Admit You Need Me: A Secret Pregnancy Romance (Irresistible Billionaires Book 4)

by Ajme Williams

  She was giving me the chance to lie to her and tell her that yeah, I was fine, but fuck that. I was not fine. I hadn’t been fine for weeks now.

  “Something happened and I really need some help right now,” I said to her.

  “Where are you?” Brenna asked immediately. I smiled even though I felt like shit and she couldn’t see me. I was so lucky I had a friend who would drop what she was doing to see me like that. I told her I was at home and she told me to give her a little time to sort out childcare; she’d be there as fast as she could.

  I thought about fishing the pregnancy test out of the trash to show her for dramatic effect but that seemed a little much. When she got to my apartment, I let her in.

  “I got here as fast as I could. What happened?” she demanded, coming through the door.

  “You want the long or short version?” I asked.

  “Short.”

  “I’m pregnant.” Her purse hit the floor.

  “What? Oh my god, Maggie… wait, what?”

  She didn’t know that I had become sexually active in the past couple of months. I led her to the couch.

  “I said…”

  “I heard what you said, I want to know how… I mean I know how but how?”

  This was the moment I had been dreading. Telling someone, just one person that I had been with Toby felt like so many more people than that knew, that was how big the secret felt. I realized I felt a little shameful about having done what I had done. I never thought it would come to this but seeing how much I was falling apart compared to Toby was embarrassing.

  Brenna was my friend though and I knew she wasn’t going to judge me.

  “Toby,” I said simply.

  Her eyes went round as silver dollars.

  “Toby? That Toby?”

  “Yes.”

  “How? No, wait, I know how but… when did this happen?”

  “We’ve been having sex but it’s not a thing. We aren’t together or anything like that. It started the night of Missy’s proposal. I shouldn't have but I propositioned him.”

  “You’re attracted to Toby?”

  “I’d say about half the women in New York City and a lot of the men are too, Brenna.”

  “I know, I’m not trying to point a finger or anything, but I know the way you are about relationships. I thought you didn’t really like the guy to be honest.”

  “I don’t. I think he’s a whore, sleeping around like that, showing up with different girls all the time. It’s tacky. He looks desperate.”

  “Right, but you…”

  “That night, I don’t know, I was feeling weird. I felt so alone. I had no date and Missy was getting married, so I’d be alone and the only single one too in the group. I just wanted to do something that would make me forget and Toby was… available.”

  “We don’t care that you don’t have anyone yet, Maggie. None of us are judging you but do you want someone?”

  “I don’t. Or I didn’t. The truth is I do but I don’t know how to find it, where to find it or if I can even hang onto something like that if I get it.” She leaned across the sofa and hugged me. I started crying.

  Was that a pregnancy symptom of was I just feeling pathetic and small?

  Both.

  “Have you told him?”

  “No way.”

  “You know you have to tell him, don’t you?”

  “I can’t.”

  “He’s responsible for this.”

  “He doesn’t want anything to do with me. He doesn’t want a relationship and he made that clear many times. Do you know how I’d look trying to tell him that I’m having his baby?”

  “You know I’m going to insist. This is serious. You shouldn’t have to deal with this alone.”

  “Okay, so I tell him, and then what? He throws five hundred dollars at me and tells me to get an abortion?”

  She winced. “I can't tell you what he’ll say and ultimately it doesn’t matter because the choice is yours, whatever you decide to do.”

  Beyond calling her, I had no plan. All I was prepared to do was cry some more.

  “I don’t want him to reject the baby.”

  “If he does, then he’s not the man I thought he was. You don’t have to tell him right now or even a week from now. Just take some time to decide what you want to do.”

  Pregnancy was a time-sensitive condition, but I didn’t bring it up because it felt like I was complaining. Toby… I didn’t know where to put him in my life at the moment because he didn’t want to be in it. I could already hear him tell me to ‘take care of it’ once I told him I was pregnant. The thought of termination hadn’t even crossed my mind, so I didn’t want to think about it.

  “Thanks for coming over.”

  “Of course. I wasn’t going to leave you hanging. Have you eaten yet?”

  “I was throwing up this morning so not really.”

  “What do you want? I’m getting us lunch,” she announced.

  “Something cheesy,” I announced. She placed an order for greasy, delicious Mexican food as we watched Queer Eye. I was a little bit distracted as we watched, but I was happy that she was there with me. I started going over the past several weeks trying to pinpoint when my conception could have occurred. It wasn’t that first night we spent together, was it?

  Was that why I was such an emotional wreck while we were in the cabin? I wanted that to be the reason. It was better than me just being messy and lovesick. Regardless, I felt great by the time we were done, and Brenna was leaving to go back home. I had a lot to think about, but just getting everything off my chest had made a huge difference.

  I took scraps from our lunch down to the dumpster so that it didn’t stink up my apartment and then began the mission to forget about everything that had happened for at least one day. I was sleeping on it and hopefully, in the morning, things would be clear.

  The next morning brought more nausea and not much more clarity. Missy being ever the gracious, understanding boss didn’t mind me working from home yet again. After the morning sickness passed, I made myself a hearty bowl of oatmeal and sat down with my laptop on the couch. A little bit past noon, someone buzzed my apartment.

  I wasn’t expecting any guests, so I was surprised to hear Paul’s voice over the intercom when I asked who it was.

  How did he know which unit was mine? Thankfully, he couldn’t get up here on his own, but it looked like it didn’t matter since he knew where I lived. I felt a chill run over my whole body. I didn’t want a round two with that man.

  “Paul, this is not okay. I don’t know why you keep coming around here but I need it to stop.”

  “Maggie? I need to talk to you. Please let me in.” The urgency in his voice almost got me. It sounded like he was actually dealing with some sort of crisis. Even if that was the case, why was I the first person he thought of to come to for help? We hadn’t even been in communication for years, this was inappropriate.

  “I’m not letting you in here Paul. It’s very strange that you’re coming to see me out of the blue like this and I don’t like it. Please leave.”

  “I know you’re pregnant. Please let me in. I need to talk to you.”

  He got me with that one.

  I stood for a few seconds not sure what to say. How the hell would he know that? I looked around my apartment and wondered whether he had tapped it somehow. I wouldn’t put it past him, even though he claimed last time I saw him that he was a different person. I didn’t care who he was now and whether it was different. I didn’t want any version of him in my life.

  “How do you know that?”

  “If you let me in, I’ll tell you.”

  Did I want to know that bad?

  I sort of did.

  I buzzed him it. This didn’t mean anything, all it meant was he was going to tell me how he knew, and that was it. He knocked at the door and I let him in. As soon as the door was open and he saw me, he charged in and tried to hug me. I pushed him away violently.


  “Oh no, absolutely not. You just tell me how you knew that I was pregnant and get out of here.” He looked hurt and a little bit shocked. That was right, he wasn’t going to walk all over me this time.

  “I’m sorry if I crossed the boundary just now, I’m just happy to see you.”

  “I don’t care, Paul. Tell me what I let you up here to say. How do you know that I’m pregnant right now?” I said. I knew that I was being cruel, and I would never talk that way with anybody else, but Paul wasn’t a person I considered myself to be on normal terms with.

  “I just… I could tell from the minute I saw you. You just looked different than usual.”

  “Of course, I looked different, Paul. It’s been years since you’ve seen me.” As I said that, I wondered how true it was given the fact that he knew where I lived and I hadn’t been the one who told him.

  “It was obvious babe, it’s in your face, your body, women just look different when they’re pregnant and I’ve always been so in tune with you. Of course, I noticed.”

  “First of all, don’t call me babe. Second, we’ve been apart for so long, it’s none of your business what’s happening in my personal life right now.”

  “Are you single?” he asked me.

  “That’s not your business,” I spat so quickly that I knew he could tell I was lying.

  “It’s okay. I’m the last person on earth who’s going to judge you for your circumstances right now. I don’t care if you’re having another man’s baby. I’m going to love them like they are my own.” I felt like I was going to throw up again. What the hell was he talking about? Nobody was asking him to do anything like that. Why was he offering his services as a father when he could barely offer his services as a boyfriend when we had been together?

  “I don’t want a relationship with you, Paul. I don’t want anything with you. Don’t come near my home again. I’m gonna ask you to leave, and the next time I see you around here, I’m calling the cops.”

  “If that’s what you want, I’m going to do it, but I’m not giving up on us Maggie.” He left before I could say anything to that. I closed the door and locked it, feeling slightly violated. I never planned to see Paul again in my life, so the encounter had been jarring. Now he was saying all this stuff about being together and I couldn’t imagine anything worse. There was no way in hell.

  If he had amnesia about the things that he had done to me, I had no problem reminding him of what a monster he had been. I was disgusted. He was the last man on earth who I would want in my life or my child’s life. The next time I saw him creeping around my apartment, I was calling the cops.

  21

  Toby

  There had to be laws against non-parents being invited to children’s birthday parties. Eddy and Niall invited me and I should have said no, dammit. Pretty soon Easton and Missy were going to have a kid and I was going to be the only childless one in the group. Maggie was going to be childless too, but I was doing my best not to think about her. It was not working but I was still trying and I thought that counted for something.

  I was going to have to see her and I still didn’t know what I was going to do when that happened. I rang the bell at Eddy and Niall’s house and Niall opened the door letting me in.

  “Toby, glad you could make it,” he said to me. “No date?”

  “Date? How am I supposed to tell a date that I want them to accompany me to a six-year old's birthday party?” I handed him the gift that I had bought for Riley, his and Eddy's son. It was a drone, of course, adapted so he could play with it.

  “I heard single girls love a guy that's good with kids.”

  “What do you know what single girls like?” I asked jokingly.

  “Yeah, you'd be the expert on that, wouldn't you,” he said hitting back.

  We walked through to the den of the house where the party was taking place. Right next door lived Charlie and Brenna and the two of them were family; Charlie, and Niall, so they had knocked the inner walls of their properties down and connected their homes. It was like a big multifamily complex now where the kids could roam free which was probably why I didn’t take up invites to visit that often.

  In the back, both of their homes had outdoor space that had been connected into one large yard. Their kids who were distant cousins at best were being raised as siblings almost with their four parents working as a team. Seemed like a modern solution to the problems that atomized nuclear families could bring but also a nightmare at the same time.

  I went around the room saying hi to the people I did know and the ones that I didn't. Besides the usual suspects, some of the attending children’s parents were present. There was a fully decked out snack table off to one side which looked thoroughly picked apart already. The adults were having drinks and talking while the kids played with toys on the ground.

  I didn’t hate kids, I just didn’t know why I had to be involved in their lives when I had none.

  How long did I have to stay?

  The doorbell rang and I saw Eddy jump up to get the door.

  “Guys, look who's here,” she said getting the attention of the children. I looked over and to my horror, it was a clown. The children were delighted, jumping up and swarming around the guy. I started looking for an exit.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her. Maybe she had been in the bathroom or kitchen or something, but there she was. Maggie.

  My God, she looked good. She was wearing a knee-length dress and her hair was down, curled around her shoulders. She looked luminous, she was glowing. As much as I dreaded seeing her again here, I knew that I wanted to. Of course, I wanted to. I could have said no to this, I had said no to gatherings with my friends before but I knew that these types of things were the only way I’d be able to see Maggie at all.

  Go and say something to her.

  And what the hell would that be? I was sure that she wouldn't want to talk to me in any case. We made brief eye contact as she navigated her way to the group of other women and attendance.

  The clown corralled the kids and gathered them outside, and then asked for some adult volunteers.

  “I need two parents per child,” he said. I wasn't paying attention to the count which was why I found myself being dragged towards the yard with the other volunteer adults.

  “Wait, wait, wait, none of these kids are mine,” I said.

  “Come on Toby, you can play one little game,” Missy said to me. That wasn't the point, I thought as the clown got out the props. It was an egg and spoon race. In teams of three, two adults and a child, everybody got a spoon and they had to take turns covering a fifteen-yard distance each to the finish line without dropping the egg.

  “Wait, you don't have a partner. Can we have another volunteer?” They were talking about me. The possibility of being paired with Maggie crossed my mind quick enough for me not to pay attention to it, and then I saw Missy ushering her over to join the game as my partner.

  She came up to me and we made brief eye contact again.

  “You don't mind, do you?” she asked me.

  “No, no course not,” I lied. Our child was a little blond boy with a runny nose. We got the rules of the game again and the clown pulled a stunt to prove that the eggs weren't hard-boiled by cracking one over his head, making all the kids laugh.

  Kill me, I thought.

  The team's got to decide who went first, second and third.

  “So, how do you want to do this?” Maggie asked me sounding even more bored than I was.

  “The kid that goes last, I'll go first and you go second,” I said.

  “I want to go first,” the kid said. I wasn't even sure what his name was.

  “If you go last then you get to cross the finish line and win the game. Isn't that more fun?” I asked the boy. He was insistent and Maggie didn't put up a fight, but this was a game at a six-year-old's birthday party, not the Olympics, there was no real reward for winning or losing for that matter. The game started and our kid went to the starting line.
He had to cover the fifteen yards to get to Maggie, and then Maggie was going to deliver the egg to me.

  The race started and the line of shaky adults and kids trying to run with eggs balanced on dinner spoons started advancing to the first stop. I couldn't believe that I was participating in such an event as a grown man of almost thirty.

  For a five-year-old, however, our kid didn't seem that athletic. He dropped the egg almost immediately and got upset. The egg wasn’t broken so I ran to grab it so he could finish the race, but Maggie charged at the same time and the egg didn’t make it.

  More tears. Needless to say, the child wasn’t the only partner I couldn’t work with.

  22

  Maggie

  I surveyed the ruins, the crying child, the stares of annoyed parents and children, and the game which had come to an abrupt stop. I looked around apologetically at the children and the clown who was visibly annoyed. The moments where nobody else seemed to want to speak up felt unbearably awkward.

  “I'm so sorry, can we start again?” I asked.

  “I think we just need a minute,” Toby said. I felt him grab my arm and looked at him confused.

  “We're just going to head inside and take a few moments,” he repeated. I did not want to go anywhere with him, but I let him drag me along because it was awkward now. I didn't know what I was thinking saying yes to coming to the party.

  I wanted to be there for Riley who was, of course, excited about his special day, but beyond that, I was a childless, for now, woman at a children's birthday party and that just looked a little bit weird. Eddy asked me to come and I didn’t intend on staying the entire time. Everyone else would be there along with several parents I didn’t know so it wasn’t going to be all about the kids, but now I felt that I should have followed my instincts.

  Not to mention it was just my luck that I got paired with Toby for the stupid game. I followed him back into the house. Once we were inside and out of view for the people out in the garden, I struggled out of his grasp.