My Secret Irish Baby: A Second-Chance, Secret Baby Contemporary Romance (Irish Kiss Book 7)

by Sienna Blake

  I wasn't going to do it.

  I wasn't going to call him.

  Especially not because some stupid furniture store told me that I needed him. I grabbed what I hoped was the right plank of wood and searched the floor for the right screw. His number was written across the bottom of the instruction page, not that I even needed it; I'd memorised it weeks ago from calling and hanging up so many times. Every few minutes as I worked, I glanced at the number and paused only to quickly shake my head and regain control of myself.

  I wasn't going to do it.

  I wasn't going to call him.

  After an hour of stripping screws, putting on legs upside down, and spending half the time searching for bolts beneath tools and wood and papers, I took a break for a glass of water. I grabbed my aching back as I sank down onto the single chair I owned, which I only owned because my I caught my neighbour going to throw it out. Past due bills were stacked up on the old cracked kitchen countertops, and I knew full well that even more were on the way. I sipped my water, longing for a glass of wine or a cigarette instead. I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees and rubbing my throbbing temples. An air mattress in a tiny room without air conditioning weren't the ideal conditions for a good night's sleep.

  I wasn't going to do it, I told myself.

  I wasn't going to call him.

  But when I returned to the half-built furniture, I found myself reaching for my cell phone instead of my hammer. The number was on the screen. My thumb was pressing dial. The line was ringing. I would have hung up like usual, I would have. But this time a voice answered on the second ring.

  "Mr O'Sullivan's office," a female voice said.

  Her brisk, matter-of-fact tone caught me off guard.

  "Hello?" the woman pressed impatiently. "Hello? Can I help you?"

  I considered hanging up; I should have hung up.

  "Um…hi, um…is…is Michael there?"

  "Did Mr O'Sullivan ask you to call him?" I heard the click-clack of a keyboard. "I don't see anything on his schedule right now."

  I cleared my throat as my cheeks warmed. I got the same sensation I got when awoken on some park bench or train station floor by the shove of a boot or the glare of a flashlight. It was the distinct feeling that you were not wanted.

  "I, um, I don't have an appointment or anything," I said, voice small. "I was just hoping to talk to him for a minute or two. I know him, or knew him, I guess. We were…friends or something."

  "Mr O'Sullivan isn't available," the woman said.

  It seemed her answer had been primed from the second she picked up the phone. My already faint confidence faltered.

  "Maybe you could just let him know who's calling?" I tried shyly. "He'll know me."

  There was a bored sigh and then a pause.

  "What's your name?"

  "Abbi."

  "One moment."

  I squirmed nervously on the carpet, fidgeting with the nuts and bolts by my foot. What would I say to him? Would I be able to say anything at all when I heard his voice on the other end? My heart rate quickened.

  As I waited I heard the woman knock on a door.

  "Michael?"

  "Busy."

  I frowned slightly. It wasn't the voice I expected to hear. It sounded like a different man: cold, closed-off, heartless.

  "Michael?"

  "I said I was fucking busy."

  The harshness of his voice startled me. I could feel the iciness of his tone even thousands of miles away.

  "Michael, there's a girl calling who says she knows you. Some American named Abbi or something."

  I stopped squirming, stopped fidgeting. It felt like even my heart stopped beating as I waited, phone slick in my clammy hand. I stayed still so I could hear, but Michael's voice came through the line crystal clear.

  "What? Who? Listen, I told you to have those quarterly reports to me thirty minutes ago and I still don't have them. I don't know what I'm paying you for if not—"

  With my movements robotic and mechanical and devoid of feeling, I hung up, deleted the call from my phone, and ripped up the number at the bottom of the instructional guide. I tried to keep my mind blank as I returned to work on the furniture. I focused on the sound of the hammer, convincing myself that if I kept the pounding of the hammer steady, I could keep the pounding of my heart steady as well.

  I worked in total silence, skipping lunch and dinner, till it was finally finished. I centred it in the middle of the room and stepped back.

  I didn't need him.

  And I wouldn't need him.

  That was my new motto.

  I didn't need him.

  And I wouldn't need him.

  We wouldn't need him.

  I'd almost managed to get that through my head when suddenly the bassinette I spent all day putting together wobbled unsteadily and then folded in on itself, crashing to the floor with a thud I couldn't hear over the rushing of blood in my ears. I stared unblinking at the mess of wood and nails at my feet, and I could no longer hold back the tears that I'd damned up inside of me with cardboard and spare patches of duct tape.

  They came hot and fast down my cheeks. I sank down shakily against the wall. I pulled my knees tight to my chest and wrapped my arms protectively around my legs. I sobbed, struggling to suck in air as I cried. My whole body quivered and I cried even harder realising there was no one to wrap their arms around me.

  There wouldn't be.

  I cried till my vision blurred and my nose ran and my breathing stuttered and shook. I cried till the front of my t-shirt was wet and my throat raw and my eyes puffy and red. I cried till I fell asleep.

  I dreamed that my tears turned to rain and Michael and I danced barefoot beneath the downpour.

  Michael

  Nine years later…

  Three hundred or so men and women rose immediately to their feet when I stepped into the ballroom of the Merrion Hotel. I didn't bother glancing at, let alone acknowledging, a single one of them as I strode confidently to the stage. My hands were stuffed into the pockets of my Gucci suit, fingers twisting round the silk thong of the woman I fucked in the back of the limo on the way over. I knew the name of the shade of her red lipstick still smudged on the shaft of my cock, but not her name.

  I leapt easily to the stage as the ridiculous applause continued. Nine years ago I felt like a fish amongst a sea of vicious, ruthless sharks, their teeth pearly white and their fins adorned with diamond cufflinks. But as I snatched up the microphone, I grinned wickedly at how foolish I had once been. These assholes were still sharks, dead-eyed and constantly hungry for blood. But I wasn't a fish.

  I was the man standing on the other side of the glass.

  Whether they knew it or not, these sharks, so feared and loathed, were swimming in my fish tank. I decided when they got fed, if they got fed. I decided how much room they had to swim. I decided whether the glass remained intact or whether with a snap of my fingers it shattered, leaving them to flop and gasp amongst the wreckage. I could see it in their eyes as I looked out over the crowd: they feared me.

  When I opened my mouth to speak, they all stopped clapping and sank into their chairs without a word further like dead moths falling after flying into an electric trap.

  "Thank you all for coming out tonight," I said into the microphone in the pervasive silence. "And sorry to keep you waiting. I was…handling some business."

  An image of the woman's hands pressed against the fogged-up windows of the limousine parked outside the hotel flashed through my mind, and I grinned wickedly.

  "It is obviously a tremendous honour to become the youngest senior partner in the long, illustrious history of the firm. PLA Harper is the best the world has to offer for corporate law, and I intend to become the best the best has to offer."

  My smile was more like the baring of fangs as I accepted another wave of applause. Nine years ago I saw this all as a game, the back scratching, the parading, the posturing and positioning. And I was right. It was a
game. Even tonight the banners, the balloons, the fine linen tablecloths were all just decorations on the game board. It was, all of it, just a ridiculous game.

  What I didn't realise nine years ago was how goddamn good I could be at it. Nor how much fucking fun it was to win.

  Lifting my hand and lowering it worked to silence the crowd just as easily as three hundred or so guillotines lifting and lowering. I pulled the microphone close again.

  "Look, I know you all just want to get drunk and fuck and do the cocaine you definitely don't have in your breast pocket," I paused during the laughter to wink at no one in particular. "I'll let you get to it. I just have a few people to thank before you do…"

  My assistant, Caroline, was waiting for me a with a glass of champagne when I left the stage.

  "Now was that so difficult?" she asked in a hushed voice as I sipped my drink and let my eyes roam over her body.

  Two thin straps of black velvet over her tits constituted the entirety of the top of her dress, which then continued on to sculpt her hips and ass. I paid for the dress. And for the tits, as a matter of fact.

  Caroline took my empty champagne glass with her blood-red nails. I smirked when I realised the colour was a perfect match for the lipstick on my cock. I was losing myself in a daydream about a threesome with Caroline and the other woman when Caroline's voice broke through their high-pitched moans.

  "Michael?"

  I stopped a waiter to grab another glass of champagne. "What?"

  "There're some important city officials here," she said, turning my chin with those dagger-like nails toward a table near the front. "You should go shake hands. Kiss babies. All that."

  I scoffed. "Nobody in here is stupid enough to have a child."

  Caroline grinned and led the way toward the table, leaving me with a rather nice view of her exposed back and swaying hips.

  "Gentlemen," she said, tucking her tablet against her side and gesturing toward me, "the man of the hour."

  I went around the table, shook hands, smiled, laughed, played the game. I then took my seat next to Caroline.

  The president of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, who I knew particularly liked red-headed prostitutes, smiled drunkenly across the table at me. I was sure Caroline had one waiting up in his hotel room to thank him for his support of the firm.

  "You know, it feels like yesterday that you were making junior partner at PLA Harper, Mr O'Sullivan," he said. "If I'm not mistaken, it was in this very same ballroom."

  I shook my head to immediately disagree with the fucker, who was obviously just wasted and needed to be getting on to his ginger piece of ass, but paused when others around the table seemed to be nodding their assent.

  "I'm sure it's not the same…" I started to say as my eyes drifted to the ballroom and the rest of my sentence drifted along with them.

  Little flickers of familiarity hit me, and I winced away from each as if from the sun after a night of drinking and drugs. The tassel of a particular drape, the swirl of some section of marble, the carving on this column or that, all these little details were like strings attached to something hidden, buried, pushed away to the back of my mind. A wave of sudden fear unlike anything I'd felt in years made me shiver and I knew, I knew not to pull on those strings.

  "Gentlemen," I said, interrupting one of them who was still talking about the party nine years ago, "any suggestions on what I should buy with my new senior partner bonus?"

  Without even a glance toward her, I moved my hand beneath the fine linen tablecloth and pushed the skirt of Caroline's dress high up her thigh. Other than a quick inhale and a tightening of her long manicured fingers around her champagne glass, she gave no indication to the others of what was happening.

  "Well, what do you think, boys?" I pressed.

  "I guess that depends on how much of a bonus we're talking about here," one of the crotchety old men said with a slightly nervous laugh as his eyes searched the others for help.

  Keeping money talks private was one of those unspoken rules I no longer played by. Plus, I liked to see people squirm uncomfortably.

  "How big, eh?" I said as beneath the table I urged aside Caroline's lace thong. "That's what you want to know?"

  More nervous laughter circulated around the table.

  "Boys, I'm not gonna lie," I said with an easy laugh, "it's pretty big."

  I thrust a finger deep into Caroline's tight, hot pussy, not even missing a beat as I smiled devilishly at the group.

  "It might even be the biggest bonus in Dublin."

  Caroline's fingers twisted a handful of the linen tablecloth when I added a second finger, pushing in even deeper, the way I knew she liked it.

  "If I thought there was any value whatsoever in being modest, I wouldn't tell you that it's so massive, I'm not even sure there are bank vaults that can hold it all."

  The table laughed and Caroline bit her dark maroon lip as I fucked her beneath the cloth with a third finger. I played along and laughed too, even as I heard Caroline struggling to keep her breath from coming in harsh little gasps. I teased her with a fourth finger and caught out of the corner of my eye her eyes squeeze momentarily shut, her lips parted in a silent pant. My thumb found her clit and her hips bucked in her chair as she nearly spilled her glass of champagne.

  "Caroline, do you want to tell everyone just how painfully big my bonus is?"

  Beneath the table Caroline quickly grabbed my wrist and pulled my hand from between her legs before straightening her skirt.

  "Gentlemen," she said, pushing herself hastily back from the table with a clang of glasses, "I'm sure you'll excuse Mr O'Sullivan. As you can imagine he has a lot of people to thank tonight."

  "Oh, we have to go so soon?" I grinned up at her wickedly as she stood.

  She glared at me as I licked the tips of my fingers, tasting her like a red wine reduction on a juicy duck confit. There was a glisten of sweat across her brow and her nipples were already straining against the barely there material of her top.

  "Yes, I'm afraid we have to go," she snapped at me. "Now."

  I took my leave of the table with long, exaggerated goodbyes to each and every person, secretly enjoying watching Caroline's fingers tighten around her tablet as she tried not to touch herself.

  "You're an asshole," she whispered when we finally walked side by side out of the ballroom.

  "Did you book the penthouse?" I asked, ignoring her.

  "God, you're such an asshole."

  Caroline led us through a maze of twisting hallways. It was only by chance that I noticed the linen closet before we turned again to face a bank of shining gold elevators. The door looked like any other and the tiny cursive print on the little plaque was almost too small to read. But I knew.

  I knew it was the one.

  I jammed at the call button angrily even after Caroline had already pushed it. Why the fuck did she have to lead us this way? Weren't there other elevators in this goddamn hotel? I cursed as the elevator doors remained closed. I wanted to push away those memories. I needed to push away those memories.

  Even once we were inside the elevator, the ride to the top floor seemed like far too long to wait. I turned to Caroline and ripped apart the top of her dress without warning. Her mouth fell open and she looked down in shock at her ruined dress and naked tits. But when her eyes lifted back to mine, a dark lust burnt inside them. She lifted her skirt and turned around, hands braced on the brass rails.

  "Fuck me," she exhaled, her eyes on mine in the mirror.

  I grinned as I stepped toward her.

  "With pleasure."

  Abbi

  Sandra refilled her glass to the point of overflowing with the discount bottle of wine, and I quickly covered my own glass when she went to do the same for me. I received a dramatic roll of her eyes and an exacerbated sigh.

  "Abbi, girl, it's Friday night."

  I lifted my glass and shook the contents for her to see. "I know. That's why I'm having a drink at all," I said.
>
  Sandra took a big gulp of her wine before it could spill onto my couch. She pointed a finger at me and narrowed her eyes.

  "Honey, I drink more than that at communion each Sunday. Live a little. Have some fun for once!"

  I took a tentative sip of my own half-pour of wine. "I am having fun," I protested. "I mean, we're having fun, aren't we, Z?"

  I shifted to look over the back of the couch at Zara, who sat hunched over a pile of library books at the small kitchen table. Her long blonde hair was tucked behind her ears and her green eyes followed her petite finger across the page. Her plate, with two slices of the pizza Sandra and I ordered hours ago, was still sitting untouched across from her, nudged dangerously close to the edge by the occasional shifting around of books and notebooks and highlighters. I frowned slightly as I watched her working diligently on a Friday night; I'd asked her earlier in the week if she wanted to host a sleepover with a friend or two, and she'd told me that all the girls said they were busy. I believed her because I wasn't sure what to do if I didn't.

  I was trying my best to be the best mom for her, working extra shifts, taking second jobs, going without myself, all to make sure she had everything she wanted and needed. But sometimes I wasn't sure that my best was enough.

  "Z, baby?" I called again to her when I didn't get a response. "Why don't you come over here and have fun with Sandra and me? We'll play charades."

  Zara didn't even look up from her book as she said, "I'm having fun over here, Mom."

  I appealed to Sandra for help. I'd first hired Sandra as a babysitter seven years ago, and now I couldn't imagine my life without her.

  "What are you working on, Zara?" Sandra asked my daughter.

  "National parks project."

  Sandra drummed her fingers along the side of her still very full wine glass. "That's not due for weeks, right?"

  Zara reached across the table for another book. "Right."