Regency Romance: A Duchess in Disguise (Historical 19th Century Victorian Romance) (Duke Fantasy Billionaire Romance) (23 page)

“This is a really bad time, Cassidy, can we talk tomorrow before your flight back?” he said.

“Cassidy?” I heard Maggie’s voice from inside the bedroom.  She forced her way past John and came in for a hug.  I could see that she had changed what she was wearing.  She was now covered in one of John’s white shirts.  I could feel anger seething below the surface of my calm expression.

“That’s alright; you two have a great night.  I’m going to sleep, goodnight.” I muttered.

“Cassidy, wait!” John said. 

I didn’t turn around, I just stormed to my room and shut the door.  It wasn’t long before I heard a knock at my door.

“Cassidy, it’s not what you think.” He said through the closed passage.

I stood from the bed and walked to the door, cracking it open.

“I’m pretty sure it’s
exactly
what I think. Goodnight John.” I said, slamming the door in his face.

His shadow lingered under the door for a moment and then returned to his bedroom where I heard his door shut. 

I didn’t sleep at all that night and just wished I were home.

8.

I didn’t speak to John at all and he made no attempts to explain anything.  I didn’t mind, I wanted to forget this entire weekend.  I even regretted what I had done and the rift I probably would make with Maggie were she
to ever find
out what happened.  I’m sure she’d be heartbroken.

Maggie joined me in the car with bags under her eyes.  She had been up all night from the look of it and worked hard to hide my envious expression. 

As our plane flew us home, Maggie slept on the couch I had enjoyed on our previous flight while I sat in the chair and sipped on soda the flight attendant provided. 

I thought back to the night we spent together and how much it meant to me and how little it probably meant to him.  It pained me to think about how many other women he had probably slept with in that same barn under similar circumstances.  Then I forced myself
to not think
about it at all. 

I settled back into normal life with ease.  But, I didn’t want this life anymore.  I wanted something that I wouldn’t get from working at a grocery store.  I wanted to use my experience and ability as an architect to make something of myself and the events with John were inspiring me to be a better person.

So I quit.

I hadn’t told Maggie about John and I, and I wanted to keep it that way but fate had other plans. 

A couple months after our getaway to Texas and I was starting to get more than a little scared.  I hadn’t had to deal with my monthly cycle for a while and a positive pregnancy test told my why.  I even took a day off to visit a doctor and confirmed my suspicions. 

I couldn’t help but be a little happy thinking about the small life already growing inside me.  The result of one of the most amazing nights of passion I had ever felt in my entire life would soon be mine to hold. 

Then I thought about John.  He deserved to know if he was a father and I didn’t want to keep him from his child. 

I started dialing his number but then I stopped, it felt a little too personal to convey with a phone.  Then I started writing an email which also felt a little too distant and impersonal.

The only thing that made sense to me was a letter.  I pulled out paper and ink and began to draft my letter. 

I wrote all the things I wanted to say over the last two months, every thought that came
into my head
I wrote down.  Everything came out as a jumbled mess as I wrote and wrote and wrote. 

Twenty-nine pages later I stopped.  I couldn’t send him a book.

I tried over and this time kept it simple.

‘Dear John,

I never felt anything for anyone like I did for you.  Regardless of whether you feel the same, I wanted you to know.  When I returned to my favorite spot by the ocean, I looked out into the magnificent blue water and cried.  I felt like I had finally found some measure of solace in the world after spending that weekend with you.

I’m pregnant, and I’m going to keep it.  I won’t ask for any money as I’m not interested in that at all.  I’m sure one day your future child will wonder who their father is and I’ll tell them it was a wonderful man but I’ll leave your name out of it if that’s what you want. 

I have become the person in control of my own future, not worrying about the day to day, just living my own passion because that’s the person I want to be.  Your way of seeing the world helped me realize who I can be.

Thank you for the moments.

Love,

Cassidy.’

“What’s that?” I heard Maggie say from behind. 

I folded the note and tucked it into an envelope trying to keep it from Maggie’s prying eyes.

“Nothing really,” I replied, “just a thank you note to a friend.” 

Maggie plopped down in the chair nearby.

“He loves you, you know.” She said out of the blue.

“Who?” I asked.

“You know, I don’t need to say.  I wanted to tell you for a while but you seemed so adamant about changing things that it never felt like the right time to say anything.”  She said.

“But, how can you be so sure.  Didn’t you sleep with him the last night we were there?” I asked.

Maggie let out a laugh and slapped my shoulder.

“No,” she said, “I didn’t get the chance because he was so hung up on you.”

I gasped and tried to stop the tear running down my cheek.

“He told me about it when we went on the ride the second day we were there.  He told me about how much he loved your smile and the way your ‘lit up the room when you entered’” she said while air quoting the last bit.

I wiped the tear off my cheek.

“He’s a good guy, Cass.  I’m just sad I didn’t get to him first.” She said.

“There’s more to it.” I added. 

I couldn’t mouth the words so I just handed her the letter.  As she continued reading her eyes lit up.  Instead of looking depressed she started looking happy.

“You’re having his baby! That’s amazing! You gotta call him right now, he needs to know right away, don’t write some archaic note and hope he happens to read it.”

She plucked my phone off the table and searched through my contacts before settling on his number.  The phone started ringing and she shoved it in my face.

I took it and held it to my ear.  I could hear a ringing elsewhere in the apartment.  Both of us started looking around only to realize it was coming from the front door.  Maggie stomped to the front door and practically ripped the door off its hinges opening it.

John stood outside, his phone in hand nearly ready to answer.  I dropped mine to the ground and walked toward him.

I gave him a giant hug and a kiss, as well as a well-placed punch to the stomach that made him reel back a bit. 

“That’s for being creepy and standing outside my front door.”  I said.

He laughed.

“If that’s all I’m gettin’ then I’m getting’ off light.” He replied. 

I pulled back for a moment realizing that he didn’t know yet.  I sheepishly looked toward the ground.

“John, I only just found out for myself, but I’m pregnant.” I said.

John lifted my chin so our eyes met and I could see tears starting to form in the corners.  He stared into my eyes with an exuberant look and gave me a deep kiss.

“Cassidy, I’ll make that baby proud to call me daddy.” He said.

And he absolutely did.

*****

THE END

1

Sherry Loveland hated her new job, but
at least,
it was paying the bills. And it was a good starting point, with a lot of
opportunities
to move up within the company. She lived in Texas, near the border, in a small town called Happy. Happy, Texas was anything but, with dusty roads and small squat homes and shops along Main Street.

Sherry had always been good with numbers, and she had found a job as an accountant for a small company that sold plastics to larger companies who moulded the plastic into something. Water bottles mostly. It was boring work in a boring building with
boring
people. But, maybe, boring was
exactly
what Sherry needed.

Growing up most of her friends had called her Love, a play on her name and the fact that she burned through men the way other people burned through underwear. Sherry was short with round hips and big breasts, and she had long blonde hair that men loved to take a hold of while they were in bed.

Sherry had grown up in Oklahoma, and it was right after high school that she met Randy, a
tall,
athletic man a few years older, who played minor league baseball. He swept her off of her
feet
and then revealed his true colors. He was, to put it quite frankly, the way Sherry had said to her best friend, Sue, an asshole. The relationship lasted two years; the whole time Sherry was telling herself to leave. Finally, she did. And when
she
did something, she did it right. She didn’t just leave
Randy;
she left Oklahoma.

And she ended up in
Happy
and got her boring job. She had been there a little over three months, and the only thing in Happy, Texas that she found made her happy was  Earl’s,
a shady
biker bar on the outskirts of town. It
was filled
with rough men, loose women, and a blaring Jukebox that hadn’t been updated since the eighties. It was exactly the kind of place Sherry had always loved.

It was Friday night when Sherry met him, the man who would change her life. She left work and headed straight for Earl’s.
She
had worked late, trying to win favor from her boss, an old man named Michael who was stingy with money. She could use a
raise;
the small apartment she rented near the center of town had a bug
problem
and
an obnoxious
neighbor problem as well. There were
a number of
nice little homes in town, empty and waiting for her. On her
salary,
though, she couldn’t afford one.

One step at a time, that’s what Sherry kept telling herself. She was young still, just twenty-one, and she had just left a horrible man who didn’t deserve her. She had left everything behind in Oklahoma. Her friends, her family. The stupid nickname. She wasn’t Love
anymore;
she was herself. Sherry. She just needed her job, and Earl’s, and she would make it.

Earl’s was a wooden building that seemed as though it might fall over in a stiff breeze. The parking lot was gravel, and there was always a few cars in it, and a long line of Harley’s at the entrance. Sherry pulled into a spot near the door and headed for the bar.

She was a bit
overdressed,
she knew; most of the women in the bar would
be dressed
like
the men, blue jeans, tee shirts, leather vests. Biker chicks. Sherry
was attracted
to bad boys, but she would never call herself a biker chick. She
was dressed
for work, with a short skirt and heels and a tight fitting blouse. She knew her boss, Michae,l had hired her for her big tits more than her way with
numbers,
though her way with numbers was just as impressive as her bust, and she played up her good looks, in hopes that the man would want to keep her around. Sherry was smart, and she had no problem playing to any strengths she had, including the looks she had
been blessed with
.

She had worked late enough that, as she stepped into the
bar,
the sky outside was rather dark, the Sun just a bright line on the horizon to the west. Heads turned as she headed to the bar, sitting on a stool there and folding one
hosed
leg over the other.

She had come to recognize some of the faces, older
men
and women who came every day,
or, at least,
every Friday and Saturday like Sherry.

But there was a new group now, in the corner, seven or so men and a few women. One man seemed to be holding court, sitting at the head of a long table and downing beer from a massive glass stein. He was relatively
young;
Sherry wouldn’t put him past
thirty
while a
lot of
the men in Earl’s had thick gray beards that put them near fifty or even sixty. This man was clean shaven, or at least for a biker, which he clearly was, stubble grew in on his chin and upper lip, dark like his hair. He wore a black vest with nothing underneath, and as Sherry sipped at a beer and watched
him,
he
turned,
and she could see a coiled snake sitting atop a skull on the back of the vest. Other men at the table wore one as well, as well as one of the women, a thick girl with red hair.

The man saw Sherry, kept glancing in her direction, and Sherry was sure he was going to come up to her. But before he ever
could,
the night wore
on,
and a fight broke out.

There had been scuffles at Earls almost every night Sherry had been there, but this one was something more. A man in a vest with a different insignia came up to speak with the young man with the stubble.
Their voices grew louder, and then fists were flying.
Other men came to join them, and the whole place was nothing but yelling and fighting and punching.

A switchblade came out, and one man
was stabbed
. He fell back on wild feet, knocking into the bar, shaking it so violently that Sherry had to reach forward and steady her beer. Earl himself was behind the bar most nights, and he was a big man with a beard which fell almost to his belly button.

“Enough!” he roared. “No stabbing in here, you idiots.”

The fight stopped for a moment, and then one man yelled
for everyone
to go outside, and they did. Sherry had always
been drawn
to excitement, so she followed the brawl outside and stood near the front door with the other women. Almost every man in the bar had chosen a side and was fighting, and Sherry saw that even the man who had
been stabbed
was fighting once more, a hand clamped determinedly over his bleeding gut.
The bikers were all careful to keep away from the row of motorcycles; that much was plain. But they paid no such respects to the cars in the parking lot. And as Sherry watched on in horror, the handsome man with the chin stubble lifted a fat guy into the air and slammed him onto her car.
Her car. The windshield shattered.

Without
thought,
Sherry marched into the midst of the fighting and tapped the man with the stubble on his shoulder. He spun
around,
his fist raised as if to strike her. But when he saw it was a woman, he put his hand down.

“What do you want?” he snarled. “I’m busy here.”

Sherry saw that his name
was sewn
onto the lapel of his leather vest,
or, at least,
a nickname. Colt.

“That’s my damned car!” Sherry shouted. She had been with an abusive man for too long to be afraid of Colt.

“Get out of here, you’re going to get hurt,” Colt said, and he took her by the arm and led her back to the entrance of Earl’s.

“What about my car?”

“Why don’t you
go order
us a couple of beers, sweet thing, and when I’m done kicking ass out here, we can talk it over.”

And with
that,
he turned and dove back into the ruckus. Sherry fumed, but she did as the man asked. She went in and claimed a small table after ordering two beers, and twenty minutes later the cops had been called, the fight
broken
up, and a few men carted off to jail. Colt wasn’t one of them, even though the fight had started with him and the other man, and he came in and sat across from Sherry. She waited for him to speak, but first he took his beer and downed the whole thing.

“You only got me one?” he asked, smiling across the table.

“You broke my windshield. I can’t drive like that. I can’t afford to fix it.”

“Well shit, if it’s all just money,” Colt said, and he pulled out a thick wallet and tossed a couple of hundred dollar bills in front of her. “That should cover it. And I can give you a ride tonight.”

Sherry didn’t know what to say. Colt grinned and held his hand out. “I’m
Colt,
” he said. Sherry shook it.

“That’s a stupid name,” she said, and Colt laughed.

“It’s not my real
name. I
t’s like the gun. Big, powerful.”

“You aren’t that big,” Sherry said. She felt annoyed by the man’s bravado, and she was even more annoyed that she felt a strong attraction to him.

Colt just laughed, but Sherry was pretty sure he flexed his muscles a bit as he did so. She couldn’t help but smile.

“You new here?” he asked her then. “I
ain’t
never seen you before.”

“Moved her a couple of months ago. I’ve been here every weekend. Where you been?”

“I like to ride,” he said, and he didn’t elaborate.

“That’s a fancy vest,” Sherry said.

Colt frowned as he looked at her, trying to decide if she was making fun of him or not. “You heard of the vipers?”

“No. Is that your club?”

“Yeah. My daddy started it. I run it now.”

“I don’t know much about motorcycles,” Sherry said, truthfully.

“Then why you hanging out in a biker bar?”

“Cheapest beer,” the young woman said with a grin, and Colt couldn’t help but to return it.

“You want another one?” Colt asked as he stood, and in
answer,
Sherry slammed her head back and downed her beer.

They had a few more drinks and time
passed
,and soon it was after midnight. When Sherry and Colt stepped out of the
bar,
the sky was as black as pitch, except for the millions of stars shining among thick gray clouds.

Colt led the way to his bike, a monstrous thing made of chrome and metal, and he offered her a helmet he had sitting on the back of the
bike
. But he didn’t put one on himself. Sherry slid the
helmet
over her head and then climbed on behind him, having to forgo modesty in her short skirt.

The
handsome, muscular
man backed the bike out of
its
spot,
and then kicked the
engine on
. The thing roared like an animal, and they were off.

Sherry had never been on a motorcycle before, and she found the whole thing exciting and liberating. Colt
was practiced,
and the ride was smooth. But he twisted the handlebars back
far,
and they flew down the empty streets. She had told him where she lived before they had started riding, and
she
realized he asked her because everything was so damn loud, he never would have been able to hear her while they were riding, even if she yelled in his year.

Her arms were around his waist, and she was worried for a moment that she was holding on too tight, but she didn’t
dare
lessen her grip. Her long hair, which stuck out from under the helmet, whipped in every direction in the
wind,
and the
ten-minute
drive back home became a five minute
one on
the back of Colt’s bike. He pulled in front of the
two-story
apartment building, one foot on the curb as he cut the engine. Sherry climbed off the bike and handed Colt her helmet. He put it behind him, using a strap or two to keep it in place.

“You going to invite me in?” he asked, and he grinned. She noticed his teeth were as perfect as any she had seen before, white and straight. Holding on to him had been intoxicating, even more so than the beers she had drank. He smelled like a man should, he was clean, a hint of soap, but there had been stale sweat, and
beer,
and cigarette smoke mixed
into
his musk as well. The bike had been roaring and vibrating, and Sherry had enjoyed the sensation between her legs. She very much wanted to invite Colt in, but she knew she shouldn't. She had left Oklahoma to get away from a
man;
she didn’t need to come to Happy, Texas and find another one so quickly.