I got in my car and stomped on the gas. I needed to be alone and think. I saw that message—I’m pregnant—everywhere I looked. I tried not to let it get to me, I really did, but it all still felt like a sick joke to me, and now I was learning Noah didn’t even want me to be a part of her and the baby’s life. That was why she’d needed three fucking weeks to tell me, and I was sure she’d only done it because Jenna wouldn’t let her hide it any longer.
I’m pregnant.
Never in my life had two words affected me so much. Two little words, and I’d nearly crashed into the car in front of me. Luckily, I stepped on the brake in time! My phone had slipped out of my hand, and I had to pull off the road to pick it up and read that message again.
The world was collapsing on top of me, as if suddenly I couldn’t breathe, and the blood drained from my veins, and every rational thought vanished from my mind. I could only think one thing: I’ll kill him, whoever it is. Fortunately, the next message had come before I did anything stupid… Only Noah would write messages like I’m pregnant and then It’s yours and feel like she’d taken care of things.
I went into a typical student bar. I knew drinking wouldn’t help me clear my head, but shit! Either I got some alcohol in my veins, or I’d be back in that room telling her that she and the baby were both mine and I would be calling the shots for both of them from now on.
The hatred I’d felt for Noah for so long had cooled when I put a hand on her belly and realized what was growing inside there was my child, our child. I never thought something like this could happen… I had tried not to think about it before, but knowing that Noah would probably struggle to get pregnant had hung over our heads as soon as we’d fallen in love.
I ordered a scotch, drank it quickly, and ordered another.
Had I said something about a judge?
I hid my face in my hands. The music there sucked, and there were too many people dancing and jostling me. The bar was right in the center of the room. I hated it. The scotch wasn’t the highest quality either, and I grimaced as I felt it burn.
Noah was going to be a mother. At nineteen years old.
I hated myself just then. I hated making so many mistakes, forcing her to do something that we might both have wanted, but that she had made clear she also wanted to avoid.
Had I made her do it?
No, dammit, I hadn’t. I’d made love to her, I’d treated her well, I’d held her all night, I’d wanted to wake up next to her. My very soul had ached when I’d opened my eyes that morning and seen she wasn’t there. No matter what happened, she always ran away.
My mind began to dwell on the life we could have had if I had just gotten in my car and taken her to New York the night of my father’s gala, the way I’d wanted to, the way I’d told her I would. We wouldn’t have made the mistakes we made, no guy would have put his hands on her, and I’d be with her and not in some dump trying to grapple with the idea of being a father. A father. Fuck. A father with a baby. My life was about to do a 180, and I only had four months to get ready for it.
What the hell would I do with the company? What would I do with Noah?
By the time I was on drink number five and my mind was getting cloudy, I noticed something, or someone, rather, sitting at the bar a few feet away. I knew who he was just by my body’s reaction: every one of my muscles started flexing. I got up cautiously and walked to the corner, grabbing him by his T-shirt and picking him up off the ground. He had no idea what was happening.
“What the fuck are you doing here, you piece of shit?” I asked, pressing my forehead into his. I’d only ever felt like that once in my whole life, a year and a half ago—the worst night of my life.
Michael O’ Neil pushed me backward, fire in his eyes.
“I paid you to stay the fuck out of my city!” I shouted and pounced on him.
We fell to the ground. Everyone scattered, and someone called security. Dammit! I was going to have to throw a lot of cash around if I didn’t want to get in serious trouble. Whatever. I punched him in the ribs; he gave me one in the jaw. I could taste blood in my mouth. The only effect of it was to make me want to kill him and get the whole thing over with.
“You know what I decided? Fuck our deal,” he said, rolling me over and punching me in the left cheek, opening a cut. “By the way, Noah looks better than ever.”
The blood rushed to my head, I saw red all around, and the next thing I knew, three guys were pulling me off the asshole. They carried us both off in different directions. Since they knew who I was, they let me recover in a VIP room. They wouldn’t let me go on my own, so I called Steve to come get me. He came in through the back door, and I could tell by his face that something was up.
“There are journalists outside,” he said. “Someone must have tipped them off.”
Shit. Just what I needed.
When we left, I tried to pretend nothing was going on, covering up the wounds on my face, but that didn’t stop them from taking photos, lots of them, before I made it to the back seat of his car. Steve kept his mouth shut, but he was surprised when I told him to take me to the Mondrian. I didn’t want to even think about how the press would respond when the news of Noah’s pregnancy came out, let alone our family… It was going to be a scandal, especially because the media thought of Noah and me as brother and sister. Sophia was going to kill me, too—the scandal would be bad news for her family; it might even affect her father’s political career.
I stumbled out of the car and told Steve to have my car brought back to the hotel. When I entered the penthouse, it was silent as a grave. That frightened me. The room was dark. That could only mean one thing… I turned on the light. It was empty. When I walked over to the bed, I found a note on the pillow.
Shit.
