The Billionaire From San Francisco
Page 22
Kelly strode in across the field toward her house as Jasmine walked up to the front porch. Kelly met her there a few minutes later, giving her a big hug after she pulled off her sun hat and gloves.
“This is a sweet surprise,” Kelly grinned as they walked into the house, “what’s got you over here today? I’m glad to see you, but we’re having lunch the day after tomorrow, so something must be up if you’re over here this early. Can I get you anything? I have berry and herb infused water in the refrigerator, and I know you’d love it.”
“That sounds good.” Jasmine answered as Kelly headed over to her refrigerator.
They sat down together a few minutes later on the sofa in Kelly’s sunroom, overlooking her orchard and a small brook that rolled and tumbled down the hill near it.
“Okay. What’s going on?” Kelly asked again, looking at Jasmine.
“It’s something that’s kind of on my mind… I need an outside perspective on it, if you don’t mind.” She gave her best friend a little smile.
“Of course, I don’t mind. One outside perspective coming up.” Kelly winked at her.
“Well, it’s Cameron. We… we’ve still been seeing each other as much as we were, or more even, and things have kind of changed between us.” She looked down into her glass of ice water and concentrated on the bits of berries floating in it.
Kelly’s eyes narrowed. “What’s changed?” she asked with a note of apprehension in her voice.
“Well, we’ve been close, we are kind of… dating, I guess. Anyway, he asked me to go with him out of town for a weekend last weekend, and I thought about and at first I thought I wouldn’t. I thought that it probably wouldn’t be a good idea, but then I gave in because it sounded like so much fun and I just love spending time with him. So I said yes, and we went.” She chewed on her lower lip and looked over at her best friend.
Kelly sighed. “You went out of town with him for the weekend?”
“Yes.” Jasmine answered quietly. “He took me on a train to a little bed and breakfast in this tiny town south of here on the coast. We had a gorgeous room, and it was so romantic and sweet, and…” Jasmine trailed off and Kelly took a long slow breath in and finished her sentence for her.
“And you were intimate with him.” .
“Yes.” Jasmine answered with a sigh.
“So, what is the perspective that you need from me? What’s stuck in your brain?” Kelly asked, not offering any other commentary or judgment.
“Well, I knew that I wanted to do it going in, but now I’ve had some time to think about it, and I’m not entirely sure that I should be doing anything like it at all. I mean, we haven’t talked about it really. We haven’t said what we are; whether we are a couple or anything, and we haven’t said what we want to do or what we want to be to each other.
We just kind of went ahead and did what we want, rather than discussing any of it first. And now I’m not sure about where it could go.” Jasmine lifted her glass and brought it to her lips, taking a long drink of it.
“Where do you want it to go?” Kelly asked, watching her closely.
“I’m not sure. I think it could go a few ways. I could have the baby and give her to him and then he could stop seeing me, and I’ll be on my own. Or, if he doesn’t want a girl, and right now he doesn’t know that I’m carrying a girl, he could decide that he doesn’t want her because she’s a girl, and he’s so hell bent on having a son, and he could just walk away from us both and then I would be a single mother. That’s a possibility.
Or… maybe, he could decide that he wants to be in a serious relationship with me and then we’d wind up together, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. He seems to be shying away from anything serious. He likes being friends with me. Maybe we’ll wind up just being friends with benefits or something. I don’t know what to do with this. It’s kind of a confusing situation.” Jasmine looked over at Kelly again, and Kelly leaned forward and looked directly in to Jasmine’s eyes.
“It’s a mess, honey. That’s what it is. I warned you already about getting involved with him. It’s really not a good idea. I said it wasn’t the last time we talked about him, and I’m saying it again now. It’s not a good idea. He’s a temporary situation for you. He’s not going to be a permanent situation. You’re having his baby because he’s paying you to perform that service for him.
I’ll tell you exactly what I think about this. I’m adamantly against it. It’s going to be over in four months and then what are you going to do? You’re going to be busy with the flower shop, and he’s going to take the baby, and that will be that. You two aren’t going to see each other again.” Kelly spoke honestly, but kindly.
“And now this business with it being a girl? That shouldn’t be an issue for him, and if it is, then it tells you that he’s a chauvinist and you don’t want to be in his life anyway. Think about this, Jasmine. There’s not really any way that it can have a good outcome. You need to think of yourself and you need to think of that little one that you are carrying. If he isn’t sure what he wants to do with you right now, if he isn’t sure about you two being a couple right now, then he’s not going to be sure about it later.
Don’t take on a problem that you don’t need. This is an unnecessary headache that could turn into a huge heartache. You’re such a smart girl. You’re so smart… really you are. Think about this with your head and leave your heart out of it. There is no place for him in your life on a personal level. You just finish up the pregnancy and you have the baby and you give it to him and go on with your life.
That’s been the plan all along. If he is stupid enough to reject that baby because she’s a girl, then you keep her and we will raise her, and I’ll help you and you can run your flower shop. But don’t look for anything else, or you’ll be setting yourself up for a failure and a huge broken heart.” Kelly reached her hand out to Jasmine and Jasmine took it, holding it.
“I know that you’re right. I do. In my head… there’s no question, but if I’m being honest with myself then I have to admit that I am falling for him, and I don’t think that there’s any way that I can stop that.” Jasmine said quietly.
Kelly shook her head. “You have to. You have to stop it. You can’t continue with this. Jasmine, you have to end this thing with him right away. Have the baby with him, fine, but that’s it. Don’t you do anything else with him at all from here forward.”
Jasmine listened to Kelly and nodded her head. “I’m going to try. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I do know that you’re right, and I’m just going to have to try.”
She sipped her water and looked out of the sunroom to the countryside outside. The little girl inside her moved and kicked, and she placed one hand on her belly, rubbing it and comforting the baby there. She knew that she was going to have to figure it out and change it.
Kelly was right. Cameron hadn’t made any kind of promise to her about what they were or what they were going to be. It might even be true that he was using her, though she couldn’t see him doing that. If he was using her, then she was using him just as much, and it was a fair trade. It wasn’t a good one, but it was a fair one.
Jasmine knew that she had let herself get carried away with all of the romance that seemed to be happening between them, and she knew that there wasn’t any way that it could go forward. Not in a permanent way; a way that she could count on and rely on. Kelly had mentioned what kind of man he really was if he didn’t want his own child just because she was a girl, and if that was the case, then she knew that she wouldn’t want to be with him at all.
She was going to have to tell him that their child was a girl, and see what his reaction was, and she was going to have to try to stop everything that was growing between them, because there was no place for it grow, and no way for it to grow forward.
“You’ll make it through this, dearest.” Kelly gave her hand a squeeze. “No matter what, you’ll make it through this and I’ll be with you all the way.”
Chapter6
Jasmine had decided that the best way to start to get over her feelings for Cameron would be to stop seeing him so much, and when she did see him, to keep their conversations strictly to discussions about the baby.
She told herself that she could do it. She told herself that she had to do it. When she got an unexpected call four days after she had gotten back from her weekend with Cameron at the bed and breakfast, she thought that maybe it was the universe listening to her about what she needed.
“Hello?” she asked, answering the phone with a note of concern. The call was from her doctor’s office. At first, she was worried about the baby, and thought that perhaps something had come up that might not be good.
“Jasmine?” she heard the familiar voice speak her name.
“Dr. Clayton?” She closed her eyes and squeezed them shut tight, realizing too late, “I mean, Andrew… what can I do for you? Is everything alright?” she asked, hoping that it was nothing to do with the baby’s health.
“Yes, everything is fine. I just… I know we’ve talked about it when you’ve come in to see me, but I thought that perhaps if I asked you when you aren’t laying on an examination table in front of me, it might seem a little less strange. I was hoping that I could convince you to come have dinner with me, please.” He sounded happy to hear her, and hopeful that she would say yes to him for once.
She blinked in surprise. She hadn’t been expecting his call at all. “Oh!” she tried to think for a moment as he waited for her. Her first instinct was to tell him yet again that she wasn’t interested, and that she wouldn’t go, but then before she could say it, her conversation with Kelly came back into her mind and she realized that Andrew might very well be just what she needed.
He was the hidden answer to her getting over Cameron. If she started seeing him, then she thought that perhaps she might not be so interested in Cameron, and she could also have some sort of justifiable reason to tell Cameron that they couldn’t see each other anymore, at least romantically.
“You know what, Andrew, you’ve really been persistent in this and I think that maybe I might give you the chance that you’ve been after for so long. I know I said I wasn’t ready and that the time wasn’t right, but I think that might be changing, and perhaps the time really is right now to see you the way that you would like to see me.” She took a deep breath. “I will go out to dinner with you.”
She could hear the surprise and delight in his voice as he spoke to her. “When are you free? I can go anytime.”
“Friday night would be best for me.” She said with a little pinch to her heart. Friday night had become kind of a go to night for her and Cameron to go out and spend time together. Friday and Saturday nights, she realized, and taking one of those away from him to spend the time with another man was exactly the kind of thing that might work to put some much-needed space between her and Cameron.
“Friday is great! May I pick you up at your home at five?” he asked with a tone of excitement in his voice.
“Yes, that would be fine, and Andrew, thank you for trying so much and for not giving up on this. It might work out really nicely.” She smiled, hoping that he could tell just how genuine she was being with him.
“I’m so glad that I didn’t give up. You’re worth being with, and that would be obvious to anyone who really cared about you and who had any common sense.” He laughed lightly. “I’ll be looking forward to it until then. See you Friday.”
They said goodbye and she ended the call, wondering how it was going to go, seeing her baby doctor while she was pregnant with another man’s child. She didn’t know too much about Andrew, but she was determined that she was going to find out all that she could about him, and she hoped that it would be enough to sway her attention to him from Cameron. She was certain that he was hoping exactly the same thing.
Friday came and she dressed with great care, taking the extra time to make herself look good. She wore a light lavender colored dress and styled her hair, making sure that the dark curls around her head were shining and framing her face perfectly. She took her time doing her makeup and making sure that it was perfect.
She even added some light perfume, and as she turned in front of the mirror looking at her reflection, she told herself that she was doing the right thing. There could be no confusion about it, she was definitely doing the right thing, no matter how strange it might feel to be doing it. She also told herself that it wasn’t cheating on Cameron, because they weren’t an official couple. They had only been spending time together. They had no other name that could fit them, other than employer and employee, and lovers. There was nothing else, and definitely nothing that could be compromised by her going out with another man.
He helped her to his car and took her to a good Italian restaurant in the city. He had a table reserved, and they were shown to it right away. When they had been seated, he gazed at her with bright and happy eyes.
“I know I said it in the car already, but you really look beautiful tonight. There’s just something about you. It’s wonderful.” He shook his head and looked at her with a slight expression of disbelief on his face. “I was so surprised when you told me that you were finally going to come out with me.
I’ve been waiting so long for a yes from you, and hoping, but I’ve got to tell you, I was beginning to wonder if you were going to keep me waiting a long while, or just finally tell me no once and for all and mean it. I can’t believe that we’re actually sitting here together. This took so long, and I know right now that it doesn’t matter how long it took because you’re he grinned at her.
She felt her cheeks warm and she smiled at him. “Thank you. I know you were determined, but I just had to make sure that it was right for me, and now it’s the right time.” She shrugged a little and gave him a sweet smile. She was forcing herself not to think of Cameron, and every time he came to her mind, she pushed the thought s of him away, concentrating as much as she could on the man sitting before her.
Andrew had dressed very well himself, putting quite a bit of care and time into looking as good as he could for her. She was unused to seeing him without the white doctor’s coat that he always wore, and without it, she was able to see him more as a man than as a person of position in her life.
He was wearing a button up shirt and cloth pants that fit him snugly in the back. He had a sport jacket with him, but he had carried it out of the car and over his shoulder, in case it got cold while they were in the restaurant. His short brown hair was gelled and combed with precision as it always was, his eyes were set on her, and he was smiling as if he couldn’t be happier to be with her.
She might not have wanted to think or talk about Cameron, but Andrew was ready to start talking about him right away, and that was just what he did.
“Have you told Mr. Elliot that you’re having a girl?” Andrew asked, eyeing her closely as he folded his hands together and placed them on the table in front of him.
She shook her head. “No, I guess I haven’t had a chance yet. Or… I have had chances, but I haven’t wanted to tell him because I guess I’m a little afraid of what he will say, and worse, what he will do. I mean… he’s so set on having a son… it makes me nervous to tell him that that’s not happening.”
He nodded. “That is totally understandable. The man is spending a fortune to have a son, and here you are, pregnant with a girl.” He frowned and shook his head. “I’ll be honest, knowing what I know about him, I really do think that you’re up against a wall. He isn’t going to want the baby if it’s a girl. I have a feeling that you’re going to be stuck with the baby, and you’ll wind up raising it on your own.
He might come through with some money for you to help you raise it and defray the cost, but I don’t think he’s going to be around in person taking on any of the responsibility. I wish I
could tell you differently, but he’s got his heart and his mind set, and I just don’t think that there’s anything that can change it.”
She sighed and frowned, looking down at her own hands for a moment, wishing that they were talking about anything else, wishing that he didn’t know what he was talking about, and wishing that he was wrong, but as she heard his words spoken, the same words that had been echoing in her mind since she had found out that she was having a girl, it only seemed to confirm her fears and show her that she wasn’t wrong about her worries for her baby’s future.
“That little girl is half yours too, you know. I think you should just take it and go. Leave him out of it. You know he’s not going to want her. If I was you, I’d just take her and leave. Consider raising it on your own. Leave him totally out of the picture since he’s so short sighted. At some point, he’s going to find out that you’re carrying a girl, and when he does he’s not going to want to have anything at all to do with it, and he’s going to leave her to you to raise.