by Jenna Elliot
30
Emme
I WALK INTO Ace’s office, and my gut feels like rocks churn inside me. Anxiety is spiraling, and it’s taking every ounce of my energy to keep a lid on it.
“On time as usual,” Ace flashes me that charming grin. Then it fades as he looks at me. “Are you sick?”
Despite my careful attempt at makeup, I can’t quite conceal the dark circles under my eyes. Or the fact that my skin is still wan, with several stubborn pimples. Not to mention the fact that I’ve done nothing but puke, so I’ve dropped weight I didn’t have to lose. That’s irony.
“Been a rough week, I’m not going to lie.”
“Please sit.” He motions to a chair then heads to the bar. He reaches for a wine glass.
“Nothing for me, please.”
He nods. “We can always reschedule tonight if you’re not up to it. Why didn’t you text or call?”
Because I would have only prolonged the inevitable.
Because I would have to face the fact the father of my baby only screws me because it’s business.
Because I would have to admit that until a week ago, I was completely content screwing him for every reason but the one that’s currently growing inside me.
“Because we need to talk, and this isn’t a conversation we should have over the phone.”
That gets his attention. He pours himself a whiskey. A really big one. Good for him. He’s going to need it.
“So, what do we need to talk about?” he finally asks. He takes my hand and rubs it. “You cold?”
“Yes. No.” I shrug. “Not really. My hormones are raging.”
He eyes me closely. “Do you have your period? Is that why you don’t feel well? It’s okay, Emme. We don’t have to do anything you’re uncomfortable with, although I must say your period doesn’t—”
“It’s not . . . that.”
Ace frowns at me. And waits.
Oh, God. I need to just tell him. But I can’t find the strength. Because this is one of those moments where nothing will ever be the same again. The moment I become an adult?
“Is Audrey coming tonight?” I stall some more. I don’t think I can bear her walking in on this conversation.
“I’ve turned her training over to Jax. I’m all yours.”
For how long?
He leans a sexy hip against his desk. And knocks back his whiskey. The whole thing. Then he pours another. He may not know what I’m about to hit him with, but I can tell that I’m unnerving him. Ace is all about living in the moment. And this is about our future. Ace is all about the fantasy, and tonight I’m all too real. And about to get even real-er.
My throat constricts, and I will myself not to be sick. I’ll never last three months of this. I’ll be dead long before the second trimester, and we won’t have any problem, will we?
“Emme?” he prompts me. “This doesn’t have anything to do with the break-in, does it?”
“No,” I say quickly. “No problem there. I haven’t seen any random guys around. The detective asked me the same thing this morning. All seems to be well.”
Except for this tiny life growing inside me. Maybe a boy who’s absolutely gorgeous like Ace. Or a girl, who’ll be a little blond lioness.
I see no way to ease in. I can barely think because I’m shaking. Finally, I just blurt it out. “I’m pregnant.”
“What?” he asks softly, but I can see his confusion. It takes him a minute to wrap his brain around what I said.
I wait, and then his gaze narrows, pins me with an uncomfortable stare.
I spread my hands in entreaty. “Last thing in the world I expected, but I’m pregnant. I took tests.”
“Are you trying to say it’s mine?”
This man owns a sex club. I’m a member. I came here looking for no more than a good time. His words shouldn’t feel like slaps. They do.
“I haven’t been with anyone else.”
“What about Jason?”
There’s a pathetically hopeful part of me that reads way too much into the fact that Ace remembers my ex’s name. “I’ve only been with you.”
“I wore protection. Every time.”
“I know.” I drop my head into my hands. Looking at him is too painful. That expression . . . His face just shuts down. The handsome face that I’ve seen ravaged by pleasure and so fiercely protective. That beautiful face that expressed so much desire.
For me.
“I suppose you want to keep it?”
Even his tone is dead. As if someone cut the carotid artery. One minute pulsing with life. Then next . . . dead.
“I know it would be so much easier if I didn’t but, Ace, I honestly can’t do . . . that.”
I would never judge anyone, but that solution is not me. I’m the one who has to look myself in the mirror. That option is just not a possibility.
I hear him circle his desk and force myself to look at him. He’s clearly furious. A muscle tenses in his neck. His shoulders are tight, and I jump as he slams open a drawer.
I watch in mounting shock as he pulls out a checkbook and starts writing.
“Take this and be on your way.” He slides a check across the desk toward me. “You flunk level two. You’re no longer a candidate or a member of this club.”
I meet his gaze, see that he’s totally serious. “What?”
“The check, babe. Take the check.” He repeats as if I’m stupid.
I stare down and see his hastily-scribbled signature. I see numbers, too, but I don’t comprehend them, only the horror of knowing that he thinks I’m that person, the kind who can be bought and paid for.
“I don’t want your fucking money.”
His snort of laughter almost drives me to my knees. For one blinding instant, I think I might be sick.
“What do you want from me? What do you expect?”
Right then, I face a moment unlike any other in my life. Such an assault of emotions and thoughts that I don’t know whether I’m going to punch him or puke.
Strength saves me. And pride. “Nothing, Ace. I want absolutely nothing from you.”
I stand on trembling knees and hold my chin high. I haven’t made the door when he grabs my arm and twists me toward him.
I gasp, and instinctively try to pull away, but he doesn’t let go.
“You forgot something.” He growls, shoving the check into the neckline of my blouse. “Don’t come back. I never want to see you again.”
31
Emme
I GET OUT OF THE club without falling apart. But the minute I’m alone in my car, I come unglued. The adrenaline hits, and I wheel out of the parking lot with my hands shaking so hard I can barely grip the steering wheel. Tears blur my vision, and I start to sob so hard that I don’t make it two blocks away before I have to pull over and throw up.
I really want this man’s baby?
No. Jerk. King of the jerks.
I vomit again.
By the time I manage to sit back in my seat and pull the door shut, I’m a wreck. My head swims, and my chest is so tight I can barely breathe. Thank God for the stash of Starbucks napkins in my glove compartment, or else I wouldn’t even be able to wipe my mouth.
Why didn’t I think to leave a barf bag in the car?
That’s the one easy answer I have right now. I usually get past the nausea as the day progresses. Who knew Ace would knock me back half a day with his reaction?
Jerk.
Doesn’t take long to realize I’m in a parking lot of a vacant building by the railroad tracks. I push the car into gear and will myself not to puke or pass out until I get someplace safer. A few blocks later, I’m at a well-lit convenience store. I pull into a spot around the side, where I can see everything going on, but won’t have people looking in my window every time they pass by. I turn off the ignition, rest my head back against the seat and close my eyes.
The only other thing I know right now—besides if I don’t calm down, I’m going to be sick again—is: I don�
��t want anything to do with Ace. I never want to see the ass again.
Trouble is . . . I’m not pregnant with his baby. We made it together, which makes it our baby. And while this little bean inside me was conceived unexpectedly, he or she was conceived with great love. Maybe not the meet a guy, fall in love, get married, and make a baby kind of love. But the meet a guy, fall in love with the way he made me feel kind.
That counts, right?
My mistake was getting all emotionally tangled up with him when I knew that was the last thing in the world I should have done. But when I remember back to how I felt to be invited into his penthouse, how much I wanted to be invited to spend the night . . . There’s no question that’s exactly what happened.
Did I fall for him?
Would I be so completely devastated right now if I hadn’t?
That startling reality sparks another wave of nausea. I manage to fight this one off and do the only thing I can think to do. Call Mia. She tells me to stay put. She’s on the way.
I must doze, because the next thing I know, my phone’s beeping through with a text.
Here. Wake up.
When she appears at my driver’s window, she motions me to open the door. I’m so glad she texted. I might have had a heart attack if she just showed up. I would have puked again, no question. She takes one look at me and is on her knees, taking my hands in hers, staring up worriedly.
She doesn’t ask for details about my meeting with Ace. All she says is, “That prick.” Then she presses my hands to her cheek. “Come on. We can leave your car here for a while. You come with me.”
I don’t have the energy to do anything but comply. I grab my purse and lock my car.
“Ice cream seems to make you feel better. Let’s go get some.” She tries to sound upbeat.
“We can buy some inside the convenience store.”
She grimaces. “I don’t want a freezer-burnt pint. I’m talking sundae with real strawberries and sprinkles. This is the only time I’ll ever be able to eat as much as you without worrying about how fat I get.”
I know she wants to keep me out and distracted; doesn’t want me at home alone, curled up in a fetal ball feeling miserable. I love her for it.
I slump into her seat. A light rain begins to fall, so appropriate to my mood. She turns on the lights and the windshield wipers.
I don’t know why I feel as if Ace stabbed me in the heart with a knife. We weren’t in a relationship. We were having sex. Great sex. There was no commitment or even exclusivity.
But that wasn’t how I felt.
I felt as if great sex meant there were feelings between us. And there were. My feelings. I may not have been honest about them to myself. But looking back now, there’s just no avoiding how I proceeded based on how Ace made me feel, translating his every action into feeling like I was special to him. Clearly, I was just stupidly seeing what I wanted to see.
“He told me to leave,” I finally tell Mia. “He told me not to come back. He never wants to see me again.”
And that hurts more than anything. I am such an idiot.
“Asshole.”
“Fucking asshole,” I agree, latching onto Mia’s anger like an anchor to cling to. Anything to stop the agony ripping through me. “And he tried to pay me off.”
She shifts her gaze from the road and stares at me. “You. Are. Kidding.”
I shake my head. I can barely even think about the way he shoved that check at me.
“When I wouldn’t take his check, he stuffed it into my shirt.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised. I’ve heard he’s very generous to his . . .”
“Sexual partners?” The anger’s shoring me up a little, giving me something to feel besides devastated. “Go on. You can say it.”
“I would never, Emme. No judgment here. I understand the circumstances better than anyone.”
This much is true. We fall into silence again, the rain just pattering down steadily and the monotonous swish-swish of the wipers masking all the things I can’t bear to say aloud.
“I don’t think he could write a check big enough to make up for the kind of prick he is,” she finally says.
“No doubt there.”
“How much?”
I shrug. I barely made it to my car and away from the club, let alone looked at the check. I don’t admit that. I pluck the check from my bra, anger fueled.
How dare he treat me this way? Because I had sex with him? I may be a member of a sex club, but he owns the place. I was just there having a good time. He’s making a living off sex. That puts him on a whole other level than me. The jerk.
My head is off and running, outrage fueling the tumble of thoughts that help me through the frailty of hurt and fuel my pride. I stare at the check, so angry it takes time to focus. Then I blink.
“Three hundred thousand dollars?” A question.
I stare at the numbers some more.
“Personally, I think he was a million-buck jerk.” Mia sniffs, and I don’t disagree, but unlike Mia, I’ve never seen so much money in one place in my life.
“A hundred grand for every night we spent together.” I start to cry. “I feel cheap. I suppose I deserve it. What did I expect to feel joining a sex club? I wanted excitement and a thrill. I got both.” And a little something more than I bargained for. I don’t say that aloud.
“Oh, honey,” Mia says. “You’re being way too hard—”
I hold up the check, a dramatic show of tearing it to shreds, the only control over how I feel right now, the only relief for what’s left of my pride.
“No.” Mia shrieks.
I jump. The car swerves just enough to make my stomach roll dangerously. She plucks the check from my hand.
“Think, Emme,” she says. “This money is nothing to Ace. But for your baby, it’ll be a lot. You’ll have time to get a decent job, and you won’t need to freak about healthcare or insurance until you do. You can take the time to figure out where you want to live and get your place together. And if you’re smart with your money, which I know you will be because you’re the practical one, then you can even set up mutual funds to generate interest so you never have to touch your principal. That’ll mean a lot as a single parent. Think about all the things that might come up when you’re raising a kid. Opportunities you might not be able to take if you don’t have some money set aside.”
I hear her. And I get it. Mia went off on our eighth-grade class trip to New York and Boston, while I stayed home. She did the senior class trip in high school to France and Italy, while I waited for her to bring me back perfume.
But how can I take one fucking dime from Ace? The pride that’s keeping me going simply won’t let me. But Mia’s right. Decisions like this aren’t all about me and how I feel anymore. It’s about thinking about more than right now. It’s planning for my baby’s future. And I hope like hell the ability to think like a mother grows with my baby, because right now, I’m all about me and my hurt.
“I’ll take it under advisement,” I say. That’s the best I can do at the moment.
Mia’s appeased. She hands me back the check and parks in front of the ice cream shop. Unfortunately, not even ice cream tastes good right now. I swirl my spoon in the melting goo while Mia chows down on her strawberry sundae with extra sprinkles.
“I keep thinking this isn’t my plan.” I finally admit. “I just wanted to have some fun to take my mind off Jason . . . And now Ace . . . I can damn sure pick ’em, can’t I?”
She pauses with a spoonful of goo poised at her lips. “You’ve got to kiss a lot of toads, and all that shit. The right someone is out there for you. You’ll likely bump into him when you’re not looking.” Mia’s kind. She always is.
“The way you bumped into Ethan.”
“Last thing I expected to bump into on the side of a desolate road in the wee hours.” She aims the spoon at me, so the melting ice cream lists dangerously close to the edge. “You keep me out too late. Did I ever tell you th
at?”
That almost makes me laugh. Not quite. I glance at my cell phone. It’s not all that late now.
“Except I’m supposed to be at work. Not rescuing you.”
Now I smile. It’s faint at best, but it’s still a smile. Mia pops the spoon into her mouth, and her expression melts in ecstasy.
I sigh.
“Who the hell needs Ace, anyway?” she says. “We’ll have the best babies ever. They’ll grow up and be best friends like us.”
“Sounds good.” I try to work up my enthusiasm, but as my anger cools, I feel as if there’s not much left. I feel empty inside. Except for this baby.
Mia finishes her ice cream, and I dump the remnants of mine in the trash. “You want to hit Starbucks?”
I know she’s thinking that seeing my coworkers will distract me some more. I shake my head. “No thanks. I’m sticking to one cup a day like I’m supposed to until I can wean myself totally off the caffeine.” Doesn’t take much either with how shitty I feel. I’m lucky I get a few swallows down before the nausea starts again.
She takes me to pick up my car, but as we drive into the convenience store’s parking lot, we see two police cars with their lights flashing.
“Uh-oh,” Mia says, steering around the gas pumps and heading to the front of the store. “Wonder what’s up?”
Those police are near my car, and my hand’s already on the door handle before she pulls to a stop. I push the door open and step out into the spill of light from the streetlight overhead, and my stomach pitches all over again.
“Oh, no.” Mia spins around and curses.
An officer is leaning over my hood, aiming a flashlight through my shattered windshield. I gasp and take in the damage. The headlights are broken. The hood is dented. The tires are slashed.
I reach for Mia’s arm as the nausea hits me again, hard.
“It looks like someone used a baseball bat on it,” Mia says unnecessarily.
What I want to know is, how anyone could do this sort of damage without being seen? The parking lot is well lit, and it’s still not that late. Not even eleven.