by Cynthia Dane
“Why couldn’t it have been you?” Claire whimpered.
“Are you keeping it?”
They relaxed their embrace. Claire kept her forehead pressed against his chest. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “It doesn’t feel real.” The five pounds, the aching joints, the morning sickness from hell… it still didn’t feel real. This was all a bad dream that would soon go away.
“Well, if you do… or even if you don’t…” Jake backed away. His face was pale and his shoulders trembling. “I’m here.”
“Your father…”
“Yeah. That’s a problem.”
“I can’t tell him.” Claire shook alongside him. “I can’t tell him that I’m pregnant if we’ve never slept together! You said so yourself! It’s okay for him to fool around with other women, but me? I don’t want to know what will happen. I’ll be blacklisted. I’ll…” She covered her mouth. “I’ve fucked up. What do I do? What if he finds out it’s yours?”
Jake took her hand again. “You let me deal with that. Just keep me abreast of what’s going on with you. I know a doctor… not for that… I mean… I know a good doctor who helped a friend when she… never mind. It’s not coming out right.”
Claire caressed his face. “Thanks, Jake. I’ll let you know. I’ve gotta go.”
She wasn’t sure where she was going when she left, but once she brought up her rideshare app, she found her fingers punching in Carter Mansion as the destination.
Just reassure me that it’s not the end of the world, Arthur. Claire had no idea what would happen. She rehearsed what she would say – or whether she would remain silent. Maybe she would roam the hallways, wondering, imagining what it would be like to raise a child in the same halls its father had called home.
While calling another man Dad.
The housekeeper expressed surprise to see Claire coming up the front steps. “Mr. Carter is currently in the middle of a meeting,” she said with a firm tone Claire had never heard before. “I’m under strict orders to keep everyone out until he says otherwise.”
Claire glanced toward the driveway. A cute pink convertible was parked next to Arthur’s vintage Corvette.
“A meeting, huh?” Something burned inside Claire’s gut, and she doubted it was the baby giving her indigestion. “I’m sure he can make an exception for me.”
“Ms. Finn…”
“It’s an emergency.” Claire unceremoniously pushed the housekeeper aside. “I’m sure he’ll understand.”
“Ms. Finn!”
Claire figured she had about five minutes to find Arthur’s ass before security descended upon her. They’ve never acted like this toward me before. Usually, Claire was welcomed into the mansion with little fuss. She was, after all, soon to be the lady of the home. So if I’m being kicked out? Something dirty is afoot. Later, Arthur would try to excuse it as his staff being too strict. He would laugh. Pat her on the shoulder. Maybe on the head, to get his condescension across.
He wasn’t in his office. That meant he was probably up in his room, the same room Claire was expected to call hers in a little over a month.
Hers… and some nobody actress who had her tits out and straddled her legs across Arthur’s lap like she was the future Mrs. Carter!
“Claire-Bear!” Arthur, naked in his own bed, shoved the twenty-something off him and threw back his covers. “This isn’t what it looks like!”
Claire lowered her sunglasses and shut his door behind her. She officially didn’t care anymore.
***
Jake didn’t say anything when Claire helped herself into his apartment. He didn’t need to. He could probably tell, from the aura radiating from the core of her spiteful being, that something had happened in his childhood home.
He shut his door with a soft click. Claire stood in the middle of the room, trembling as she remembered what it was like to see her fiancé fuck another woman right in front of her.
Twice.
Here she had been beside herself because she was falling in love with one other man?
Claire removed her jacket and dropped her bag to the floor. Before either of them could say a word, Claire threw herself into Jake’s arms and begged him to kiss her.
If that’s the way it’s gonna be, then I’m at least going to follow my own heart. Claire was more than willing to jump up into Jake’s arms and let him do whatever he wanted to her. They could make slow and sweet love. They could fuck like rabid animals who no longer gave a single shit about the world around them. All she wanted from him was the reassurance that she wasn’t alone in this cursed fate.
If she couldn’t trust the father of her child with that, then who could she trust? Her own fiancé? Ha!
Both of their phones rang throughout the evening. Whether they were during sex or lying in silence near one another, they both ignored the hundreds of calls coming from the only man they shared. Nobody wanted to hear what Arthur had to say.
Chapter 10
When Claire started the year, she was often dissociating because she had agreed to marry a man she would never love. Now? She dissociated because she was pregnant with that man’s grandchild.
It didn’t help that catching Arthur in one of his dirty acts had soured the wedding planning. Claire had half a mind to tell him about the baby, but Jake had talked her out of it. “Instead,” he had said, “use his actions as leverage when finishing up that pre-nup.”
Arthur continued to deny what his fiancée had seen. Everything from, “We were rehearsing her upcoming role,” to “She was helping me out of bed,” was heard, and Claire made it known that she didn’t believe any of it. When they sat down with their lawyers a few days later, she said, “I honestly never expected real love or loyalty from you in this relationship, Arthur, but what would have happened if our roles were reversed?”
Suffice to say, he was not impressed.
Claire’s gut told her to end the engagement. Perhaps she should sever ties with Jake as well, or at least until the baby was born and she could decide what to do next. Except by the time two more weeks passed, she had realized that the only thing keeping her grounded, sane, and alive was being with Jake whenever they could get away with it.
They spent most of their days together, usually at his place, but occasionally in hotels under assumed names. During the night, Claire stared at the back of her eyelids, wondering what to do with her life and whether she would live to regret her decisions. During the day? She only had eyes for Jake, who often forewent work so he could be with her. Even when Claire claimed he couldn’t work while she simply hung out in his apartment, he often said that he could work under “these conditions.” He would rather be in bed with her.
He had taken the news of her pregnancy with startling grace. Although Jake admitted that he was as confused as her about what to do, he ultimately decided that this was fate giving his life the purpose he had lacked since he was old enough to make his own decisions.
“I’m not asking you to marry me,” he said in bed one evening. The sun had set, and a single lamp illuminated his bed, although it wasn’t enough to cast away the shadows from his face as he loomed over her. His naked body was soft in skin and hard in muscle. Jake confessed that whatever frustrations he couldn’t take out in his writing, he took out in the gym, and there had been a ton of frustrations that year. “I want to do this right. If you’re having our baby, then I want to be there for it. As its father.”
Claire inhaled a deep breath. “Our” baby, he had said. Jake hadn’t been too heavy-handed about being excited about potential fatherhood, but he let slip the verbal and facial cues that suggested he wasn’t about to run away. I should be relieved to hear him say these things. What woman didn’t want the father of her child to be sticking around? Even women who barely knew those fathers? Did they even have a relationship right now? They had gone beyond the point where Claire could count the number of times they made love. Yet were they indulging in this because it was new and novel, or because there was somethi
ng more to it?
“I’m still not sure what’s happening.” Claire traced the same trail on his abdomen she had been infatuated with since the first time they had sex in this bed. “If I go about my day, I can forget that I’m pregnant for a few hours. I can pretend that it’s not happening and that my life isn’t about to drastically change. Then I… I dunno. I go to the bathroom. I change my clothes. I eat and get sick. You’re still the only person I’ve told. I’ve gotta tell my family soon.”
“My father is going to find out.” Jake sighed. “We should come clean to him. You’ve caught him in bed with another woman. He can be as angry as he wants. Like you told him at the prenup deliberation, he has no right to hold this loveless arrangement against you.”
At first, Claire thought he meant this was the loveless arrangement. She knew it. He was only screwing her because she was convenient and still hot. Once she started showing, once he couldn’t deny that she was pregnant, he would be over her.
Then she realized that her engagement was the loveless arrangement. Well, he wasn’t wrong about that.
“What do I do, though? If I tell him I’m pregnant with another man’s child, he’ll break off the engagement. I’ll be single and pregnant. My family won’t kick me out, but God, I can hear my mother now.” Gloria was already showing suspicions that something was out of sorts with her daughter. The woman had been pregnant and given birth three times. She knew the signs. Claire could only hide it for much longer, assuming her mother hadn’t figured it out already. She probably thinks it’s Arthur’s. Every time Claire entertained that thought, nausea got to her.
“Who says you’ll be single?”
Claire looked up into Jake’s face. She had the same thought every time she looked at him. If my son or daughter looks half as good as him, that’ll be the end of the Hollywood’s most beautiful lists. Jake had those big, beautiful eyes and hair to kill for. Not just the hair on top of his head, either. Stubble that grew in the right places and body hair that was as soft as his skin.
“What are you saying?”
Jake wrapped his hand around hers. The weight of both pressed into Claire’s pillow. “The only one who could keep you and me apart is you, Claire. I’m not wasting time with you. I’m spending it with someone I can see myself loving.”
She yanked her hand out of his and sat up so quickly that her stomach lurched. Except it wasn’t the baby making her ill this time. It was the anxiety, the uncertainty Jake foisted upon her. Don’t do this to me. Claire had both wanted him to officially ask her out and hoped he would never bring it up. It would hurt to know he didn’t care. It would hurt even more knowing that her own actions brought her to this standstill from hell.
“You can see yourself loving me… does that mean you don’t right now?”
That question was a trap, and she knew it.
“Claire…” That man would have followed her across the room, across the city, across the country if she dared to leave. “A part of me has loved you since the moment I first saw you.”
She built that wall around her heart. As high as it could go. As thick as she could afford. Stay out of my heart, Jake. It’s never gonna work. This was all a mistake… “Because of a movie I was in?”
“Don’t ask me why. Only people in the movies can explain something like love.”
“You write about it all the time, don’t you? Like that movie I auditioned for.” And didn’t get, she would always add. “You wrote about those two characters being in love. All I do is channel my own experiences. I don’t have to come up with the words or even really know what it feels like. You? You’re the writer. You’re supposed to make the audience think you know what you’re talking about. Aren’t you supposed to speak for the audience? Don’t you…”
Her words were silenced with his kiss. Jake pushed her down into his bed, where his body enveloped hers and the covers fell away on that warm spring night.
“I know who might be able to help us figure out what to do,” Jake said, his hand lightly rubbing Claire’s stomach. She hated to admit how good it felt – how comforting it was to have the man who put that baby there acknowledge what had happened with one simple gesture. “Even if it doesn’t work out between us, she can at least help us figure out what to do about my dad. It’ll ultimately be up to you.”
She hated hearing that. Was it too much to ask for someone to sweep in and make the decisions for her? “Marry this man. Let go of that one. Don’t worry, you’ll be fine!”
“Don’t tell me you mean your mother.”
Jake chuckled. “Trust me, Claire. There’s nobody in Hollywood who knows what to do more than my mom does. Especially when it comes to her ex-husband.”
And the man Claire had agreed to marry. Even when she started seeing the Carter men, she held no fantasies that she would get to meet Carmen, the only other woman they shared.
***
Jake’s car rolled up the gated driveway, palm trees shading the interior and Claire’s delicate skin. She had seen a doctor for the first time the day before, and the second thing out of his mouth was that she needed to watch her pale skin in the upcoming Californian summer sunlight. Claire had put on an extra helping of sunblock that morning when she left her house, wearing a loose-fitting dress to hide the small bump she now carried. Her mother had yet to say anything.
“You’re the first person I told,” she muttered, as Jake parked the car in front a of Spanish-style villa. A fountain spurted nearby, but Claire couldn’t be bothered to care. Carmen Carter’s house looked so much like Arthur’s – albeit smaller and cozier – that Claire might as well have been walking into her future home all over again. “Then I told a doctor. Now I’m telling your mother? Carmen Carter… I can’t believe it. This is how I’m meeting one of the heroes of my childhood.”
“Dominguez,” Jake corrected her.
“What?”
He hesitated before getting out of his car. “She changed it back to Dominguez after the divorce. You should see her Wiki page. It’s a mess.”
Claire waited for him to help her out of the car. Her flats kicked up a little dirt from the driveway. It had been weeks since Claire last wore her signature pumps. Soon she would be wearing flat, open-toe sandals or tennis shoes. Soon I’ll barely be able to walk. She definitely had to pee.
Nerves hit her once they were inside the foyer, since Jake had a key and barely rang the buzzer on their way in. A maid in a light pink uniform met them by an open living room. She took one look at Claire and said, in hasty Spanish that Claire barely understood, “You’ve got a lot of balls, Mr. Carter.”
“That’s Juanita,” Jake said. “She’s been working for my mother since the marriage.”
“So she’s the only one allowed to talk to you like that?”
“You understood what she said?”
“I’ve lived in SoCal my whole life,” Claire said. “My Spanish better be good enough to know she was taking you to task for bringing me here.”
“I warned my mother, but… yeah, it’s gonna be a trip today. C’mon. She’s in her study.”
Few recent photos existed of Carmen Dominguez. The last time she was widely photographed was ten years ago, when she was caught walking out of the Los Angeles courthouse with her divorce lawyer and shedding the last of her public tears. Headlines that claimed she was too heartbroken to live circulated the internet and tabloids. I remember standing in line at the supermarket and reading them. I thought she was the saddest woman in the world. Claire knew so little back then. She was barely a high schooler. What had she known?
She certainly didn’t know how much a woman could age in ten years. Now that Carmen no longer lived in the public eye, she had no reason to watch her weight or follow the latest anti-aging regimens. The woman sitting in the study hardly looked like the woman hanging in Arthur’s office.
Her hair was brown and loosely curled; her midsection was a good ten sizes larger than Claire’s. Eyes as bold as they were lined looked up from her bo
ok and in her son’s direction. A spark of happy recognition entered them before she realized who he had brought with him. Had Jake really warned his mother that they were coming? Because Claire might as well have stabbed Carmen in the chest. Betrayal. The woman who had stolen Arthur, even though Claire barely knew who he was when the infamous couple divorced.
I didn’t know who Jake was. He had been in high school too. What was he like back then? As much of a quiet loner as he was now?
They weren’t holding hands. Jake kissed his mother’s plump cheeks before bringing Claire forward for the introductions.
“This is my mother, Carmen Dominguez.” Jake had one arm around Claire’s waist and a hand on his mother’s shoulder. “Mother, this is…”
“I know who she is.” A light accent charmed her warm voice. Her Peruvian heritage had been legendary back in her heyday. Did anyone know about it now? Oh my God, my baby is going to be a quarter Peruvian, isn’t it? Claire hadn’t thought about any of that until now. Later, she would discover that the Dominguezes were only “mostly” Peruvian, and that Chilean and Colombian was prominent as well. Carmen could trace her ancestry all the way back to 18th century colonization. Her own father was the Geraldo Dominguez, a Peruvian businessman who got where he was because of the wealth his family had amassed over the generations. Carmen had started over again when she came to the United States in the early ‘70s, but rumors abounded about the wheels her father supposedly greased.
The early ‘70s… was this woman really in her mid-50s? She looked older from a distance, but up close, Claire could have sworn that she was only in her thirties, lines, graying hair and all.
“This is your father’s fiancée.”
Claire took a step back, swallowing the lump in her throat. “It’s an honor to meet you, Ms. Car… I mean, Ms. Dominguez. I’m a huge fan of your movies.”
“Are you?” Carmen sat back down. While she did not invite her guests to sit, Jake took initiative and suggested that they sit on the loveseat nearby. The maid brought in coffee and was subsequently never seen again. “Even A Beautiful Blue Place?”