His Secret Virgin A Forbidden Romance

by Michelle Love

  I owed Sebastien an explanation for what I’d done. He deserved that. I should’ve been honest with him from the start. I’d hid everything just to avoid the inevitable, but now the inevitable had to be dealt with.

  Just as I pulled into the drive, Sebastien came out the door, heading to the garage. I guessed since he wasn’t wearing a suit that he was about to go turn in the company car. When Celeste came out behind him, I knew that’s what he was about. I’d come just in the nick of time.

  Once they noticed me, they both stopped and stared at my car. Sebastien took his wife’s hand as they waited for me to approach. The two looked prepared to stand their ground, and I had to admit that seeing them like that shook me a bit.

  But determined to fix this for my new family, I parked and got out of my car. “Good morning.” Neither said a thing. So I went on. “I want to speak to you both. I owe you an explanation for what’s happened.”

  “You don’t need to explain a thing to me, Christopher,” Sebastien said sternly. “You wanted something, and you took it. Just like so many other powerful men do without a thought for the consequences. All we want is for you to do the right thing by our daughter.”

  “Which I intend to do,” I pointed out.

  Celeste shook her head. “We mean that you need to let her go.”

  Raising one brow, I couldn’t understand how anyone would see that as the right thing to do. “Maybe we should take this inside. The neighbors don’t really need to know our business, do they?” No need to create a scene for the neighbors to watch over their morning coffee.

  Thankfully, Celeste concurred. “Yes, let’s take this inside.”

  I followed them into the house, where neither saw fit to take a seat, even though that would’ve put us in a better position to speak more calmly. Instead of waiting to be asked to sit down, knowing neither would offer, I instigated the action. “Let’s take seats and talk to each other like the adults that we are.”

  After I sat down, Celeste and Sebastien took places on the sofa, facing me. They were a team, and I was alone, but I didn’t let that get to me, not even when Sebastien said, “You might win the first few battles, Christopher, but I assure you, my wife and I will win the war.”

  “You know what would be even better?” I asked. “If there were no battles and no war. All I want is for us to understand each other better. For instance, do you understand that I am the father of your first grandchild?”

  Sebastien ran his hand over his brow, obviously trying to keep his anger subdued. “I don’t want to talk about that right now. I want to talk about how you thought it would be okay to seduce my little girl.”

  How to explain this in a way that wouldn’t stir his anger?

  “When you met Celeste, how did you know that you were attracted to her?”

  “We’re not going to do this, Christopher,” Sebastien told me. “We’re not going to pretend that you had good intentions with Emma. Mostly because all three of us know that’s just not true. You knew that she was inexperienced. I’d told you as much. That’s when you decided you had to ruin her.”

  “That’s just not true, Sebastien.” Agitation began to boil up inside of me. “From the moment I saw Emma, I felt something spark inside of me. I tried and tried to not think about her, and I failed miserably each time.”

  “That’s called obsession, Christopher,” Celeste pointed out. “I think you need help. Mental help.”

  Looking at Christopher, I asked him, “Do you remember how you couldn’t stop talking about Celeste when you first met her? Because I remember what kinds of things you did to make sure you ran into each other. I remember all the nights that you would talk about her for hours on end. You actually enrolled in one of her classes, just so you could be around her more. Does that sound like obsession too?”

  “I was a kid in my early twenties back then. You’re a man in your forties. Celeste and I were the same age when we met,” he told me, as if I didn’t already know that. “Our daughter is only twenty years old, and she was as pure as the driven snow before you came along. You’ve got daughters who are older than Emma. How can you justify your obsession with someone so young?”

  Trying to find the words to explain the enormity of my feelings was difficult. “Emma does more than just make me happy. She’s the sun in a world I hadn’t realized was black. I thought I’d be fine living the rest of my life simply being alone, but content. I wasn’t unhappy, just okay with how things were going. And then I saw her.” I shook my head, still not fully comprehending what had come over me that day. “And everything changed. I’ve never experienced anything so amazing.”

  “And what about her?” Celeste asked. “I want to know what she felt. I’m convinced that you seduced her, Christopher. While you’re a nice-looking man, you are much older than she is, and she’s always been so shy. It just doesn’t make sense to me. And I’m her mother—I know her better than she knows herself.”

  “You two have treated Emma like a child for a bit too long,” I let them know as I shoved my hand through my hair with frustration. “You may think you know her better than she knows herself, but I assure you that you hardly know her at all. You know the girl you want her to be. You don’t know Emma as she sees herself, as an independent, responsible woman.”

  The look of disgust on Sebastien’s face unsettled me. “She’s only twenty. You can stop talking about her age as if she’s some old spinster that we’ve held back. Emma’s always been shy and introverted. That’s her normal behavior. If she’s anything else with you, then you had to have pulled it out of her. She’s not naturally promiscuous. It had to have been the pressure you put on her that made her give herself to you. Admit it already, so we can start fixing this shit pile you’ve created, man!”

  “I won’t admit to something that’s not true.” The ground felt as if it was slipping out from under me. I wasn’t getting anywhere with them. “However it started doesn’t really matter now. We were both deeply attracted to one another. We both acted on that attraction. And as hard as this might be for you to believe, we both thought it best to hide our relationship from everyone because of how you two and my daughters would react. And I can see that we weren’t wrong to hide our relationship from all the ridicule the four of you have thrown our way.”

  Celeste huffed as her hands flew up. “What did you expect?” Her eyes narrowed at me. “Did you think for one second that any of us would approve of this thing? You both knew it was wrong. But the thing is, Christopher, you are an adult and Emma is a kid. Even if she’s of age, you knew she wasn’t mature enough to handle a relationship like this. And now you’ve gotten her pregnant, another thing she’s not mature enough to handle. And it will be her father and I who’ll end up taking care of this baby because of that.”

  Incensed, I said a little too loudly, “If you think you two are raising my child, you’re delirious!”

  Sebastien jumped up immediately. “You will not raise your voice to us, you sick son-of-a-bitch!” he shouted at me.

  Celeste took him by the arm, holding him as if she was afraid he’d storm over and beat me up or something. Not that I was afraid of a physical altercation, but I didn’t want to hurt him by accident. The fact I’d already hurt him emotionally didn’t sit well with me.

  “Let’s all calm down,” Celeste said, trying to de-escalate the situation. “Sit down, Sebastien. I don’t want anything to get physical. We’ve already discussed that.”

  As he retook his seat, he glared at me. “You can’t be there with Emma all the time. You work tons of hours each week. She’ll be alone with that baby, and she’ll have no idea what to do for it. It will be me and her mother who will end up being there for her and the baby, not you. You’re not thinking clearly. Your head is up your ass right now—you can’t see past your obsession with her. Once her pregnancy starts showing, once she has that baby and she’s not the innocent little thing you lusted after in the beginning, you will lose this so-called attraction you’ve go
t for her. And you will lose interest in her.”

  Hearing him say such a thing rattled me. Could I ever lose interest in the one woman who’s able to touch me deeper than anyone else?

  “Christopher, please,” Celeste implored me. “Do the right thing for Emma and the baby. If nothing else, you will leave her alone to raise a child she knows nothing about. And in the end, you will die long before her and your children, and she’ll be even more alone then.”

  That thought had never occurred to me before, but it did make me think now.

  Chapter 26

  Emma

  The sound of chimes woke me up out of a deep sleep. Blinking, I didn’t know where I was at first. But then it all started to come together in my head. I’m at Christopher’s home in his bed. But where’s he?

  I sat up, rubbing my eyes as the chimes kept on playing. Then I looked at my cell. I’d forgotten that I’d changed my ringtone the day before. My mother was the calling me.

  Hoping she wanted to apologize for everything, I answered the call. “Hi.” I yawned and stretched as I waited to hear her apology.

  “Emma, we’ve just had a talk with Christopher, and he’s agreed to do the right thing by you. Your father and I want you to come home now. We’ll help you with everything, but you need to come home,” she said.

  “What do you mean Christopher has agreed to do the right thing?” I honestly had no clue what my mother was talking about; Christopher already was doing the right thing by loving me and loving our baby.

  “He’s letting you go,” she said, as if that were a good thing for me.

  “No,” I simply said. “That’s not what’s best for any of us—not for me, him, or the baby. I’m not coming home unless he asks me to leave.”

  Tension filled her voice. “Don’t make him go to those lengths, Emma. He’s not in his right mind. Just come home. Leave before he gets there.”

  Now I felt as if she wasn’t telling me the whole truth. “Mom, what exactly did he say to you?”

  “That he was going to do the right thing,” she said. “And we’d told him that the right thing would be to leave you alone. You deserve to be with someone more like you, Emma. Someone your own age. And when you’re really ready for a relationship and not being forced into one the way he’s done to you—”

  “He hasn’t forced me into anything.” My stomach knotted with nausea, and I had to jump out of bed to run to the bathroom, throwing the phone on the bed as I went.

  Once everything from my stomach was in the toilet, I sat on the floor, trying to catch my breath. My head hurt from the force of my heaving, and my body shook. Being pregnant sucks.

  Once the lightheadedness wore off, my stomach growled. And just like that, I was starving to death.

  There was no way in hell that I was about to go try to find the kitchen. The fact that I might run into Christopher’s daughters or get lost in the mansion was the deciding factor in that.

  After washing up, I threw my clothes back on and grabbed my purse, then headed out to the front where I’d left my car. As far as I knew, Christopher wasn’t home. Judging by my mother’s phone call, I knew he’d taken it upon himself to go see my parents without me. That he hadn’t let me know his plans left me feeling a little prickly.

  Just as I pulled up to a nearby fast food drive-through, my cell rang again. I’d put it into my purse, so I had to dig through it to find it. When I saw it was my father, I sent the call to voicemail. I didn’t want to argue. I only wanted to get something into my stomach.

  Rolling down my window, I made my order. “Two sausage biscuits and a large apple juice.”

  “Will that be all?” the person inside asked.

  My stomach growled. “A hash brown, too.”

  “Drive up, please,” the girl instructed me.

  The breakfast was not the healthiest I’d ever eaten—and my parents definitely would not have approved of it. Not one piece of fresh fruit. Not one whole grain. Just white flour-based biscuits, fatty meat, and worst of all, a fried potato pancake. The apple juice might’ve passed their muster, but I just couldn’t make myself care in the least.

  What I did care about was Christopher and what he thought was the right thing to do. Somewhere deep inside, I knew he thought it best to keep our baby and me in his life. But a nagging fear brought on by Mom’s call sat in the back of my mind. What if they got to him?

  What if my parents had somehow convinced him that I would be better off if he left them to take care of me?

  I’d never thought my parents would want to keep control over me so badly that they would consider it best to keep the father of my child out of our lives.

  Driving up to the window, I smiled at the cashier as she told me the total.

  Pulling a twenty out of my purse, I handed it to her. “Here you go.”

  She gave me the change and the bag filled with my unhealthy breakfast foods, and I drove away. The smell made me ravenous, and I had to park in the grocery store parking lot next door to dig in.

  I couldn’t recall ever being so hungry in my life. I scarfed it all down in record time. Then a burp came out of me that defied imagination. Gross, but I finally felt better.

  Feeling more myself, I picked up my phone to call Christopher to see what was going on in his head. Before I could make the call, the phone rang and it was the man himself.

  “Hello?” I asked, trying for a neutral tone; I didn’t know how he’d be feeling after his chat with my parents, or if my mother had been telling me the truth. I tried to brace myself for his reply.

  But no reply came. “Hello, Christopher?” I asked again. The sound on the other end was a little scratchy, as if something was covering the mic.

  Had the man butt-dialed me? Just as I was about to hang up so I could call him for real, I heard the faint sound of a woman’s voice on the other end. I couldn’t quite make out what she was saying, but I was soon able to make out bits of Christopher’s reply.

  “…you know she’s pregnant…leave her…I don’t care…children.”

  So, he was clearly talking to someone about me. But who? After the call from Mom, I didn’t think he’d still be at my parents’ place. I heard the woman’s voice again, but couldn’t make anything out of what she was saying. Did she say something about him coming back? Her voice was too far away to really tell.

  But when I finally picked out Christopher’s voice again, my heart stopped. “Lisa…” I couldn’t make out anything more, as the rushing in my ears made me deaf to everything around me.

  Shaking my head to clear my mind of the shock of hearing Christopher speak his ex-wife’s name, I was finally able to make out what the woman—Lisa—was saying.

  “Please…father of my children…Christopher…with me.” By how clear her voice now sounded, I could only guess that she had moved closer to Christopher—close enough that his phone was now able to pick up her words as well as Christopher’s.

  What the hell was Christopher doing with his ex? It didn’t sound like they were arguing, and from the way he had described her, he had made it clear that was the only way their conversations ever went.

  But Lisa hadn’t sounded angry—neither had Christopher, for that matter. She had sounded like she was trying to soothe him.

  Had he gone to his ex for comfort?

  And what was that bit she’d said about him being the father of her children? I couldn’t help thinking that he was also the father of my child—a little, helpless baby who needed his father more than any grown daughters did. I wished I could tell that to his ex-wife, this woman whom he now seemed to be confiding in, maybe even asking for help.

  “Lisa…love you,” I heard Christopher reply. Without any instruction from my brain, my hand hung up the phone, and I threw it in the back seat at those words.

  I couldn’t have just heard Christopher tell his ex that he loves her? But that’s exactly what it had sounded like.

  Slumping over the steering wheel, I was so shocked I couldn’t even c
ry. Not only was Christopher with his ex-wife, he was having a level-headed conversation with her—which he’d told me he hadn’t been able to manage once in the last five years—and he was telling her he loved her?

  And all this after my mom told me that Christopher had agreed to leave me.

  Everything seemed to crumble before my eyes. Had I been played by an older man? Used and then left to tend to things on my own?

  I didn’t know what to do. If Christopher had lied to me about his relationship with his ex, and about staying with me and the baby, then he would he tell me the truth if I confronted him? And Mom had tried to make it clear that he’d already decided to leave me, and that I should go back home. The truth was that I didn’t want to go home. I didn’t want to let my parents take care of me and my baby. I wanted Christopher. And not just to take care of me, but to be my partner in life and the raising of our baby.

  But if Mom had been telling the truth, then that wasn’t going to happen now, was it?

  Coming to Manchester, New Hampshire, had been the best thing to ever happen to me and the worst thing to ever happen to me. How could that be?

  Nothing made sense to me. Why had Christopher come to New York to get me if he wasn’t going to do what he and I had agreed was the right thing to do? Why had he told his daughters about us and our baby? He had practically kicked his daughters out of their home for my sake.

  How could he have changed his mind about so much in such a short amount of time?

  My head hurt with all the questions. And all I wanted was at least some closure with the man. Not a call from my mother telling me things were over between us.

  As I sat in the company car, anger started to take over instead of hurt. That man owed me more than what I’d been given. He owed me an explanation. He owed me a turn to speak. And he owed our child, too.

  I had to blame my parents for somehow getting into his head and telling him God knows what. But as much as I could blame them, it still hurt that Christopher had been so easily manipulated by them. And it still didn’t explain why he’d gone straight to his ex after speaking with my parents. It made me think he had doubts about his love for me.