by Tiana Cole
“What!?” Ayden interrupted the tail end of her sentence. “How could you even consider giving our child up for adoption?”
“I’m not talking about adoption, Ayden. I’ve told you about my past, my history. How much pain and torment I went through in the foster system and I would never do that to anyone!” He stared at her in shock as her words sank in. Alicia couldn’t stand the look in his eyes and fled past him into the main waiting room. He was only a few short steps behind her but she dodged the hand he reached out to try and slow her down.
“Alicia, wait! Don’t run away. Where are you going?” He called the words after but she barely even slowed down to answer.
“I’m going home, Ayden. Back to my home.” She threw the words back over her shoulder and kept on going, not even glancing back at him as she fled the clinic and stumbled out into the bright and crowded Venice street.
Alicia walked aimlessly for over an hour before finally finding herself in a small café. She sat at one of the tiny, wrought iron tables and ordered a decaf tea, because she remembered reading somewhere that caffeine was bad for babies. She snorted, already it was changing her life.
The smiling waitress brought over her mug and Alicia inhaled before sitting back, looking out at the beautiful surroundings. None of it had felt real, all the traveling, all the time spent with Ayden. It had been like a dream. And now she was waking up, seeing it for what it really was. A foolish hope. Nothing more.
Her heart broke a little at the thought, but she had learned long ago that she needed to be strong in order to survive, that it was the only way to make it through life intact. But what about happy? A tiny voice in her head whispered. She tried to shake off the question but it repeated over and over. And she didn’t have answer.
Alicia thought again of her own past. Her childhood in the foster system. Alone, afraid, and unloved. It was a cycle that was hard to break and she had been so sure that fate had thrown her and Ayden together. Well, maybe fate had made a mistake.
Her cell phone rang loudly and she silenced it without even bothering to look at the caller ID. She didn’t need to. She already knew exactly who was calling her. Ayden. It stopped for a moment before starting again and she turned the volume all the way down, burying it in her purse. She wasn’t ready to talk to him. Not yet.
Anger flared through her again at the way he had tried to take over her life, making huge, enormous important decisions for her without so much as a by-your-leave. Alicia shook her head and took a deep breath.
She knew that in his heart he had only meant well, but that didn’t change the fact that these decisions were hers and hers alone. Now, it was just up to her to figure out what the hell she was going to do.
There was one thing that she knew she could do. At least one straightforward answer. Without hesitating, she grabbed her phone again, pretending not to see the several missed calls from Ayden and looked up the airline’s number. Ten minutes later she had her flight booked for later that day back to Los Angeles. She had gotten lucky with another passenger canceling, otherwise she would have had to wait several more days to catch a flight back to America.
Hurriedly, she finished the cup of tea, left a few bills on the table and hailed a taxi. Moments later, she was on her way to the airport and biting back the tears that threatened as the city that she had shared so much love in with Ayden flew by in a blur. Her thoughts were so tangled she couldn’t even begin to sort through them as she made her way through security and pushed her way through the crowded terminal to find a seat. It wasn’t until several moments later that she realized her luggage was still back at the hotel, even though she had her purse and passport with her.
Alicia shook her head. Not that it mattered. She could have Ayden send them over to her when he got back, but she just wasn’t up to talking with him anytime soon. She needed to sort through her own emotions first, as jagged and painful as they were at the moment.
She stared out the window as the shock of the day rolled over her in waves. Her flight back was bound to be a far cry from the private jet Ayden and her had flown in on the incoming trip, and she hoped that she could just sleep through it, anything to block out the raw memories of the day.
When they finally boarded, she let out a sigh of relief that the flight was not packed and she had an empty seat next to her. She couldn’t imagine hours of keeping up shallow conversation with a stranger.
She needed time to think, time to process what had happened, she knew that, but Alicia desperately wanted to be able to shut off her mind and her heart, for just a little while.
As she sat, she unconsciously entwined her fingers together over her middle, and she stared down at the unfamiliar gesture as a shock wave rippled through her. Her whole life was about to change.
Chapter 12
It took Alicia two days to make the appointment to visit her own doctor. Every fear and worry and heartache compounded until all she could do was curl up in a ball on her bed and cry. Eventually, though, she got a hold of herself, forcing herself into her bright red car and making the short drive to the doctor’s office that was just a few blocks away from her condo.
She gritted her teeth the entire time, wiping her sweaty palms on the fabric of her black jeans, and holding her breath the entire time she sat in the light grey and teal colored waiting room. It was terrible.
She couldn’t sit for more than a few minutes and jumped up from the uncomfortable chair, pacing back and forth in the tiny area. She ran into the low coffee table strewn with magazines for the third time when the nurse finally called her to the room in the back. The nurse, her name tag read Dorothy, had bright red hair and a kind smile that put Alicia at ease, but only for as long as she was there. Dorothy directed Alicia to take a seat on the chair covered in white tissue-thin paper that crinkled as she sat and then left her to stew in her own nerves.
After an indeterminable wait, the door was opened and she stared up at doctor Stravinsky, the woman who had been her general practitioner for over five years, as she entered the room, still looking at the chart she was holding before glancing up and meeting Alicia’s nervous gaze.
“Hi, Alicia, I see on the notes here that you want to take a pregnancy test?” Doctor Stravinsky didn’t bat an eyelash at, what was for her, a very odd request. Alicia was grateful. This was hard enough for her as it is, and she could barely get the words out to speak. She had to swallow several times before she could even continue.
“When I…When I was in Europe, my period was late so I got a drug store pregnancy test. It was positive. And then I even followed up at a local clinic, and the results were the same, I just…”
Alicia stopped, the words sticking hard in her throat and she forced the welling panic back down so that she could speak again, even though her voice was still shaky. “I need to make sure. It was a small clinic, and I… I just need to be sure.” Alicia finally stopped talking, knowing it was foolish to be holding on to that small nugget of hope, but she couldn’t force herself to let go of it just yet. If there was even a slim possibility that the clinic had been wrong, she would take it.
She had spent hours scouring the internet and found several cases where just exactly that had happened. Women had been traveling on business or vacation and had gone to a small, local clinic to get a pregnancy test done, only to find out that the results had been a false positive a few weeks later. Something due to an increase in hormone level during travel. Alicia hadn’t had the patience to read all of the chemical and medical jargon. She had just prayed over and over to a god she wasn’t even sure she believed in, that her case would be similar.
“Alright, well, we can definitely get you another test. Here you go, I think you know what to do with this. Just come back in here when you’re done and we’ll go from there, okay?” Alicia looked at Doctor Stravinsky’s kind face and took the offered small plastic cup with a grimace. Alicia hurried to the small bathroom at the end of the sterile looking hall and came back a few minutes later. A nur
se poked her head in the room after another several moments letting her know that it would be about ten to fifteen minutes before they had the results so she should just sit back and relax.
Alicia snorted loudly. Relax. Yeah, right. As if that would ever be possible again. She felt like she was so wound up she could shatter into a thousand pieces at any moment, never to be made whole again. She could picture it so clearly in her head.
Her past, her present and future all colliding in ways that she had never imagined. Growing up as an orphan, unloved and unwanted, had scarred her forever, and those scars would never go away. If she really was pregnant, would she keep the baby?
She already knew there was no way in hell she would put it up for adoption. The thought had her mentally crying out, picturing a tiny baby boy or girl with her hair and Ayden’s blue eyes being thrown to the foster system. She knew from experience. There were no guarantees. Alicia shook her head as the pain of it swept through her, her arms automatically wrapping around her waist as if to protect the unformed life. There was no way in hell she would let that happen, not to her own child.
Unable to sit any longer, Alicia jumped up from the light blue chair and began to pace – well, as much as she could in the crowded room. She lost count of the number of times she had walked from the tiny square window overlooking the parking lot, past the shelf lined with stethoscopes and other machines that she had no idea what they were used for, to the white door with the shiny silver metal doorknob, and back again.
Back and forth. Back and forth. She glanced up at the large clock, its repetitive ticking the only other sound in the office besides the pounding rush of her pulse in her ears. The seconds seemed to pass indeterminably slow and impatience welled inside her. It had only been two minutes.
The routine continued and she tried to shut off her mind. Just wait until you hear what the doctor says, she repeated to herself over and over. Just wait. Just wait. Finally, the door opened and Alicia nearly jumped out of her skin in surprise. The doctor gave her an odd look, but didn’t say anything as she walked in with yet another chart.
“Well, I won’t keep you in suspense any longer.” Doctor Stravinsky’s next words had her heart leaping and a wave of anxiety rolling off her shoulders as she exhaled in what felt like the first time since that moment in Venice, watching the end of the little plastic stick turn positive. “You are not pregnant, Alicia. It was a false positive reading, probably cause by increased cortisone levels.”
Alicia didn’t even hear the next words the doctor said, all she could hear, repeating over and over in her head like the gong of a bell, was the sound of ‘not pregnant’. Not pregnant.
No two words had ever sounded sweeter to her and as she turned to leave she had to fight back a wave of tears. Alicia made it all the way to the parking lot, through the maze of cars and finally, until she was sitting behind the steering wheel of her bright red Ferrari before the dam broke.
Heaving sobs washed out of her like the waves of an ocean storm crashing up onto the beach. Over and over again, they came, wracking her frame until she felt like they might break her apart, and the oddest thing was that she wasn’t sure why she was crying. Alicia was relieved, there was no doubt about it. That was foremost of her emotions. But there was also a thin lining of regret and sadness and she tried not to look at them too closely, because the fact was, there had been a tiny part of her excited to have a baby. Or more specifically, Ayden’s baby. She couldn’t deny the flash of images that had come unbidden over the past few days.
Visions of her and Ayden, happy together, and in her arms and little, perfect baby that looked like the best mix of them. To have a real family, her own family. A family that loved her.
Alicia shook off the thought. But she knew if that had happened she would never truly know, she would always wonder if Ayden had just married her because of the baby. She would always wonder if he really loved her, and she knew she couldn’t live like that. She needed him to love her for who she was.
As the tears slowly dried, she threw the car into gear and sped home with the windows down, reveling in the feel of the wind whipping her hair back and forth, the gusts hitting her face with a bracing force. She felt like she had been given a new life, a new chance, and she wasn’t going to waste it. A thought crept into her head, that tiny voice whispering insidiously. This is what you get for breaking your number one rule. You can’t mix business and pleasure. You’ll only get hurt.
Alicia tried to ignore the voice, but it was to strong, and she had to admit, true. She couldn’t deny the great times her and Ayden had had together.
Wonderful, amazing times. But they were over now, and she needed to bring her focus back to her business, which she knew she had neglected over the past weeks.
She nodded her head, her resolve firming. This was exactly what she had needed to get her mind straight again after it had been so clouded by Ayden and his attention. She felt a pang at the thought because the truth was, she missed him. She probably would for a long time, but she knew he wasn’t what she needed right now. She needed to be strong, like she always had been. Like she would be now. She didn’t have a choice. She never had.
***
“Alicia, it’s Ayden. Again. I know you probably don’t want to talk to me, well, obviously you don’t or you would have answered any of my calls these last weeks. Listen, I just want to make sure you’re alright, with everything that happened, the fight, the false pregnancy result, and I know I was an absolute jerk. Please, I…I just want to make things right.
I…miss you.” Alicia held her breath as she listened to the voice mail message, sure he had wanted to say something else at the end of it. Not that it matters, she reminded herself. She was staying strong this time, keeping her focus on her business and the mountain of work in front of her. Certainly not on Ayden Ross.
She saw another message from Charlotte but she didn’t even listen to it before she put her phone down on the glass coffee table and sat back on her overstuffed couch, sinking into the cushions as she grabbed her laptop.
Besides, she knew what her best friend would say anyway. That she needed to go out, that she needed to loosen up and have some fun. It had been a rough few days following the results at the doctor’s office. Alicia had called Ayden first, talking to him only long enough to let him know the results, because she felt he deserved to know.
The second call had been to Charlotte, and she had broken down crying again, hating herself for it but unable to do anything to stop the tidal wave as it all came out. Her friend had given her the last piece of advice that she’d wanted to hear. Go talk to Ayden. See him in person. Alicia shook her head as she focused again on the laptop screen in front of her, full of ones and zero’s, incomprehensible to most people, but it looked like the most beautiful work of art to her.
It would have been easier to stay focused if not for Ayden himself. The first week she’d been working at her office he had sent flowers everyday, and even singing telegrams. Fine chocolate and jewelry, every gift had been more lavish than the last.
Finally, she had given up and taken refuge, working out of her house. But still, he kept calling, almost every day she would get another voice mail from him telling her how sorry he was, how much he missed her. And every time she listened, she was that much more tempted to call him back, to answer the next time. She shook her head. No, she needed to stay strong.
Chapter 13
Alicia dragged herself out of bed, sleep-like sandpaper in her eyes as she blinked them open. It had been another long night of work, and it would be another today. She was determined to get this new project done and turned in ahead of schedule.
Weeks ahead of schedule if she kept up the brutal pace of work that she had maintained for the past two weeks. She knew she wasn’t exactly taking car of herself, and had even lost a little weight, but all she could think about was work. If she let herself stop for even a minute, her mind was instantly filled with the last man she should be thinking of
. Ayden Ross.
She pulled her still exhausted body down the stairs, drawn by the rich smell of strong coffee filling her kitchen and almost groaned as she poured a cup and inhaled the aromatic steam. She barely resisted the urge to take a sip, but didn’t want to risk scalding off all of her taste buds. Thank god for the automatic start on her coffee pot. It really did save her some mornings.
Alicia had just settled in at her new desk, i.e. the couch, when a firm knock at her front door had her jumping in her seat. She cursed as the hot coffee soaked through the thin material of her sweat pants, her new work uniform. She got up with another curse as the knock sounded again. Who the hell would be pounding at her door this early in the morning? She glanced at the clock hanging over her refrigerator.
Check that. Afternoon. She grimaced. It was almost a half an hour after noon and she hadn’t even cracked open her laptop yet. She definitely had another all-nighter in front of her.
With another grimace, she stomped to the door, ready to chew out whoever it was disturbing her, but the words died in her throat at the sight of the two officers dressed in blue, both with badges that read L.A.P.D. The police! Why the hell would cops be at her door? Her thoughts raced, immediately going to the worst. Had something happened to Charlotte? Or god forbid, Ayden?
“Can I help you? Is everything all right?” she asked once she could get her tongue untangled.
“To answer your second question first, no, ma’am. And as for the first, we hope that you can.” The taller officer with sandy blond hair spoke first and there were deep lines in his face that told of the many years on the force. He was obviously no stranger to heartbreak and tragedy and the look in his eyes told her this day was no different.
“What happened? Oh my god, is Charlotte okay? Is she hurt, did she get…”
“Ma’am, if we could come in and explain the situation, I’m sure we can answer all of your questions. And hopefully you can answer a few of ours.” There was note in the second, shorter officer’s voice, almost of accusation that had her hackles instantly rising.