Keeping His Secret: A Secret Baby Romance

by Kira Blakely

  Tuesday, Charlotte didn’t hear anything at all, not from Quentin, nor Maggie, nor the rest of the interns, making her stomach swell with anxiety. She bit her tongue throughout the day, trying to stabilize her panic. But she soon drew blood, tasting its tangy flavor in her spit.

  The magazine would be released on Friday, which was just three days away. And she hadn’t heard anything.

  If the article was pulled from the issue, due to the circumstances, she felt she might kill herself. She’d strained everything for this, drained her romantic life, and lost her friends. The loss would be too great.

  And not speaking with Quentin gave her an aching sadness, which seemed to grow and chill in the bottom of her stomach, replacing the incredible love that had brewed there throughout her first few weeks in New York.

  That night, Charlotte sat at home, a book splayed across her lap, her eyes not reading. It was past eight, and she imagined Morgan sliding her fingers across the keys, with Quentin in the kitchen, cleaning up after dinner. Just a few apartments away, their vibrant life brewed on, while hers seemed to dwindle, grow gray.

  A knock at the door caused her to burst from her chair, dropping the book to the ground. Stringing her fingers through her hair, she stretched her legs toward the door, hopeful. This had to be Quentin; he was finally there, with the right words to say.

  He would finally tell her how incredible her article was—the highest compliment she could receive, from an editor.

  But when she opened the door, she found little Morgan, standing with her feet shoulder-width apart, her eyes firm and stubborn. In her arms, she held a large blue plate, on which seven chocolate chip cookies were splayed.

  “Charlotte,” Morgan said, her voice firm in its own way, yet bright and girlish.

  “Morgan,” Charlotte returned, placing her hand on her waist. “What do I owe the pleasure?”

  “You haven’t been over to my house in over a week!” Morgan cried out, then, shoving the plate of cookies forward. “How do you expect to be my friend if we don’t hang out?”

  A slight smile crept across Charlotte’s face, even as her heart seemed to drop in her chest. “Oh, honey. We’ll always be friends,” she said, taking the blue plate. “Did you make these yourself?”

  “Uhhh… Kind of,” Morgan said, shrugging. “But Dad ate half the batter already. You can’t trust him with anything. Just like I couldn’t trust him not to hurt you.” Her eyes flashed, showing she knew more than most girls her age.

  “Ah. I see,” Charlotte said. “You think your daddy hurt me, then?”

  “I know he did,” Morgan said. “He doesn’t know how to play nice all the time. But I want you to forgive him, because I know he’s sorry. He hasn’t smiled in days. And it’s getting old.”

  “I know I’ll see you around, Morgan,” Charlotte said, her voice hesitant. “Don’t be a stranger.”

  “So, you won’t forgive him?” Morgan asked, piping up. “You really won’t?”

  “He’s already forgiven,” Charlotte murmured, her eyes suddenly bright with tears. “But I need to be by myself right now. Can you understand that?”

  “Oh,” Morgan grumbled, turning back toward her apartment. “Whatever.”

  “Morgan?” Charlotte cried out, her throat growing choked. “Tell your dad it’s okay. Tell your dad I’ll be fine. Tell him—tell him I was always going to make it, no matter what.”

  Morgan shrugged slightly, adjusting her pink sweatshirt and then zipping it with a firm motion. She took on the formation of messenger, tossed between her friend and her father, and somehow comprehending the sheer, impenetrable emotion between them.

  “Okay,” was all she said, as a result.

  Charlotte burst back into her apartment, still clinging to the blue plate of cookies. In a sudden burst of sadness, of emotion, she smashed the blue plate against the edge of the table, watching as the shards scattered in a flurry of cookie crumbs and blue daggers. She began to quake with sadness, comprehending that the end had truly come for them.

  She had to move on, find peace.

  Chapter 30

  Quentin had never been prouder of an MMM issue. Sending the pieces to print, he leaned back gruffly in his office chair and then wheeled it, swooping around toward the window, where he could glare down with brooding eyes at the tiny, squirrel-like people below.

  Charlotte’s feature was better than anything he’d ever written. His heart burned with that knowledge, sensing that the prose had a maturity to it that his writing would never master. The moment after Maggie read it, she burst into his office, the pages pressed against her breasts. She clicked the door closed behind her, her eyes brimming, wet.

  “Tell me you helped her with this,” she demanded, saying the first words since they’d fought at the Greenwich Village bar the previous week.

  “I didn’t. She won’t talk to me,” Quentin said. “She wants to be on her own.” The truth of the words made his heart clench.

  “Well, shit,” Maggie said, collapsing in her chair. “She’s damn good, then.”

  “We can’t afford to lose her,” Quentin said.

  Maggie’s eyes flashed. “But it’s not fair to the other interns.”

  “It can’t be fair. She’s fucking better than them. Better is never fair.”

  Maggie couldn’t bicker with that logic. “I have almost no edits,” she told him. “And I’ve decided… I don’t think I’m going to press the issue. The issue of you and Charlotte, I mean. You tell me it’s over, and I believe you.”

  “It is,” Quentin murmured sadly, his eyes turning toward the office window, where he could see Charlotte leaning over the coffee machine, filling her cup. The curve of her ass was a perfect arc beneath her white dress. His hands clenched into a fist with sudden, indescribable sexual passion.

  Maggie eyed him curiously, rising from her chair. She no longer spoke to him with any sexual attraction, with prowess. She seemed tired, lines drawing themselves in circles beneath her eyes. “You’ll find happiness again, Q,” she murmured, turning toward the door. “Just hopefully not at the mercy of some little girl like that.”

  This felt like a slap. It stung for many minutes, long after Maggie had returned to her closet-sized office, after Charlotte had filled her coffee and dropped a tiny dreg of milk within. Would he ever learn how she liked her coffee? Would he ever make her laugh in bed again? Would their worlds draw together again?

  He supposed he couldn’t think about it.

  He sent the magazine to print, knowing they’d be at newsstands on Friday morning, one delivered to his apartment as early as seven a.m. through a special courier service. He sensed, with the single click to send, that he was altering Charlotte’s life for good, spinning her toward a trajectory of new life, and new professional status, and perhaps many new loves.

  The little Ohioan girl he’d met would be long gone. And his heart ripped at the sadness of saying goodbye.

  Chapter 31

  Charlotte rushed to the newsstand on Friday morning, her heart fluttering. Her black coat, one reserved for winter, had been drudged up from the bottom of her suitcase with a sudden burst of fall chill. With one week to go till October, the earth had taken a dramatic turn, bursting them toward winter all too soon. And her skin drew dots of chill in response.

  The MMM magazine was featured on the top rack, with other music and movie magazines, complete with a cover of the Thick Soled musicians—those familiar faces she’d interviewed a few weeks before. She wrapped her fingers so tightly around the magazine, digging her nails into the glossy exterior.

  “Ma’am? Are you going to pay for that?” the newsstand worker demanded, his thick, black eyebrows rising high. “Because otherwise, you gotta put it back.”

  “I wrote this,” Charlotte murmured, tossing a five-dollar bill at the man. “I wrote the feature!”

  “Congrats,” the man said, his words flippant. “Now, go tell the rest of New York City.”

  Charlotte raced into a nearb
y coffee shop, wrapping her palms around a ceramic mug and sipping at a cappuccino, her stomach clenching with fear. Her name—Charlotte Barracks—was listed at the top of the article, beneath the title. It could be mistaken for no other name, no other writer. It was hers.

  She read it once, then again, diving through her words and celebrating the pattern of them, the utilization. It hadn’t been edited a single bit, not by Maggie, nor Quentin, and she cherished this fact, knowing it was a rarity in the writing world. Sneaking the magazine into her bag, she rejoined the crowded sidewalks and marched toward her office building, sensing movement and change in the air. With this article, New York seemed to echo her name back to her, telling her, once and for all, she belonged. And not just because she’d once been sleeping with a rock star-turned-editor.

  Passing hipster coffee brew houses on the way, her eyes craned to see that several mustachioed men, and their scarfed women, bent their heads to MMM magazines, diving through her words.

  She was taking them on a journey.

  About twenty-five minutes later, Charlotte entered the offices of MMM, her tongue turning to sandpaper with panic. Once inside the intern office, she spun her head to see that most of the interns were reading her feature, their nose pointed toward the bottom of pages, showing their interest. Joining Randy at her desk, she elbowed him softly, ripping him from the magazine.

  His eyes were warm, friendly. He’d forgiven her, maybe. Or perhaps he just didn’t care anymore.

  “The big fucking day, huh?” he said, his voice bright. “Charlotte, this is incredible. Really. And it wasn’t even edited from the original you sent.”

  “I know,” Charlotte said, widening her eyes. “It’s really mine. Fuck! It’s hard to believe. This is literally a dream come true.”

  The other interns piped up their heads, looking like rodents coming out of holes, and gave her slight grins.

  “It rocks, man,” one guy told her, from the corner.

  “That section where you describe their sound? Jesus. You wield adjectives like knives,” another said.

  “It’s seriously one of the best pieces MMM has published in years. I’ve been seeing it passed around the Internet already. Impressive.”

  Charlotte crossed her fingers over her knees, confidence fueling her. “Thank you,” she said, unable to verbalize how amazing she really felt. “This means a lot. And, guys, please know that I didn’t ever set out to wrong you.” She hesitated, her eyes dancing across theirs. She swallowed sharply, waiting.

  “Girl, please,” an intern said from the side. “Pamela would throw us all under the bus if she could. Right, Pam?”

  Pam didn’t speak. She lurched from her chair, holding her laptop at her chest. Her cheeks flushing with panic, she shoved from the room, unable to face the team that had righted itself , recovering from the near-fatal blows against Charlotte the week before.

  “Pssh. She’ll get over it,” Randy said as they watched her run toward the elevator, all flailing limbs. “She’ll be back to piss us off in no time. I think she’ll make a career out of it.”

  Suddenly, a shadow appeared in the doorway of the intern offices, causing a shiver to bolt up and down Charlotte’s spine. Quentin, of all people, had arrived, even after avoiding the intern offices for the past several days. The interns hushed, turning their noses back to the magazine, while Quentin continued his blaring gaze, which seemed to suffocate Charlotte, turning her tight throat inward and closing.

  No one spoke for what seemed like a small infinity. For Charlotte, she and Quentin were the only humans alive, their hearts beating as one.

  No matter how many times she’d said that she and Quentin didn’t belong together; no matter how many times she’d convinced herself that she and Quentin should end it, for good—she knew, now, she’d been wrong. She stood delicately, like a ballerina, and then gathered her laptop and notebook, walking toward him, as if walking toward a bright light.

  Finally, she stood before him, in full view of all the other interns. All secrets were out; their dirty laundry was strewn over the office.

  “I was hoping to speak with you about the feature in my office,” he said firmly, his eyes dark. “If you have a moment.”

  “Of course,” Charlotte said, sounding professional.

  They were playing the game again, dancing around one another. And her heart quickened, like a rabbit’s, awaiting either the car to roll over her, squishing her, or missing her entirely, allowing her to escape death.

  Charlotte entered the warmth of his office, listening to the click of the door behind them. The tension was high, causing her ears to ring, her fingers to burn with desire to touch him. But instead of reaching for her, ramming her against the desk and pummeling his mighty girth between her legs, he sat across from her, his hands wrapping together, and his eyes straight ahead, solid.

  “HI,” he said.

  “Hello.”

  The clock on the wall continued to tick.

  “The article is incredible. I’m sure you’ve already sensed it’s a success, but I wanted you to hear it from me. I know you slaved at it for days. You deserve every bit of acclaim. And none of that acclaim belongs to me, no matter what you may think,” Quentin said.

  Charlotte felt her heart warm. A slight smile began to creep across her lips, showing her lust for him. But still, the divide had been drawn between them.

  “But we can’t be with each other,” she murmured, cutting to the chase. “I know it’s the wrong thing. It’s unfair to the rest of the employees. It’s unfair to you, and to me.”

  Quentin leaned back heavily in his chair, assessing her with smart, dark eyes. She could feel the cranking mechanics of his internal mind, trying to pinpoint precisely what to say.

  “I don’t want to say that,” Quentin began.

  “But we should say it,” Charlotte whispered, feeling a single tear descend down her cheek.

  All her life, she’d been hunting for this height of emotion. But it had come at the wrong time. Lifting her shoulders back, she tried to go on with confidence, to halt her girlish crying. But her insides continued to quake.

  The phone blared on the desk. Quentin hesitated before lifting it, holding up a single finger and mouthing, “One minute.”

  Speaking to his secretary, Charlotte heard him say, “Who is it, Barbara? Tommy?”

  A pause.

  “Yes. Sure. Connect me.” He spun his chair around, turning his eyes toward the window. Outside, the clouds were parting to reveal a glimmer of late September sun. In Ohio, they could have snow in mere weeks.

  “Tommy, hey there,” Quentin said, sounding jovial, almost false. “What can I do for you?”

  “Yes. Uh huh. Well, thank you. Thank you. Yes, actually. New here. She’s an intern.”

  Charlotte frowned, uncertain. She whisked her fingers through her hair, drawing her head forward. Who was he talking to? And why did she feel he was definitely speaking about her?

  “I’ll pass along her details, then,” Quentin said, laughing. “And let me know if you want to grab a burger some other time. Had a good time seeing you the other night. All right. Bye.”

  Quentin hung up the phone. He closed his hands over his desk, gazing down at Charlotte with glowing, almost loving eyes. Despite all they’d been through the past week—when they’d been tested, strung out—it seemed the growing affection remained.

  “You’ll never guess who that was,” he began.

  “You’re right,” Charlotte said, shrugging. She gave him a half-smile, feeling uncertain, lost.

  “That was the editor-in-chief of Rolling Stone magazine. He wanted to know who the hell you were and where you came from,” he said, his nostrils flaring. “You really got the music writing industry talking this morning with your piece.”

  “That was Tommy Burson?” Charlotte said, shocked. “Seriously? I can’t—I don’t—” She shook her head tentatively, bursting from the chair. “Why would he care who I am?”

  “Well, he
was shocked you were an intern,” Quentin said. “And he wanted to know if you’d be interested in a real job. One that actually pays more than your barely-living wage as an intern for MMM.”

  Charlotte’s jaw dropped. She leaned toward him, unable to resist him any longer, and strapped her legs around him, straddling him. She brought her hands to his gruff cheeks, gazing into his eyes, unable to deny how good it felt to touch him. Beneath her, she felt his cock, the tip rubbing against her clit, making her pussy lips part with intense desire.

  “He wants me to work for him?” she whispered.

  “Well, he wants you to come in and talk to him,” Quentin said, giving her a devilish smile. “But I can’t imagine he won’t love everything about you. Especially your writing. But this…” He grabbed her ass, squeezing it till she giggled with glee. “This won’t hurt your chances, either.”

  “This would solve everything,” Charlotte whispered, incredulous. “We could do this for real, without skirting around a bunch of rules.”

  “Shhh,” Quentin murmured, pressing his nose against hers. “Don’t psych yourself out. Just go talk to him. If you like the job, if it suits you professionally, then take it. And if you don’t, you’ll just work here. And we’ll keep publishing your features until you tell us to stop.”

  Charlotte kissed him, slipping her tongue against his and rubbing at him with her crotch, yearning to hump him properly. She felt his hands on the small of her back, grasping her, easing his nails into her skin. He broke their kiss after several impenetrable moments. “You fucking gorgeous specimen,” he whispered. “Go email Tommy Burson. There’s no time to waste.”

  Charlotte did as she was told, racing back to her desk to email the editor-in-chief of Rolling Stone to set up an interview for the following day. He called her back immediately, upon receiving the email, introducing himself with a gruff voice and even telling her he’d been in bands when Quentin had been a rock star, over ten years before.

  “Oh, we sure knew each other,” Tommy said. “But back then, none of the girls knew my name. Only his. It got kind of frustrating, as you can imagine.”