When he comes, it’s like a rolling ocean wave, taking him down under the turbulent surf. He buries his face in my hair, his pained grunts and gasps whispered in my ear. I don’t follow him over the cliff, but I don’t care. The only thing I care about is this moment, the feeling expanding in my chest as he wraps our arms around me and tucks me in tight to his chest as if he’ll never let me go.
This. This is why I stay. This is why I return. Rebel is a difficult man on a good day. But on a great day, he leaves me speechless. I want to be present for all of his good moments.
Rolling onto his side, he takes me with him. I expect he’ll hold me until he passes out, but that’s not what happens at all.
Untangling his limbs from mine, I continue onto my back while he repositions himself above me. He braces himself on his forearms, his knees tucked beneath mine. My fingers trace lightly up and down his sides as I stare up at him, wondering what’s going on inside that head of his.
“I fired Florence, effective early this morning. She didn’t take it well.”
My hands stop their upward movement, my head tilting sideways. So it’s true what Darren said. That must be the reason for all the secrecy and the sour mood.
“That’s why you weren’t at work today. Does this have anything to do with whatever your mother was talking about?”
His dark eyes hold mine, debating on how much he’s willing to share with me. “We were meeting with the lawyers. I told Florence I was buying her out.”
“And she refused,” I surmise. “Can you do that though? Without her consent, I mean?”
Sitting back on his haunches, Rebel’s hands clasp onto the tops of my thighs and a dangerous air cloaks him. “I own controlling stock in the company. I can do whatever I want.”
Sensing his growing agitation, I cover his hands with mine. “How much did you offer her?”
“Originally? Six grand per share.”
“Is that a lot?” It sounds like a lot.
“It’s fair, but she didn’t think so.” A malicious smile twists his lips, and my heart skips a few times. He’s terrifyingly handsome, even when he’s being cold and calculating. Suddenly, I feel sorry for Red because she had to face the whole of his wrath dead on rather than lying naked beneath him and merely hearing about it secondhand.
“I considered coming up in the price, but then she threatened me with a lawsuit.” His obsidian stare meets my eyes, and I shiver at the malice lurking in them. “So I cut her a new deal. One twenty-five per share. It was direct deposited at four this afternoon.”
“Is that why you were so grouchy when I texted you?”
“I was fielding bullshit calls from her and her lawyer. They’re trying to find a loophole. She doesn’t want to leave the company.”
“Well, it is her company,” I say carefully. I wouldn’t want to be in her shoes right now. She must be devastated.
“She should have considered that when she came after you and my brother.”
“What does Ransom have to do with this?”
His head moves back and forth slightly. “He’s just caught in the middle. She used him to get to me.”
“Okay, then what does this have to do with me? I might not ever be friends with Florence, but I wouldn’t want to rip her business out from under her.” Now that the words have been spoken, I almost feel...angry. For her. I would never have dreamed that I’d choose her side over Rebel’s, but nothing about what he’s doing sounds right.
“Would you still say that if I told you that she’s the one who stole my phone and sent you those pictures? Pictures she tried to pass off as me and her. Pictures she planted just to hurt you and keep us apart?”
What the hell? So Florence was behind it after all?
“That’s right,” Rebel nods, his tone thick and edgy. “She took up with my brother just to make her disgusting plan work. She made him think she wanted him, and all the while, he was just a means to an end.”
“She’s always wanted you,” I say, my words merely a whisper.
“To fuck her, yes, and today, after she decided to issue a personal threat against me for being involved with you, I finally made her wish come true,” he says grimly.
I see now why he reacted as strongly as he did. Rebel’s vengeance against Florence wasn’t about him. He’s always shrugged off her advances. No, this was a reaction to what she did to me and his brother. Pushing myself up, Rebel wraps his arm around my back and helps me into his lap. Coiling my limbs around him, I press my lips to his.
“You’re my hero,” I tell him, cheesy as it may be.
A grin spreads across his face. “I thought you didn’t believe in fairy tales.”
“I’m beginning to change my mind.” My mouth finds his again, my fingers wrapping around the silky strands of his thick black hair. “Rebel, what if she decides to lash back?”
“Then I’ll cut her down like a weed,” he replies fiercely. “I’ve had some time to think over the past twenty-four hours, and I’ve realized a few things about myself. And us.” His hand travels up my back, his fingers tangling in the hair at my nape. “There has been one too many things separating us since the day we met—your job, mine, my brother, Florence. Me. Now that you’re officially mine, I’m going to tear apart anything and anyone that even considers coming between us. Especially now that you might be carrying our child.”
God, not this again. “I’m not pregnant, Rebel,” I groan.
“You are until you show me a test that says otherwise,” he says with a smart-aleck smile. “So shut up and listen to me. I’m not a man who’s prone to taking chances. Not with the people I care about. I protect what’s mine, Josephine. At all cost. Florence? She learned that lesson the hard way.”
“And something tells me that’s just a hint of what you would do.”
“The barest,” he confirms. “When you stand by my side, pussycat, you’ll learn that there is no safer place to be. I can promise you that.”
“Are there many dangers attached to being with you?” I ask with raised eyebrows. Because this is the first I’m hearing of it.
“A man in a seat of power like mine always comes with a few enemies. In fact, I may have made one today.” He grins as if the idea pleases him.
“I thought you said Florence wasn’t someone to worry about anymore?”
“She’s not. There isn’t anything she can do that I can’t do better and come back at her stronger. Right now, she’s determined to see this through the legal way, and she’ll be broke by the time she realizes that there’s nothing she can do.”
“You seem pretty sure of yourself,” I say, observing his stalwart expression with no small amount of curiosity. Anyone this certain has to know something no one else does.
“I am sure. I pay my lawyers a hefty fee because they know what stones to overturn and how hard to throw them if needed. She screwed up when she sent those pictures, but the biggest mistake was as a business owner and failing to draw up an agreement with her partner. Florence left herself wide open to a takeover when she failed to sign a partnership agreement with Jack.”
“Is that how he was able to transfer his shares to you, because there wasn’t an agreement?” I had wondered how they’d done it without Florence suing their pants clean off their legs.
“No, he held controlling shares, so he was free to transfer them to me without any legal recourse. But without that agreement in place, she could be considered an at-will employee. So, claiming that it was in the best interest of the company and its shareholders, I was able to buy her out without any legal ramifications. Not that it’ll keep her from trying.”
“Wow.” I shake my head, trying to absorb everything he’s just said. “I mean, I guess it’s smart, but it just seems so...”
“Shady? I know. I was trying to avoid taking this route, but she crossed a line with me in that conference room when she put her hands on you, and I couldn’t allow her to get away with it. Nor could I allow her to get away with treating my b
rother like she did. Even if he didn’t have a role in this, having her under the same roof as you every day just wasn’t going to work, and when forced to choose, it was never going to be her.”
“I wouldn’t have made you choose,” I insist.
“I know, baby, and that’s what I’m learning to love about you. You aren’t like most of the women I’ve been with in the past. You don’t demand more than you give. You remind me of my mother in that way. You’re sweet, gentle, sexy, strong, and independent. I don’t ever have to worry that you’ll screw me over or play games with me. Unless they’re of the naked variety, of course.” I mirror his smile, feeling warmth in my chest that continues expanding with every word that leaves his mouth.
That feeling is quickly banked when I consider how his feelings might change when he is holding proof that I’m not having his baby. Will I still qualify as someone he cares about?
His expression falls as he watches my mood shift, and I wiggle out of his embrace. Sliding back across the sheets, I sit up against the headboard and draw the blankets up to my chest so I won’t feel so exposed.
“Talk to me,” Rebel murmurs. Although his voice is soft, it’s no less commanding. He expects an answer.
Clutching the blankets to my chest, I look warily up at him and voice my concern. “Just hours ago, you hated the idea of me being pregnant. You yelled at me, and then you ran off. Now you’re back, and you’re being nice and talking about it like it’s no big deal. I’m confused. What’s changed?”
Crawling closer, Rebel stretches out on his stomach beside me and wraps one strong arm around my outstretched legs. “Truth? I spoke to my mom.”
“You told your mom?” I shout. Is nothing sacred anymore? Is it too much to ask that I have a single moment’s privacy without the whole world knowing what’s happening in my personal life?
“I had to talk to someone.”
“You could have talked to me.”
“That’s why I’m here now,” he says with a defiant edge. “I told my mom what was going on and she basically said the same thing, but not before reading me the riot act. Apparently babies are a blessing, and I shouldn’t be such an ass about God deciding to give me a gift or some such bullshit. I wasn’t really listening at that point. Anyway,” he growls impatiently. “I realized that I wasn’t exactly being fair to you, and that you might be feeling the same way about it. So, are you?”
“Am I what?” I ask, somewhat flummoxed. I’m still reeling over him telling his mother when this whole pregnancy thing isn’t even real. Lord only knows what she’s thinking. That settles it. I’ll never be able to show my face at another family dinner.
“Feeling the same way.” I narrow my eyes, and he sighs as if it physically pains him to say what’s on his mind. “Scared. Are you scared?”
Slowly, I feel the wrinkles between my brows even out and the annoyance and irritation gradually bleed out of me. As I sit here, taking in Rebel’s handsome face, I realized that what he’s really trying to tell me is that he’s scared. Now I finally understand why he ran off like he did. His anger was his way of dealing with the fear of what could be. He was never mad at me over the possibility of him becoming a father. He was just terrified of the prospect.
My pulse quickens as I reach out and push my fingers into his hair. “I can never seem to stay mad at you,” I tell him, a tender smile forming. “If I thought for even a second that I was pregnant, I would probably drop dead from cardiac arrest.”
His face scrunches and the arm draped across my legs squeezes lightly. “You’re that sure?”
“Baby, I’m one hundred and fifty percent sure.”
Sighing, Rebel turns his body so he can rest his head in my lap. “I was starting to get used to the idea of having a kid around.”
“Is that disappointment I detect in your voice?” I ask in disbelief.
“I don’t know. Maybe. My mother is going to be inconsolable. She’s already planning a trip to the store to buy up all their baby products.”
Dropping my head back, I groan. “This is so out of hand. I can’t wait to get this appointment over with so we can put this thing to rest once and for all.”
Tilting his head back, Rebel gives me a sly smirk. “Well, you may not be pregnant now, but that just means we’re going to have a lot more time to practice for it later. In fact, I think we should get started on that right away.”
Slouching down, I allow Rebel to drag me the rest of the way down the bed, opening my arms as he crawls over me and settles in the cradle of my spread legs. “I think that’s a novel idea, Mr. Scott.”
Twenty-Six
There’s a note tacked under my wiper blade the next morning as Rebel and I head out to his waiting car. He doesn’t allow me close enough to read it, but I can guess who it’s from by the phone call he made directly afterward.
“Tell her I’ll sue her blind if she doesn’t back the fuck off and keep her distance. Ask her how much good those shares will do her when she’s wiping her boney ass with them under the Martin Luther Fucking Bridge!”
Needless to say, I remain silent during our trip across town to the appointment I have scheduled with my obstetrician. Regardless of what he said last night in bed, I have no desire to stir the pot in case he’s feeling different about it in the light of day.
The woman at the office draws my blood and while we could have stayed to await the results, Rebel had some “pressing matters” to deal with that had us walking out the door. We arrived late to work and despite his sour mood, Rebel saw me to my floor, kissing me goodbye in open view of everyone close enough to see before leaving me with strict instructions to contact him immediately as soon as I hear anything.
Now I sit here in the women’s bathroom, locked in one of three stalls, with my phone in hand and unable to stop staring at the blank screen. When the doctor called to give me my results, I thought I was ready to hear them. That they’d just confirm what I already knew to be true.
What I didn’t expect was this.
I’m an emotional wreck, too destroyed by the news to be around anyone. The tears won’t stop flowing and I don’t even know why. If this were a romance novel, this would be the moment where the heroine finds out that she was pregnant all along and then she’d run off to find some grand way to tell her lover the news.
Well, I’m not that woman. I’ve never had a happily ever after. Hell, I never thought to hope for one. But now that the time has come and gone, I’m realizing that there are parts of myself that I never took the time to know.
My thoughts turn to Annie and the text message she sent me a little more than an hour ago showing me her growing baby belly and obvious lump where it was in the process of kicking along with a caption reading “He’s going to be a football player!”
My heart aches with renewed pain. She had no way of knowing what my day had in store for me, but that picture couldn’t have come at a worse time. Now all I can think about is how my best friend is preparing to bring a life into the world while my stomach sits barren.
These tears? They’re all the hopes and dreams I never allowed myself to have jumping ship. I thought this was what I wanted. I thought having a baby was the worst possible thing that could happen to me.
Now I know I was wrong. So very wrong. Because it’s all I want...and it’s just not in the cards.
“Are you okay in there?”
My head snaps up and I catch sight of a pair of white sneakers poking under the door. Tearing off a fresh strip of toilet paper, I dab under my eyes and wipe my nose. “Yeah, I’m fine,” I say with a trembling smile.
I’m not even remotely believable, but the woman steps back after a moment. I hear the water on one of the sinks turn on and figure I’d better get myself cleaned up and find some way to get back to work without falling apart again.
When I finally summon the strength to leave the stall, I find Jenna leaning with her back against the counter, waiting for me. Her gaze travels up and down my body before settling
on my blotchy, tear-stained face. Without a word, she walks to the wall and snaps off a handful of paper towels, then wets them in the sink before handing them off to me.
How incredibly uncharacteristic of her. Cautiously, I reach out and take them with a grateful nod and begin patting my face. The cool dampness feels so damn good against my heated skin that I close my eyes and soak it in, imaging that I’m wiping away the tension and sorrow that’s taken hold of me.
“Tragedy in the family?” Jenna asks casually.
I concentrate on cleaning up the smudges of mascara under my eyes. “Nope, that ship’s already sailed.”
“Did Mr. Bossman give you the axe and send you down river with Miss Townsend?”
I cut her a sidelong look. “Not a chance.”
“Then what’s wrong? You’re all...weepy,” she says, lifting her chin.
While she doesn’t deserve an answer, I feel compelled to give her one. Turning to face her head-on, I prop my hand on my hip and steel myself for the effect saying the words aloud will have on me. “I’m not pregnant.”
Both of her slim eyebrows arch up high on her forehead. “Well, that makes two of us. I take it you were...or thought you were?” This time when she speaks, her question is softer, her tone less combative.
“There was a small chance.”
Her reflection screws up in an emotion I’m not accustomed to seeing directed toward me from her. “I’m sorry,” she says so softly her words hardly carry. “I...lost a child so...I-I’m sorry.”
Well shit. My shoulders droop, and my mood takes another nosedive into the floor. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
In a snap, her mood shifts, and that implacable façade returns. Standing tall, Jenna runs her hands over her blouse and draws in a refreshing breath. “How could you have? It’s not something I broadcast. I hope everything works out for you.”
I watch in the mirror as her figure retreats out the door. What just happened here? Did we...did Jenna and I share a moment? I frown at my reflection as thoughts of her are shoved out and replaced by a single, nagging question: How do I tell Rebel? After all that talk about how I would drop dead if something so horrible as a baby happened to me, how do I explain that what I didn’t want is now what I want more than ever?
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