Fake It_A Fake Marriage Baby Romance

by Mia Ford

  “Louise, just know that I am here for you,” Oliver replies gravely. “If you give the baby up for adoption, I will help you. If you keep your child, I’ll support you.”

  “But why?” I feel compelled to ask him. “It isn’t your responsibility.” I kind of wish it was. If this baby was Oliver’s I think things would be so much easier, but that’s impossible.

  “Because I’m your friend and that’s what friends do. Just trust me, you are absolutely not alone in this, okay?”

  As I gaze up into his warm eyes, I feel my feelings for him deepen. I’m torturing myself, I know that but I can’t seem to stop myself. I can’t pull away from him, even if I want to. He’s just so amazing.

  “Thank you, Oliver,” I reply quietly. “That means the world to me. You have no idea how good it feels to not be in this alone.”

  Chapter Fifteen – Oliver

  As Louise enters the room I feel my heart skip an odd beat, just like it does every single time I see her. I’m good at disguising for now, pretending it isn’t happening on the outside, but there’s no doubt it’s messing me up a bit on the inside. Still, just as I have done every single day for the last few months, I remind myself how lucky I am to have her as a friend. It’s getting easier every single day and the last thing I want to do is mess it up. I gulp down my emotions and I force a smile on my face.

  Don’t think of her beauty, I warn myself as my lips part to speak. Just see her as a friend.

  “Ooh look, you’re growing a bit of a belly now,” I comment in the most teasing tone I can muster up, as I see a slight roundness forming underneath Louise’s scrubs. That’s a safe area to talk about now… I think. She’s certainly more comfortable with it at any rate so I don’t mind talking about her unborn baby who’s growing inside there every day. “It must be feeling a little more real now.”

  “You can see it, right?” Louise touches her stomach as panic rolls off her tongue.

  Oops, maybe I’ve worried her! I didn’t mean to do that. I just wanted to start an ordinary conversation.

  “But I haven’t told anyone yet. Do you think people will be able to tell that I’m pregnant? I haven’t even told human resources because I don’t know how much time off I’m going to need from work after the birth.”

  I do, but I don’t tell her that much. I’ve been with her, pouring all over the adoption brochures and information, but she does it with half a heart. I can see the natural maternal instinct flying out of her. She’s in love with her baby already, and she’ll be an amazing mom to this child. I can see that she isn’t going to follow in her mother’s footsteps with the whole motherhood thing and I’m pretty sure that once she’s accepted this herself she’ll finally embrace the possibility of having a baby. She’s made for it, I can tell. I can picture her clutching onto her baby, and it’s a lovely image. One that maybe I like far too much. Maybe I wish I could be a part of that picture too, weirdly…

  I’m sure the desire to be a career woman won’t vanish for her either, and I also feel very certain that the very ambitious Louise will find a way to make it happen, even when others couldn’t. I don’t know how she’ll do it, but I’ve never needed to juggle my life in such way. I have faith in Louise.

  “No, I can only tell because I know,” I reassure her with a happy smile on my face. Even though she is pregnant but she’s utterly gorgeous. I’m sure everyone will be more focused on her stunning face than anything else. I know I would be. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

  “It’s just good that I haven’t had too much morning sickness.” She sighs as she moves across the room with ease, showing that she’s totally comfortable here, finally. “It’s mostly just nausea. Isn’t that supposed to pass soon? In the second trimester, or something?”

  “I’m not a midwife, so I’m no expert, but I’m sure every pregnancy is different. I’m pretty sure everyone has sickness at different times. Some not at all. Some women feel awesome all the way.”

  “Urgh, I already hate those women.” Louise rolls their eyes. “How is it fair that they feel fine?”

  As Louise takes her chair and she reads through her notes without another word of complaint, I feel a strong sense of admiration. This girl has got a lot of inner strength, she’s impressively a bad ass. She doesn’t even need to find out the one night stand asshole and that person really doesn’t deserve to be in her or her baby’s life. She’s much better off without him and I can tell that without even knowing him at all. Although if I did meet him, I’d definitely still punch him in the face… hard. I hate that guy. I hate him more because the more I think about him the more he reminds me of myself.

  Knock, knock. Knock, knock.

  “Come in!” I call out, knowing that it’s going to be Julia. It’s too early for any patients, and those two spend a lot of time in the office now, gossiping and catching up in a very private space. Julia’s the only other person in the office who knows about the baby, and that’s because she’s Louise’s best friend. She doesn’t know about what happened between me and her as far as I can tell, but since no one has spoken about it since, that makes a lot of sense. “Oh hi, Julia. How are you?”

  “I’m fine thank you, Oliver. I brought you both coffees.”

  It’s a weird little club that we’ve somehow developed out of nowhere, three friends who shouldn’t really be. Or maybe I’m the only one who shouldn’t be here since I’m much older and more senior than both the girls. They’d probably be friends anyway. Julia probably has about five years on Louise, but that still makes her much younger than I am. I forget that though, while I’m with them. They never act like I don’t belong with them, which is awesome. I like being in their friendship group.

  “Oliver said I had a belly.” Louise is still panicked about that, maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. She grabs onto her friend’s arm and looks at her with sheer distress in her eyes. “Do I? Look, Julia, do you think it’s obvious now? Can people tell?” She pulls up her top to show Julia a sweet darling little stomach. “Tell me the truth, I need to be prepared for it…”

  “Do you not trust me?” I tease playfully. “I told you I can only see it because I know…”

  But my words fall on deaf ears, the girls remain locked in their own little chat for a moment.

  “Girl, you can’t tell, but you will be able to soon. Baby bumps don’t just hang around until you’re ready to communicate with everyone, and to be honest from what I’ve seen in previous jobs it’s better to just get the information out there as soon as possible because then you can control it. If you don’t, people will gossip and I’m sure what they’ll say is much worse than the truth.”

  “What, that I had a one night stand and I didn’t use protection because I’m an idiot?” Louise replies scathingly as she yanks down her top angrily, covering herself up once more. “Yep, I’m super keen to control that flow of information! It’ll be so much better coming from me.”

  “Well you don’t have to tell them that,” Julia giggles and shakes her head. “Just say it’s some guy you’re seeing, you don’t have to be totally honest with those people out there, just give them a little bit to go on. If you don’t, people will assume that it’s you and Oliver who are having a baby.”

  Her words freeze my blood and make me panic, maybe a little too much. I’ve already considered this, I know how rapidly rumors spread, but to hear Julia say it in such a cold and calculated way scares the living hell out of me. It makes it that much more plausible and I already feel like there’s no way in hell that I’ll be able to handle it.

  “What? Why would people think that?” I demand idiotically.

  “Oh come on.” She rolls her eyes dramatically at me. “You think people aren’t already talking about the two of you? You stink of chemistry. Obviously, I know that nothing is going on…” She pauses to flick her eyes between us as if she’s waiting for an admission of guilt that she doesn’t get. Because it’s the truth, there isn’t anything to report at al
l. “But other people don’t know that. Trust me, Louise, you need to speak to people before this becomes a thing. I’ll even come to HR with you later, that way you can sort your maternity out anyway. You don’t want to leave that too late.”

  Louise gives me a desperate look but I simply nod back. If people really think that we’re fooling around then I could actually lose my job. I only just about managed to get away with it the last time when I got involved with a colleague and that’s only because I used so much of my convincing charm. I don’t think I’ll be able to do that again. I won’t get lucky for a second time. This is why fooling around with patients is so much easier, no one ever seems to find out about that for some reason.

  “Go and do it now if you want,” I reply rashly while my head spins uncontrollably. “The sooner you clear it up and make people know that we aren’t involved, the better. For both of us.”

  Louise looks sad as Julia takes her out the room, but I don’t have time to feel bad about that right now. I have some damage control to take care of. Maybe I need to make out that I’m dating someone too, just to attack the rumor from both sides. Me and Louise wouldn’t be hooking up if we both had our dating partners. I don’t think anyone could argue with that…

  ***

  By the time the girls come back from their appointment from HR, I’m a little calmer, but the idea of acting like I have a girlfriend is a good idea. I’ve asked Rita to come and meet me from her work so I can be seen with her. It took a little persuading since we’ve only ever been a sex thing, but I’m sure it’ll be alright. Maybe it’ll complicate things and force me to move out of my apartment block, but to be honest that’s been a long time coming anyway. I could do with a new home, I’m not worried.

  “Well that was awesome,” Louise tells me with a pale face as she slumps into her chair. “That went really well. I’m glad I dove into that bear pit this early in the morning!”

  “Why, what happened?” I glance up at Julia who gives me an apologetic look as she has to leave the room to get back to work.

  Then I turn my attention back to Louise. “How bad was it?”

  “Urgh, it was awful. They wanted to know everything. They asked me all sorts of questions that I didn’t know how to answer and got really pissed at me when I didn’t know how to answer them right away. I’ve got to go back for a load more meetings when I get the chance, so that’s great.”

  I rub Louise’s shoulder gently, trying my best to reassure her. I wish there was anything I could do to make her feel better, but I don’t know what. Now that things have got a little weird and I’m worried that others will assume that we’re hooking up, I’m going to have to distance myself even more. This isn’t going to be fun at all, I honestly don’t know how I’ll do it.

  “Anyway.” She brushes a tear away and steadies herself once more. It’s impressive how quickly she recovers from heart ache. I can tell this is something that she’s spent her whole life doing. “It’s time to get to work so I’ve got to put all this stuff out of my mind. I’ll work out how I’m going to answer all those questions later on.”

  “Right, well you can take the lead again today where appropriate. I know that helps and…” I take in a deep sigh. “Well, like I said before. Anything I can do to help.”

  Chapter Sixteen – Louise

  “Who the hell is that?” Julia gushes to me while clutching onto my arm hard, stopping me from leaving the doctor’s office. “What the fuck is going on here? I don’t understand it.”

  “”Huh?” I follow her eye line, not really paying much attention to her words as I drag my eyes of the screen of my cell phone. “What are you talking about, Julia? This better be good, I… oh my God.” A thick ball of painful emotion lodges itself in my throat as I see the horrifying, shocking sight that lays before me. “Who is that?” I repeat what Julia just said. “What the fuck is going on?”

  She drags me back into the office while I try and catch my breath for a moment. That was definitely Oliver, and he had his arms around another woman outside his work place, publically as if he wants everyone to see. As if he doesn’t care about how this makes me feel at all. I clutch onto my chest and bend forwards, feeling like I really might vomit at this moment. I’m sicker than ever.

  “What was that?” Julia shakes her head as if she’s trying to figure something out. “I thought… well, I thought that there was something happening between the two of you. I know that you’ve always denied that there’s anything, but it’s so damn obvious it hurts. At least… I thought it was.”

  “No,” I rasp quietly. “No, there isn’t anything between me and Oliver. There never has been.”

  Julia moves towards the window and she peers through it, screwing up her nose as she does. I want to keep away because I know the image will hurt me, but I’m dragged in by the magnetic force between me and Oliver, and I watch him and the mystery woman have a very familiar moment. They know one another well, they’ve definitely been intimate with one another, which really stings. Actually, it hurts so badly I can barely breathe. I’m not sure if this is the woman I saw him with in his office that time, she certainly looks very similar. If so that means they might have been together the entire time. That means what happened between me and him was cheating, which makes me feel guilty even more. It was already a really gray area and now it’s just a total and utter mess.

  Oliver opens the door and he indicates for this woman to step inside. She’s about to sit in the seat where I was sitting not that long ago… only she belongs there and I really didn’t. As she’s about to take her seat, she leans up on her tiptoes and kisses him without any restrictions. I hate it, it makes me cringe violently inside, my fists ball up by my side as rage and terror bursts through me.

  I thought there was something between me and Oliver too, I assumed that while we couldn’t act upon it, it was there sizzling between us. That was a fear which certainly got proven during my examination when we hooked up… but now I can see that was just another meaningless thing. It meant nothing to him, and I really need to stop thinking about it. I need to forget it ever happened. I thought that Oliver didn’t mention it because I made it obvious I was uncomfortable with it, but now I think that maybe he didn’t want to talk about it because he’s a cheating scum bag.

  My judgement of people is clearly bullshit. How the hell am I so bad at knowing what people are like? I got so sucked in by Adam, it took him a few seconds to fool me, and then Oliver. I’ve been so happy getting to know him, I genuinely thought that he was awesome. I knew that my crush on him could never become anything, because of the age difference, because of the fact that we work together, and especially because I’m pregnant. Of course, we could never become a thing.

  But still, this is the worst. This is utterly killer. As the car pulls away I feel my soul vanish.

  “Are you okay, Louise?” Julia asks me in a very concerned tone of voice. She looks at me with knotted eye brows and a screwed up nose. “You don’t look so good. Is this… does this really hurt?”

  “I’m just realizing that Oliver is horrible,” I reply a little breathlessly, my emotions churning as I speak. “I thought he was a nice guy, I’ve been really open and honest with him, I’ve let him in at this really difficult time, and now… well now I’m seeing that he’s just another asshole.”

  “Okay.” Julia grabs onto my arm and she pulls me down into the seat beside her. “What’s going on here? Has he been leading you on? Because you both keep telling me that nothing is going on between you even though it’s obvious that there are feelings there. Will you just be honest with me? I’m your friend, I just want you to let me help you. I really am trying.”

  I nod while breathing slowly, knowing that she actually is doing her best to be my friend.

  “I know, you are and I haven’t been honest with you.” A tear balls up in the corner of my eye but I don’t let it fall. I refuse to cry anymore, I’ve been like a damn facet recently. “I do like Oliver, I’ve liked him ever si
nce I first laid eyes on him.” Urgh, I hate myself but I do need to speak the truth here, finally. Even if it hurts and it makes me look like an idiot, I need to just be honest. “Of course, I wasn’t ever going to do anything about it because I’m working with him, but it was there. I think that might be why I hooked up with Adam. I wanted to forget for just a moment.”

  Julia makes an apologetic noise. “Yep, we’ve all been there. It never ends up well.”

  “Yeah, so that happened and then while Oliver was examining me… things happened between us.” I bite down on my bottom lip, knowing how unprofessional this sounds. “We fooled around a bit. I thought… well, I thought that he liked me and that it was the news that followed which tore us apart. I assumed he didn’t pursue it because I’m pregnant. Now I know it’s because he has a girlfriend.”

  My head falls into my hands and I sigh with devastation. I feel like a real idiot. Even more so. I feel like ever since I’ve started this job and I’ve met Oliver I’ve changed. I’m not myself, I’m acting like someone who isn’t me at all. I’m not the girl who does any of this. What must Julia think of me?