“It looks like I’ll be leaving the office for the day.” Evelyn snaps up her things. “It seems we’ve a bit of good news to celebrate, don’t we love?” She falls over his shoulder and lands a kiss on his cheek.
“Ford?” My voice cracks without my permission, and I hate the sound of it. I hate how vulnerable it makes me look. The pregnancy test sits on the desk out in open view, and I know—I know without an evil doubt what she’s done.
“Is it true?” I step into him with his crisp blue shirt, his dark jeans and tattered old tennis shoes. I love him like this. I love that he’s aching with a moral obligation to stand by the side of the woman he thinks is having his child, only I hate the fact he doesn’t realize it’s me. “Is this what you have to celebrate?” I hold up the stick accusingly.
“Stevie.” Ford clasps his arms around my waist just as Evelyn interjects herself between us.
“Crawford, I need water.” She melts into his chest. “I’m feeling faint. I think I’m ready to go home now. This entire day has been too much for me.”
I stare at that blasted stick. How stupid I was to give her the exact twisted ammunition she needed. I guess this is a litmus test I didn’t bargain for. I could call her out on it right here—dare her to take another test just to prove my point, but Evilyn is crafty. And is this really how I want to break the news to him? In some pregnancy test standoff with his ex?
I glare over at her. She thinks she’s so clever—that she’s outwitted me for at least a little while longer. And what happens when my belly grows instead of hers? The truth is, she’s either too stupid to think that far ahead, or she’s already plotting the demise of both me and my unborn child. I’m betting on the latter.
Ford comes up and gives my shoulders a squeeze. “I’ll call you soon,” he whispers. “I just need to get her settled.”
She takes up his hand, and he doesn’t fight it. The image burns into my mind.
I wait until their heels clatter out the door before taking a hard seat on the desk.
“Hey”—Bella sits beside me, holding me up with her thin frail arms—“I can tell him. I’ll swear on a stack of Bibles she’s lying. He’ll figure it out.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
He left with her just like she wanted. He held her hand—fell right into her trap. This is just the beginning of her manipulation. She was buying time, and now she has it. Who knows? Maybe he’ll feel something for her after all. Maybe this fake child is just what they needed to rekindle the flame. Do I really want to be with someone whose heart is so easily swayed?
I spend the rest of the afternoon with Evelyn’s laptop, downloading all of the crap I can onto a thumb drive.
I wonder if I was stupid to believe in what Ford and I had?
One thing is for sure, I’m pretty damn glad I never gave away my I love you.
The cramps start almost immediately after Evelyn waves her victory uterus in the air and whisks off with Ford. Strong, burning, intense pains that rival any regular cramps I might have ever experienced trample through my body. After hours of trying to ignore them—to moan my way through them, Bella drives me to the dorm, but I’m so doubled over with pain I can’t get out of the car. She threatens to take me to the hospital, but I beg her to take me to Kinsley’s instead and she does.
Lincoln helps me in, taking in the brunt of my weight as Bella carries my purse and pours me a glass of water.
“Tell me you’re not dying.” He covers me with a knit throw and sits next to me on the couch.
I let out a harrowing cry as a heated pain sears low across my belly.
“What the fuck is wrong with her?” He barks at Bella just as she makes her way back. She touches the water to my lips, but I turn my head.
“She’s having a baby.”
“What?”
“Not now moron. She’s having a baby in nine months or eight, seven, who the hell knows.”
“Well, it sure as hell sounds like she’s having it now.”
“That’s because I’m losing it,” the words whisper through me.
“God.” Lincoln looks as if he’s going to be sick. “Did that asshole do this to you?” His entire person irons out with rage. “Are you fucking kidding me? I’m going to kill him. Then I’m going to kill you for being so damn stupid.” He spikes up, and I snatch at his jeans, shaking my head just barely. “Bella”—he shouts—“call Kinsley, tell her to get her ass down here. I don’t care if she’s busy championing some incest revival. Get Aspen, too.” He tucks the back of his hand over his mouth as if he’s staving off vomit.
A fire whips through me—delirious, horrific pain cuts through my abdomen as if this child is revolting that its father may have already walked out on its mother so soon in its existence. Welcome to the club, I want to say. Abandonment runs in the family. This is your first truth. Love is fickle, and people don’t stay. Witches like Evelyn root themselves into people’s lives like a cancer until they eat away their entire existence. That’s what she’s doing to Ford—rooting in, burrowing in deep, all on the coattails of my unborn child. He might fall for it. She might already have him lassoed between her legs.
My mother’s truths come back to me—people are weak and single-minded. Money means more than breathing. All men are liars.
I repeat those phrases like a sinners prayer, over and over, as the pain continues to rip me apart.
My purse catches my eye, and I signal for Belle to retrieve it.
She brings it over, and I rummage through it until I come up triumphant with the thumb drive. I put it in my pocket and forget about it while I lose myself in a pain-induced delirium. Some things weren’t meant to be. Ford and I were one of them, this baby another.
Hours pass—weeks, before Aspen and Kinsley arrive. They both share the same worn out looks, so frightened for me, so irrevocably broken at what’s become of me.
I tell them all about Evelyn—Ford’s eagerness to care for her after all we’ve been through.
A warm gush of liquid trickles down my thigh. I pull back the blanket and sit up as a warm stream of blood blossoms through my jeans.
“Oh, honey.” Aspen takes up my hand. “We need to get you to the doctor.”
“Shit.” Lincoln boils with rage. “Nobody messes with my baby sister.” He presses a kiss to my temple. “I got your back.” He wraps the blanket over my shoulders like a cape as he scoops me into his arms. “Crawford Cannon is going to wish he never fucked with you.”
Right about now, I’m wishing the very same thing.
We head to the ER and hear the worst news.
Kinsley and Lincoln take me back to their place, and all I think about is Claire holding my baby in heaven.
I wonder if I’ll ever tell Ford?
Maybe if we get there one day.
Ford
The last thing I expected to hear when Evelyn called me into her office were the words, are you ready to be a father? For a brief and beautiful moment, I thought she was talking about Stevie, and my heart inflated like the Goodyear Blimp, full and light, the exact way Stevie makes me feel. I would have welcomed it, but now that it’s Evelyn we’re talking about, all I want to do is stick my head in a bucket of cement.
She insisted we discuss this new development over lunch like it was a business opportunity on the horizon. If it were Stevie, I would have taken her to Shipwrecks, made love to her for a week straight in celebration of the new life that would be gifted to us soon.
“My apartment is far too small.” She drones on. Evelyn hasn’t let up on her incessant chatter since we left the office. Every word feels like its own jagged razor. I’ve done this. I’ve given Evelyn the ability to come between Stevie and me because of a few stupid moves I pulled last summer. “Plus there’s the whole issue with the balcony. It makes me nervous just thinking about having a baby near it. You mind if the baby and I move in? It could be temporary, of course, but I’ll need to get settled long before it ever arrives.”
“Sure.”
I hear myself say. Shit. It’s not what I want, but I know Evelyn. If she feels any threat with Stevie, she’ll use this child against me. I’ll be lucky to meet it before it’s five. I need to play nice until I can figure things out.
A waitress walks by, and Evelyn flicks a finger in the air. “A bottle of your best reserve.” She winks at me. “For you, of course. But then they say a glass of wine never hurts. My sister had a full glass every day from conception to delivery, and little Miles is F.I.N.E.”
Little Miles holds the promise of eight to ten in the pen, but I keep that to myself.
“No wine,” I say it flat. She might be carrying the baby, but I’d like to think I have a say in what she puts in that mouth of hers. Too bad I don’t get a say in what comes out.
How the heck did this happen? I’m stupid as shit that’s how. I’m not careful. I’m too trusting. Stevie comes to mind. She’s different. She said she was on the pill. Stevie would never lie to me—never trap me into a relationship by way of her legs. I saw that pained look on her face. We’re over. Evelyn managed to bring new life into my world and kill the nexus of my universe in the process. In some delusional part of my brain, I’m convinced that Stevie and I can make it work. Evelyn and I can share custody like normal people, only there’s not a normal thing about us. I’ve got one too many billion dollars in the bank, and her father is an attorney at one of the most prestigious law offices in L.A. But I’d give every dollar I have to Evelyn if it could make her go away, leave Stevie and me alone, and still let me be a part of our child’s life. But she won’t do any of the above. I’m fucked, and so are Stevie and I unless I start in on damage control as soon as possible.
I whip out my phone and start texting Carter. Find Stevie. Tell her everything will be OK. I’ll explain later. Please.
I throw in that final plea because I know Carter has every right to tell me to piss off and take care of my own screwed up relationships.
“You know I’m very traditional.” Evelyn flattens her left hand over the table, and her naked ring finger glares at the two of us. “But, since things take so long to plan, I’m okay with waiting.”
My mind goes blank. Is that where she thinks this is headed? A wedding? I take a quick breath. Shit. How in the hell did I manage to get locked in the spin cycle again? I’ve been swearing off Evelyn for the last decade of my life, and, yet, she’s still managed to find her way into my bed. I was stupid. This is all my fault. I’ve got no one else to blame although I’d love to blame Evelyn.
Her lips crimp. “We should probably go out right now and buy something for it. You know, a memento that we’ll always be able to hold and look back on. A little toy or better yet a Jinx T-shirt. There’s an entire line of infant wear in the souvenir shop.”
“Is there?” It’s as if the world is out of focus.
“Yes, you approved apparel last spring. You’re expanding.” She leans in and takes up my hand. My fingers feel dead, too tired to break free from her grasp. “You’re the great Crawford Cannon. You’ve built an empire.” She moves my hand and places it flat over her stomach. “And now you’ve built a family—with me.”
My gaze locks on some invisible horizon, wondering when this nightmare will end so my real life can resume—the one in which I end each day with Stevie in my arms and she bites my ear and whispers, Superman like she means it.
“I’m in love with someone else.” I can hardly believe the words as they slip from my mouth. Here all Evelyn wanted was a rattle, a fucking T-shirt to commemorate our big day, and I profess my love for someone else with my hand still warming her belly.
I pull away and slump in my seat.
“Crawford”—she sighs hard—“for the last ten years, you have been hauling girls into your bed.” She relaxes into me, and, for a second, I’m convinced she’s going to crawl into my lap. “We simply weren’t committed. It was an open relationship, but we’ve always been together. You’ve always been mine.”
Open relationship. Is that what we had? Why do I feel like someone just took a wrecking ball to my head?
“In the beginning it was hard to watch.” Her voice grows weak. Evelyn is a master at crafting her argument. “Then, as the years went by, I saw that those girls meant nothing to you. We were still together, attending events, tending to each other.” Her finger curves over my jaw, and I fight the urge to bat her away.
She’s right. Not one of those girls before Stevie meant anything to me—not even Evelyn. I give a depleted smile.
“So, what do we do now?” I push the words off the ledge of my tongue.
“You make it sound like a chore.” Her demeanor changes. Her smile downshifts into a frown. I’ve worn her thin, and I wish I could say I was sorry. “I guarantee a year from now you’ll be in love with a tiny being that has your eyebrows, your brilliant blue eyes.”
I don’t have brilliant blue eyes, but I refuse to correct her.
Her teeth saw over her lip. “God, if it’s a girl I hope she looks just like me. Same lips, and nose, no offense, but my features are better suited for the female population.”
“No offense taken.” A tiny infant pops through my mind with Stevie’s full lips, her amber eyes that look like a sunset reflecting off a lake.
“We both need to adjust to the idea of being parents, that’s all,” she chirps. “This is going to be heaven.”
This is going to be misery.
But as much as I hate to admit it, Evelyn is probably right. In a year I’ll be head over heels for this tiny being no matter whose womb it grew in. I’m determined to love my child and be the best father I can. Stevie and I will have to accept this situation and grow around it.
Who am I kidding? I’m pretty sure I’ve scared Stevie off for good.
It’s funny that I was the one who saved her all those years ago at Shipwrecks and now the one drowning is me.
I sure wish Stevie would come to the rescue.
I drop Evelyn off at her apartment. She’s convinced she should move in with me as soon as this weekend, but I’d be a fool to let that happen. Maybe once the baby is born, I’ll give her a room downstairs, but only because I want to be near my child. Hopefully by then Stevie and I will have worked everything out. I drive over to Rigby and toss on a baseball cap I have in the back before making my way to her dorm. I give a quick knock to the door. It’s late, the sun set hours ago. Evelyn tried pulling every trick in the book to get me to stay the night, and every single one of them would have worked if it weren’t for Stevie. If Stevie wasn’t here, breathing life into my tired existence, Evelyn might have gotten that proposal she wanted out of me from the simple act of wearing me down.
“Who is it?” A voice chimes as the door swings open. Arabella snarls once she sees me. Her hair is twisted up in a towel, and she’s got on a short robe that makes me uncomfortable to look at.
“I need to see her.”
“See who?” She snaps, leaving the door open and walking back to her bed. “The chick you knocked up doesn’t live here.”
I glance around at the otherwise empty room.
“Where’s Stevie?”
“With family. By the way, she’ll be taking a few days off.” She plops on her mattress, so I shut the door and take a seat on Stevie’s bed.
“When do you think she’ll be back?”
“I don’t know. Hours—could be days.” She fires up the TV. “She’s pretty much destroyed.”
“Shit.” I pull out my phone.
Tell me where you are. We need to talk. I hit send then immediately regret it.
I text Carter next. Did you find her?
He texts right back. She wants you to leave her alone.
Great. I fall onto the pillow, and her sweet scent permeates the air. Stevie isn’t home, at least not this one.
Arabella bursts out in laughter while enjoying her show, and an idea comes to mind. I pull out my wallet and pluck out every dollar bill I have—fifteen hundred bucks.
I fan it out and lay it nex
t to her.
“Where’s Stevie?”
A strangled noise comes from her throat as she thumbs through the wad.
“Give me five minutes, and I’ll draw you a map.”
Arabella makes a few calls and hands me an address without pausing. Apparently Stevie is at her sister’s house in Pacific Palisades, and I waste no time heading over.
The walkway is dark as an armpit. I trip going up the steps landing hard on my wrist.
“Shit.” I jog up the rest of the way, giving a brisk knock over the door.
This day isn’t over, and neither are Stevie and I.
It takes a few minutes for the image of a body to warble behind the distorted glass door. That’s no sister—looks like a dude.
My stomach drops to my feet. What if this is some ex-boyfriend’s house I’ve just been lured to, and now I’m going to have the crap beaten out of me, get thrown down the stairs so I can break my neck on the way out.
The door swings open.
“Can I help you?” It’s that blond dude with the mean left hook, and my body goes numb. I remember him from that night at the club. “Oh, fuck, no.” He starts to shut the door, and I stick my shoe inside to block it.
“I just want to talk to her.” I push past him like a tornado. “Stevie?” The sound of my voice echoes off the walls, desperate and angry. “Stevie”—I break her name in two as I find her lying on the sofa. Her head is tilted over her shoulder, her eyes swollen, her face pale. It breaks me to see this fragile, listless version of the woman I love.
A blonde girl sits by her side, pissed as hell at the sight of me.
A pair of strong arms pull me back a few good feet.
“Get the hell out.” The angry dude from the door has decided to play bouncer.
“Stevie, please. Five minutes is all I ask.”
He tries hustling me to the exit, and I knock him off my back, sending him straight into a wall.
I slide over to where she’s lying and fall to my knees.