by Mia Caldwell
At the time, Andrew’s offer seemed like a blessing. Get paid a ton of money to have a handsome and wealthy man’s baby. He’d even agreed I could be part of the child’s life, not cut out of it like some surrogates were.
But now that I’d gotten pregnant, I saw the arrangement for the ill-conceived lunacy it actually was. Part of it was my fault for falling for Andrew and believing maybe he was falling for me. However, our confrontation in his office at Rutledge Electronics, the company of which he was founder and CEO, exposed a truth I should have recognized all along.
Andrew loved Rutledge Electronics more than anything in the world. It would always be his top priority, with everything else, including his own child, coming a distant second. The fact that my own privacy had been invaded and that the reporter who accosted me had called me a gold-digging whore meant nothing to him. All Andrew cared about was how the board of his company would react to the news if details of our arrangement became public.
I pulled into a parking garage a couple of blocks away from Natalie’s apartment. After I’d parked and began walking towards her place, my phone began buzzing again. A look at the screen showed the number belonged to Andrew’s private line.
He’d been calling me almost nonstop since I’d left his office, persisting even though I hadn’t responded to or answered any them. I could have turned off my phone so that his calls went directly to voicemail. But a small part of me got a thrill out of seeing how many times he’d try to get through. So far, he’d called twenty-two times and left fourteen messages.
Fortunately, I still had my key and I let myself into the empty apartment. I hadn’t expected Natalie to be there because she didn’t get off work until six or seven at the earliest. However, the dozens of designer bags that cluttered the living room did take me by surprise. Gucci, Tiffany, Ralph Lauren, Williams & Sonoma . . . it looked as if Natalie had gone a shopping spree and hit up every exclusive store on Walnut Street.
Out of curiosity, I picked up a shoebox labeled Manolo Blahnik to see if I could find a price tag. While the box itself held no clues, the receipt inside it said Natalie had paid seven hundred and forty dollars the shoes, and that was with a twenty percent discount! Apparently, there had been a sale.
I tried to make sense of all the designer swag in front of me. Almost a couple of weeks ago, Natalie had claimed she was broke. The roommate who was supposed to take over my half of the lease backed out at the last minute, leaving her on the hook for the whole month’s rent. She lived in West Philadelphia, which wasn’t as expensive as some areas of the city, but paying the entire month’s rent would still be a challenge. Natalie was still in the training program at the bank where she worked, not yet a full-fledged certified financial advisor. That’s why I offered to keep paying my half of the rent until she found another roommate.
Maybe she’d found someone to take over my half of the lease and all the extravagant purchases belonged to them. But when I checked the bedroom where I self, everything was the same as I left it. So if there was no rich shopaholic roommate, where did Natalie get the money to buy all that stuff? And if she had extra money, why didn’t she save it and put it in the bank? I couldn’t pay half of the rent forever, especially now when I needed every cent I had to support myself and the baby.
The baby. I rubbed my stomach, still not totally believing I was pregnant. I still had some pregnancy tests left over, so I could check again, just to be sure. But deep down, I know the stick would show the plus sign just like it did when I took the first pregnancy test over an hour ago. I was pregnant and my life was going to change forever.
As if on cue, my phone began to buzz again. Though still upset, I decided to answer it this time. Perhaps thinking about the growing life inside of me softened me up a little. “Hello, Andrew.”
“Ryanna!” I heard him let out a sigh of relief on the other end of the phone. “You finally answered! Where are you? Edwin said he saw you leaving with two suitcases.”
Edwin was the head servant of Andrew’s estate and not much got past him. I thought I’d made my getaway sight unseen but should have known Edwin’s eagle eye caught me. “I told you I wouldn’t be there when you got home. I’ve moved out.”
“Ryanna.” This time when he said my name, it sounded like a mixture of pain and irritation. “Don’t be so overdramatic and immature. Come back home and let’s talk this out like reasonable people.”
“You call me overdramatic and immature while in the same breath ask me to return to your home?” I let out a bitter laugh. “You may be a genius when it comes to business, but you know nothing about dealing with women. Especially this woman.”
“You’re right,” Andrew said, his admission catching me off guard. “I know nothing about women but I’ve enjoyed getting to know you. It’s been over three months since we met, yet I realize I’ve only begun to scratch the surface of your depths. I apologize for what I said just now and for how I treated you earlier. I shouldn’t have been so insensitive and you had every right to be angry.”
While he said everything I wanted to hear, I still wasn’t ready to return to the fold. “Thank you, Andrew, I really needed to hear that from you. But I also need some time on my own to sort out some things.”
“What things? You still want to have my child, don’t you?”
“Yes . . .” I started, on the verge of telling him I’d already conceived when he continued.
“Then you need to come back to my mansion and let’s pick up where we left off. It’s as simple as that.”
“It’s not as simple as that,” I told him, mimicking his callous tone. “I didn’t like how that reporter called me a gold-digging whore and I didn’t appreciate you minimizing my reaction to it. That reporter hurt me, but you hurt me more. I’m not coming back to the mansion so we can jump in the bed and pretend like none of this ever happened.”
“Ryanna.” The way he kept repeating my name began to irritate me. This time, his tone was condescendingly patient, like the way ignorant people spoke to the developmentally disabled. “We aren’t getting anywhere by discussing this on the phone. If you come back home, we can hash this out face to face, like mature, reasonable people.”
“I am home. This is the home I had before I met you and this is the home where I plan to stay for the foreseeable future.”
“You’re being a stubborn child!”
“And you’re being an insensitive jerk!”
Neither one of us said anything for the next few moments, a cold silence falling between us. To be fair, I’d been told by family and friends my stubborn streak was one of my worst qualities. But that didn’t mean I was going to give in now. Andrew may have had all the money and power, but maybe I could win this battle of wills against him.
As if he’d heard my unspoken declaration of war, Andrew said, “Fine, Ryanna. You don’t have to come back to my place, I’ll come to you. I have some things to wrap up here, but I should be at your apartment in a few hours.”
While thrilled to have claimed victory, however minor, I said, “Andrew, don’t. When I said I wouldn’t come back to your mansion, that meant I didn’t want to see you. At least not right now.”
“You don’t mean that. You can’t mean that.”
“I do,” I told him, my voice sounding weak even to my own ears. “I need some time to myself.”
“How much time?”
“I don’t know.” I bit my lip to keep from adding, Not that much. I’m pregnant so we’ll be dealing with each other real soon.
“Okay, I’ll give you some space and time,” Andrew said, his tone heavy with reluctance. “But just because I’m giving in for now doesn’t mean I’m giving up on us. What we have is special. I know it and I’m sure you do too. Just because we’ve come to a bump in the road doesn’t mean we have to end things.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
We said our goodbyes and I ended the call feeling uneasy. Not telling Andrew I was pregnant seemed wrong. But if I had, he might have sent
his security guards to take me back to his mansion immediately. I’d seen the loving, tender side of Andrew but now I’d seen the cold, calculating side of him too. The latter is what made me want to keep my distance for now.
However, I wouldn’t be able to keep away from him forever, especially now that I carried his child. Once Andrew learned of my pregnancy, he wouldn’t allow any distance between us. That wouldn’t be a problem if I could be sure the caring, sexy Andrew would always be the man I could rely upon. What scared me was if the unfeeling Andrew I’d just discovered was the man with whom I’d conceived a child and that the other side of him I’d fallen for had just been a mask.
CHAPTER TWO
I was on the sofa watching television when Natalie came home around nine that night. She opened the door and stumbled in, like she was having trouble staying on her feet. I leapt up to help steady her, and fumes hit me right away.
“Ryanna?” she asked, slurring so much she turned my three syllable name into a six syllable word. “What are you doing here?”
I helped her over to the sofa where we both sat down. “Andrew and I had a fight and I needed a place to crash. Since I’m still paying my half of the rent, I figured I could stay here.”
“Sure, that’s fine.” However, Natalie looked less than pleased, like she’d gotten used to the pleasures of living by herself. “How long you gonna be here?”
“I don’t know, probably more than a day or two. You might as well get used to having a roomie again.”
I’d hoped my teasing tone would get a smile or laugh out of Natalie. Instead, she looked even more aggravated. “You’re gonna go from that sick mansion back to this? What’s wrong with you? Andrew woulda had to get that mean security guard of his to drag me out of that place. And here you are leaving voluntarily. Some people don’t recognize a good thing when they’ve got it in the palm of their hands.”
There was no use arguing with her when she was drunk. I rolled my eyes and sighed. “Come on, let me help you to bed. You need to get to work in the morning, right?”
“Yeah, unfortunately. Some of us have to work for a living.”
I ignored her barbed tone but decided to take the opportunity to ask her about all the bags and packages. “Speaking of work, what’s with all the designer swag in the living room?”
“Huh? What?”
“The Gucci, Ralph Lauren, and Tiffany bags? The Manolo Blahnik shoes? Are things better at the bank? Or did you win lotto and not tell me about it?”
The expression on Natalie’s face quickly turned from one of hazy drunkenness to panic. She shook off the arm I’d been using to guide her to her bedroom and stood on her own two feet. “What on earth are you talking about?”
I turned and went back to the living room, pointing to the bags and boxes I’d folded and stacked in a corner. I’d always been the neat roommate. Even if I wouldn’t be here that long, I still couldn’t live in a mess for the time I was here.
Natalie’s eyes followed the direction of my finger and she let out a nervous laugh. “Oh, that. Um, well, I . . . I got a new boyfriend and he took me shopping this weekend.”
“Really? Who is he? How did you meet? How long have you been seeing each other?”
“Being a little nosy, aren’t we?”
“Nosy? Nat, it’s me.” I said, stung. We were best friends, we told each other everything. Yes, a little distance had grown between us when I moved in with Andrew. However, that was bound to happen whether I’d met Andrew or not. As she began working more hours at the bank and I ─ hopefully, eventually ─ found a job and began my career as a chemical engineer, we’d spend less time together. Inevitably, the nature of our friendship would change. Yet, I never thought it would change to the extent where I’d be accused of being nosy because I asked who she was dating.
Natalie seemed to realize she’d gone too far because she squeezed my arm. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be so touchy. The relationship is new and I’m very protective of it. You know what bad luck I’ve had with guys. I just don’t want to screw anything up with this.”
“How are you going to screw things up by telling me his name and how long you’ve been dating?”
She glared, letting her arm drop back down to her side. “You just want details so you can compare them to your precious CEO billionaire. Well, my boyfriend is not as rich as your sugar daddy, so there. You happy now?”
I couldn’t have been more stunned than if she slapped me. “Sugar daddy? Is that what you think Andrew is to me?”
“Actually pimp and prostitute might be more accurate but I know you don’t want to go there.”
A cold chill ran through me as I once again remembered the reporter calling me a gold-digging whore. I stared at her as several disturbing thoughts began to fall into place.
“Oh no, what am I saying?” Natalie’s eyes widened and she held her hand up to her forehead, as if checking for a fever. “Ryanna, you know I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry. I sent to the happy hour at Sullivan’s with some of the people in my training class and probably drank too many mango bellinis. You know what alcohol does to me, makes me crazy to the point where I say things I don’t really mean.”
She reached over and hugged me. I stood there, unmoving, as she continued to babble. “I didn’t mean it, Ryanna, I didn’t mean it. Working at the bank has turned me into an alkie, and being an alkie has made me mean. You know I even cursed out my own mother the other day?”
“What? Why did you do that?” I asked as I disentangled myself from her embrace. “Your mother is the sweetest lady.”
“Yeah, I know. But I got made when I called to ask her for a loan so I could catch up on some bills and she said no. She told me she’d loaned me all the money she was going to and I needed to learn how to get by on my own.”
“That was mean of her,” I said, not because I actually believed it but I wanted Natalie to think I was still on her side.
“Wasn’t it? I’d only asked her for money like three or four times before. But to hear Mom tell it, I’m driving her straight to the poor house.” Her eyes narrowed as she looked me up and down. “So you and Andrew had a fight? Does that mean no more three million dollars?”
“Pretty much.”
“What about the million he’s already paid you? You still got that, right?”
“No,” I lied. “Andrew had the access frozen to the bank account where I kept the money. All I have now is the same amount of money I had before I met him.”
“Oh, Ryanna, I’m so sorry.” But the tiny hint of malicious glee in her voice told me otherwise. “Are you going to be able to cover your half of the rent?”
“I think so. I mean, I hope so,” I said, trying to force worry into my voice. “But if worse comes to worst, you can help me out right? Now that you’ve got a rich boyfriend and the job at the bank.”
Natalie plastered a smile across her face so phony, it made a three dollar bill seem genuine. “Of course, that’s what friends do for each other.”
She made a show of yawning and stretching her arms. “Wow, I’m so tired. I need to go to bed. It will be six in the morning before I know it. We’ll catch up some more tomorrow, okay?”
I nodded and waited until I heard her bedroom door close before I began rummaging around the apartment. Natalie was such a slob, it didn’t take long before I hit pay dirt. A wastebasket that didn’t look like it had been emptied since I moved out provided the evidence I’d been looking for.
There were two different check stubs made out to Natalie from The Philadelphia Ledger, a local tabloid. One was for thirty-five hundred dollars and the other was for eighty-five hundred dollars. Unfortunately, there was no note or memo on the stubs to indicate why she’d received the money. However, I couldn’t think of any reason a tabloid would give a financial-advisor-in-training twelve thousand dollars unless she had some secrets to sell. Secrets like her former roommate being paid three million dollars to conceive and carry the baby of a local billiona
ire CEO.
“Natalie, you sold out too cheap,” I mumbled as I grabbed her purse, which she’d left out in the living room. A quick look through her phone gave me further proof she’d sold me out. Calls and texts had been flying back and forth between her and the Ledger for about a month, with near constant contact in the last couple of weeks.
I thought back to the day she’d visited me at Andrew’s mansion while he was in Silicon Valley. She’d acted so jealous and resentful, I should have known something was wrong and that she’d pull a stunt like this. There was no rich boyfriend. She’d purchased those ill-gotten designer goods with money earned by betraying my confidence to a tabloid.
Angry tears filled my eyes as I threw her phone against the wall. It didn’t shatter, but did fall to the floor with a giant crack in its screen.
Natalie rushed out of her room wearing the red and white Phillies t-shirt she usually slept in. “Hey, what was that noise? It sounded like . . .”
Her gaze fell to the floor where her phone lay. “What the hell? What happened? Did you do this?”
She started at me, waiting for an answer. But I remained silent and stared back.
“Look, I get you’re upset about being broke now that Andrew’s kicked you to the curb. But that’s no reason to destroy my stuff. This was a five hundred dollar phone. You’re going to have to find a way to buy me a new one.”
“Get your imaginary boyfriend to buy you one. Or better yet, call your buddies at The Philadelphia Ledger to give you another check and buy it yourself.”
“What do you mean? I don’t have any buddies at the . . .” Her voice trailed off as I held up the check stubs and her expression changed into a nasty scowl. “What are you doing snooping through my things?”
“A reporter confronted me today. He knew details about my arrangement with Andrew that only the two of us knew, along with the one person I was dumb enough to confide in.”
“You’re accusing me?” Natalie affected a voice of phony outrage. “How do you know Andrew wasn’t the one who blabbed the details to someone?”