by Jamie Knight
“I’m pregnant.”
Okay. I guess I won’t.
There is silence over the line. “I’m sorry. Can you repeat that?”
“I’m pregnant.”
I sit back down on the toilet lid, reaching over to Pumpkin. My hand runs over her soft fur again. I can feel the vibrations in her chest. My situation doesn’t seem real. Someone is going to be my kid. That is if what happened before doesn’t happen again.
“Okay! Um…congrats!” Eileen still sounds worried. “How long have you known?”
“About two seconds,” I admit. “I was taking the test when I dialed you.” I know my voice sounds strained. I don’t know how to feel.
“I…Were you….” Eileen stammers and then goes silent for a second to collect her thoughts. “I don’t want this to sound judgmental, but are you seeing someone? Like do you have a boyfriend I didn’t know about? Because if this is just from a fling, then that’s okay too. No judgment.”
A choking laugh racks my body. “No boyfriend. It’s much more complicated than a fling.”
“It was…consensual?”
“Yeah. The father, he’s just not my boyfriend. He’s more like a playmate.”
She grunts slightly. “Okay. I can get that. Are you going to tell him?”
That really is the question, isn’t it? Am I going to tell Christian? I lean back on the toilet seat and let my head rest against the towel rack. My chest heaves with a hard sigh.
“I don’t know, Le Le.” Eileen grunts, still annoyed that I use her family nickname sometimes. “My knee-jerk reaction is to say, ‘hell no.’ But it’s too soon. I can’t believe it is even true. We just don’t have that kind of situation.”
Eileen grunts again. I can picture her nodding her head with understanding. Her relationship with her husband didn’t really start out as a normal romance. Plus, Ray owns and runs a sex club. They have seen all types of relationships there. Eileen would never judge me for my sex life.
“Okay,” she says boldly. “Here’s what we are going to do. Tomorrow we are going to the doctor’s office—” there is a noise behind her— “Hold on.” I can hear her cover the phone, but not enough to not overhear what she is saying to another person. “It’s Mandy. Code red.” The other person mumbles. “Yeah, you can come too.” I slap my hand into my forehead. So much for this not getting around. There are more shuffling noises, and then her voice rings out clearly, “Okay, Reese and I will take you to the doctor tomorrow. We will see if you are really pregnant and go from there. Don’t get too upset. You could have done the test wrong. Okay?”
Considering my nausea, I’m pretty sure the test is right. But I don’t want to argue. “Okay,” I whisper, whipping at my eyes again. Maybe it will be best if I let my two friends take care of me.
As if Eileen can sense my thoughts, she continues laying out a plan. “I will call Sloane and tell her we will both be out. I’ll give her a good excuse like we got food poisoning at the same restaurant. Then Reese and I will pick you up first thing in the morning. Ray has a doctor friend; I think I can get him to see us right away. Just try to relax.”
I pull one of the hand towels down and snuffle into it, rubbing the ugly pink fabric onto my cheeks. “Thanks, Le Le. You’re a good friend.”
“Get some rest,” she repeats and then hangs up.
I take a deep breath just in time for a knock at the door. “Mandy, I have your tea, doll. Do you need help getting off the toilet?”
For some reason, a smile reaches the corners of my mouth. I must be slightly hysterical. “No Bubby, I’ll be right out. Just set it on my bedside table and stay away. I don’t want you to catch this.”
Bubby makes a small snort, obviously not quite believing I’m sick. I give her a few minutes to leave and then open the door. Pacing down the hallway as quickly as I can, I get to the guestroom and pull Pumpkin inside the door before I lock it. I practically fall onto the bed.
The tea is sitting on my table, steaming and making the whole room smell minty. I find no need to touch it though, my stomach is too upset to eat or drink anything. All I want is to close my eyes and fall asleep immediately. Maybe when I wake up this, all will be a dream, and I will never have to face Christian while carrying his child. I don’t know how I will keep this whole thing secret. But I have to, he can never know that this baby is his. I don’t think he would want that.
I think of his face as I close my eyes. I remember how his lips pulled in a sneer when he said that he just took from women and that feelings are a waste of time. I want to erase that look from my mind. I want that moment to have never happened, but I can’t get rid of it.
Soon his face, in my imagination, is replaced by another. Along with another moment, I am desperate to forget. Jered, his half-smirk smile fading, as I told him that I was pregnant with his child. There was no joy in his cold brown eyes. They were hard, hateful. “It’s not mine,” he had argued. “You slut, you opened your legs for someone else.”
I had promised him that he had been my only lover for years. It was his child. It had to be.
Jered didn’t take that well. His rage was like a storm destroying everything he could get his hands on in my apartment. My dishes hit the wall as he called me a slut over and over. Knickknacks hit the fireplace as he yelled that I was too poor to be his wife. He had never really wanted me. I was just a distraction until he found the real thing. He threw the remote through my TV as I stood frozen in shock. My joy turned into a nightmare. A hole through the wall was his last gift to me.
No words came after. Not even when we saw each other at work. I was too afraid to call or start up a conversation. And he didn’t say or ask anything. He didn’t ask if it was a boy or a girl. He didn’t ask how I was feeling when I started getting pale. He didn’t ask why I was in the hospital or out of work for weeks. He didn’t ask where the roundness of my belly went — all too soon.
He didn’t know or care that his baby was gone.
I turn over in bed so that I can sob into a pillow while Pumpkin purrs at my back. There is no way I’m going through that with another man. Christian will never know that I’m carrying his child. I can’t risk it.
Chapter Eighteen - Mandy
My mornings at work have drastically changed in the last two weeks, especially now that I know I really am pregnant. What used to be a leisurely start of my day — then some private sexy time — has turned into anxiety city. Every move I make all day is strategic to ensure that I do not run into Christian. Plus, every time Sloane or Kane or Ashton asks to see me, I start to hyperventilate fearing that this is the time that Christian is going to release the tape of me, or this is the day that I’m going to get fired. And now that I’m pregnant, I really don’t want to get fired.
One of the biggest changes to my life is that I stopped taking the elevator at work. There is too much risk. I could run into Christian and be stuck in there with him. That is something I just cannot handle. Part of me fears that he will somehow, mystically, know that I am carrying his child. I don’t know how. I’m not even showing, but I still worry about this constantly. So, to avoid him, I take the stairs. It hasn’t been the worst thing in the world. The stairwell is quiet, and I’m getting more exercise. It’s almost my new refuge. Almost.
Sipping my morning tea — peppermint to help with nausea — I take a break on the landing between the third and fourth floors. I often stop here to take a few deep breaths and prepare myself for walking into my office. Eileen and Reese have kept quiet about my condition and the circumstances that caused it, but still, I feel vulnerable every day. Here, in the quiet, annoyingly bland stairwell, I can feel protected — hidden even.
Above me, perhaps on the top floor, I hear a door open. Pretty much everyone takes the elevator, so it’s kind of weird. Trying to ignore the fear making my belly more queasy and the prickling of the hairs at the back of my neck, I take another sip of my tea, leaning my head against the hard concrete wall.
The person above me
stomps down the stairs. They are obviously having a bad morning. I know that I should get myself moving and out of the way, but I want to savor my last moments of privacy.
“Hiding from me, pet?”
Looking up quickly, I see Christian staring down at me. He has a sneer on his face. His eyes are hot with anger.
“Don’t call me that,” I snap. “You don’t get to call me that anymore.”
I head towards the door to the fifth floor, but he is faster. He dashes down the stairs, getting in my face and slamming the door closed when I try to open it.
“Leave me alone, Christian.” Tears are already in my eyes. I don’t want to fight with him, but I don’t know how to make things better. And now that there is a baby involved, I can’t let things get worse.
His body is inches from mine. I can feel the heat. I can smell his cologne. I want, more than anything, for him to take me into his arms. I want him to kiss me. I want him to fuck me. I want things to go back to what they were before. Before I learned how he was with women, and I had to protect my heart.
Sky-blue eyes wide, he looks me up and down. “You look different.”
I start to shake. Please don’t let him guess. Please don’t let him guess. I want to cradle my middle. My hands ache to touch my stomach and protect his baby, but I can’t do that. A gesture like that would tell him everything.
Christian reaches out. He takes a strand of my hair and runs it through his fingers. I smack his hand away — harder than I intend to.
“Don’t touch me!” I shriek. “I’m not yours anymore.”
He frowns. His face turning cold. “And why is that? I don’t want to fight anymore, Mandy.”
There is hope in his words, but I can’t deal with it. There is too much fear in my heart for myself and my child. I don’t want to get rejected again.
“We can’t be together because we don’t trust each other!”
As my words echo in the stairwell, Christian leans back. His face is pale. His mouth is hanging open slightly. I expect him to yell at me. Part of me even wonders if he will grab me or hit me, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t say anything or touch me again. He just drops his head, pushes around me and runs down the stairs as fast as he can.
I want him to come back. I want him to come back so badly that I have to catch myself from calling out for him. The tears I was holding back run down my cheeks. I can’t catch my breath as I sob.
My stomach drops, making my head spin. The stairwell starts to dim out some, so I sit down heavily on the steps. Everything goes dark.
****
“Mandy?!”
I don’t open my eyes at first. I can’t. The darkness is the only thing keeping my stomach calm. Plus, I don’t really want to deal with what happened because I’m not quite sure what did happen.
The floor is cold and hard beneath my cheek. I must be lying on cement, not the usual carpet. Hands grab my shoulders. Big hands. Warm hands. Their grip is tight on me, pulling me upright. One of them moves to my face, cupping my chin gently.
“Mandy? Are you okay?”
I want it to be Christian. I want him to be saving me, holding me, making my whole world make sense again. But this voice turns my stomach. I open my eyes and look into Jered’s face. His mouth is slightly open. His eyes search mine, then move up to my forehead as he gently pats my skull, looking for bumps or bruises.
A quick glance reveals that I am still in the stairwell at McKenzie Tech. After my fight with Christian, I must have fainted. This happened on occasion last time that I was pregnant, especially when I was under too much stress. Having Jered here with me is definitely not helping my stress level.
I want to yell at him to get his hands off of me, but I can’t. I’m still too out of it.
“You need to go to the hospital,” Jered tells me.
“No.” I shake my head. “I just haven’t eaten yet. I’m sure I’m fine.” Leaning forward, I place my head in one of my hands. This way, I’m able to shake off his grip.
Jered hisses as he sits back from me. “I’m just trying to help, Mandy. Let me take you to the hospital. I can take care of you.”
Now that I’m sitting up, my stomach is doing loops again. My morning sickness is getting really bad, and having Jered in my face isn’t helping at all. My temper flares.
“You had your chance to take care of me, and you blew it!” I snap. “If you want to help me now, call up to Eileen in accounting then leave me alone.”
He grunts, obviously offended. But he doesn’t try to touch me again. Instead, he sits back on the stairs and pulls out his cellphone. I take deep breaths as he makes his call, not really listening, just hoping to calm my stomach down. To my great disappointment, he doesn’t leave after the call is finished. He sits with his back to the wall and stares at me.
“We could try again, you know?”
I snap my eyes open at his words — it makes the room spin — but it’s worth it to see him shift under my glare. My stare is telling him to die, to crawl off into some hole and never come around me again, but instead, he continues talking.
“I mean, the sex was great, right?”
I raise my eyebrows threateningly warning him to shut his mouth.
“And you’re already fucking one of the bosses. So, why not me too?”
As my stomach drops and rolls at the very idea of him ever fucking me again, Jered actually leans forward to try to touch me. He glides a finger up my bare leg.
“What exactly are you asking for, Jered?” I snap.
He grins his stupid, lopsided grin and runs his other hand through his hair. “I’m just saying that since you are already a slut at work…well…I mean, it was great right? You used to tell me how much you loved my dick. I could call you down to my office in HR, throw you over my desk and ride that ass until you beg me for more.” With each horrid phrase, he inches closer to me and rubs his hand up to my thigh.
“Mr. Coleman!”
We both look up. Sloane is standing on the landing above us. Her face is pale as a ghost’s. Her usually prim mouth is hanging open.
Jered shifts back. He’s on his feet in seconds, stuttering incoherent sentences and excuses. “It’s not as bad as you think, Sloane. Mandy and I used to date. She used to love it when I talked to her like that.”
Never one to be intimidated, Sloane pokes him in the chest with one of her slim fingers. As she steps forward, he moves back until she has him up against a wall. Furry breaks over her face, and her body is ridged. Oddly, she is holding her cell phone behind her back — she was on a call with somebody.
“I can tell by Mandy’s expression, that she is not enjoying your lewd advances now.”
I nod agreeing with Sloane, grab the railing of the stairs and pull myself up.
“She’s already fucking someone else,” Jered snaps, like that is an excuse. He sneers at us. “In fact, she’s fucking…”
Sloane raises her hand. “You will not use such language around me! You’re the head of HR, Mr. Coleman! How dare you act this way!” He opens his mouth to retort, but Sloane waves her hand again. “No!” Her voice booms throughout the stairwell. “Get back to your office now! I will be discussing this with Kane and Ashton immediately. I suggest you resign before they fire you.”
Jered huffs. He straightens his suit coat, fixes us each with a glare, and then starts down the stairs.
“One more thing,” Sloane continues. “I will also be telling my father that any kind of association with you is a bad idea. Your relationship with my family is over.”
Jered grunts, but that is the only response he gives. Sloane and I watch as he runs down the rest of the stairs and slams open the first-floor door.
I walk over to stand by Sloane. She is still shaking a bit with anger. “Thanks,” I tell her quietly.
“What an ass!” She nods in the direction Jered went. “I can’t believe you used to date him.”
I shrug. “Yeah, well, I don’t make very good choices with men.”
> “Neither do I.” Sloane sighs but doesn’t elaborate. She’s not very open about her dating life.
“Why are you here?” I ask. “No one usually takes the stairs.”
She shifts to look at me and holds out her cell phone. “Your grandmother called me — I wasn’t aware that she had my personal number. Anyway, she said you were in trouble.”
We both look down at the phone, which is obviously still on. I can hear Bubby’s breathing.
“How in the world did she know?”
Sloane shrugs. “She said your grandfather told her.”
“He did? But it’s not Tuesday night.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” I take the phone from her, tell Bubby to hold on for a few more minutes and make a snap decision. “Sloane. I need to take a vacation. A long vacation.”
She folds her arms in front of her chest and turns to me. Her face is serious; she is back in boss mode. “Because of Mr. Coleman’s actions? I can assure you, Mandy. He will be gone by the end of the day.”
I’m not quite sure what to say. I need the vacation to start figuring out what to do about the baby. As much as I hate the idea, I need to change jobs. Once my belly starts to swell, Christian is going to know. Or maybe, if I take a few weeks off, he will forget about me and not even realize that I am pregnant. I just don’t know what to do. So, I lie.
“It’s not Jered. I just need a few weeks. I’m going to surprise my grandmother with an Alaskan cruise. She’s always wanted to go and well, she’s not getting any younger.” It’s the first thing that comes to mind, and a few weeks should give me enough time to figure out a plan. I don’t really intend on going on a cruise.
Sloane nods and puts her hand on my shoulder. “Take all the time you need, Mandy.”
For the first time in weeks, I feel like I can breathe again.
Chapter Nineteen - Christian
Rodney and the guys show up with a moving van bright and early at eight AM. I’m not usually in the office at this time, but I couldn’t sleep, so I figured I would come in and get a few things done. I have a circuit board lying on my desk that I’m fiddling with when they make their entrance.