing it was true, eager to see how she would play it.
Feeling this way was weird for him considering he barely knew the woman, and she didn’t seem like she was interested in knowing him.
They pulled into the Starbucks parking lot and got out of the vehicle. The silence that had started in the car remained until they were finally sitting down with their order in front of them.
“So, when did you find out?” he asked, breaking the silence.
“This morning,” she said quietly, playing with the straw in her coffee, her head down.
“Really?” That must have been so overwhelming for her.
“Yeah.” She looked up at him.
“I’m sorry. I can’t imagine how you must be feeling right now.” He moved his left hand across the table to take one of hers in it and was happy to see that she didn’t push him away.
“Well, I guess I kind of suspected,” she said. “But I didn’t want to do a test to confirm my fear.”
For some reason, her talking to him about it and not pushing him away made him feel very happy. He didn’t presume to know what she must be going through, just starting out in her career and being pregnant and thinking she had nobody to go through the journey with her. But he was happy that he was with her now, to lift some of the load that she would have to bear.
“Were you ever going to tell me about it?” he asked, his curiosity getting the better of him. She hadn't answered him the first time, but this was something he really wanted to know.
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