THE BILLIONAIRE'S BABY (A Secret Baby Romance) (45 page)

I thrust my hand out to grab something in order to steady myself, and he caught it. “Tia…” His voice sounded as if it came from a long distance away. “Tia!” I heard it one last time before I nearly crumpled. Neal caught me in his arms before I fell all the way to the floor.

When I opened my eyes, I lay in one of the two chairs I had set at the table a while ago. The other chair had been drawn next to it, and Neal sat in it with my head in his lap. I blinked a few times before everything became clearer.

“Tia, oh my goodness…Tia.” He looked so anxious that for a moment, I was worried about him.

“What happened?” I asked.

“You passed out. Thank heavens you’re awake!” He drew a deep breath. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” I replied, trying to sit up. After a little hesitation, Neal helped me.

“Do you want to go to the hospital?” he said, looking at me with concern in his eyes. “I was about to call 911.”

As the room became clearer and the stars that had been dancing in front of my eyes disappeared one by one, I asked, “Why are you here, Neal?”

“To see you,” he replied finally. “Are you sure you don’t want to go to the hospital?”

“I’m fine. Why do you want to see me?” My voice sounded cold and distant.

“
Why
? Because you still owe me some answers!”

I ignored him.

“Tia,” he said, his voice reproachful.

I still did not say anything.

“Tia. Dammit, Tia!” he shouted.

“Neal, please keep your voice down. People here gossip a lot.”

“I’m sorry.” He composed himself with effort. “I didn’t mean to upset you. But dammit, Tia, what have you done to me?”

I heard a dry sob convulse in his chest, and I wanted more than anything to put my hand on his. As it was, I clenched both of my hands in fists at my sides to keep from doing that. “You are engaged to someone else,” I said simply.

He looked up at me, ignoring my comment. “You told me to leave,” his voice shook with restraint.

“Yes, I did,” I replied coldly.

“Why?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“But I need to know!” he said, raising his voice again.

“Because I didn’t know what I was doing
.
” We were both silent for a minute. “I can’t do this, Neal.”

“Help me out here, Tia,” his voice was now low and pleading.

“I don’t know. All I know is that I can’t.”

“What did you want to tell me when you called me to Ghyslain?” he asked. “You stood me up.”

“I’m sorry, Neal. That was wrong of me. But there was nothing serious to tell,” I lied, my face impassive.

“Fine,” he said, standing up and walking to the window.

I sat in silence, examining my arrangement of flowers on the table in front of me while he gazed out the window. He had rented the entire restaurant just to see me? He really did deserve some more information from me.

“Actually, there is
something I need to tell you,” I spoke finally, forcing myself to say it with all the willpower I had in me.

He turned around. “Go on,” he said, his eyebrows raised slightly.

I stood up and removed the apron from the front of my dress. I hitched the top up just enough to bare the bulge of my stomach over my skirt. Neal’s eyes widened. He seemed at a loss for words, and for a number of seconds that seemed to span ages, he gazed at my extended belly. Finally, he sat down hard in the empty chair, his expression stunned. I dropped my shirt and covered my belly.

“Is that why?” I simply nodded. “Tia, I wish you the best of luck with everything,” he said after a long moment of silence, his voice smooth and unwavering. “And I mean it—everything.”

For a moment I was confused. Then I realized what was happening. He was walking out on me and on his child. He was being the billionaire swinger he had always been. “I wish things could have happened differently, I really do,” he said, drawing a long breath as I sat in silence, “but I do not begrudge you the decisions you have made. I wish I had learned sooner that your feelings for me were in no way the same as mine for you.”

He bent to plant a kiss on my forehead. I allowed it, silent and unable to move. His thinking became clear. He thought I had moved on with someone else and was having a child, but I had no strength left in me to correct him. I did not even know if I wanted to. He was, after all, another woman’s fiancé.

I sat there in silence as he walked away from me, to the doors and outside. As I heard his car start and drive away, tears trickled slowly down my cheeks. For the first time, Neal had walked away from me.

Neal

The Callaway house was quiet, like the rest of the city, when I got back. I looked up at the moon, which had traveled back to the city with me and smiled.

As I made my way up the stairs, Dora, the housekeeper, shuffled past me. When she looked at me, her eyes widened and she descended hurriedly without speaking. From her expression, it looked as if I was not supposed to be back, like she was afraid I might find out something.

When I opened the door to my bedroom, the reason for her behavior became clear.

Alisha sat at the dressing table, her skirt hitched up and her legs wrapped tightly around a man’s waist. Her eyes were closed and her lips parted in a moan. As I opened the door, her eyes popped open, she recognized me, and stared in shock. The man, who was completely naked and thrusting inside her with obvious enthusiasm, turned around.

My father.

No one moved. No one ended the quiet horror.

I was the first one to recover.

“Well, that makes it easy,” I said, addressing no one in particular as I turned around to leave. “We are done, Alisha. Goodbye, Dad.”

***

As I walked out of my room, a sudden wave of insanity gripped me, and picking up a small clock, I threw it hard at the wall. The clock shattered into tiny fragments, and I continued through the house and out the back door. I walked to the veranda where I could be alone with my thoughts.

I was angry at Alisha, angrier at my father. Both were out of my life for good. But my main concern was Tia. She was pregnant.

My mind began working furiously. Was she pregnant the last time we had slept together? If she was, it was so minor I had failed to notice it. So that meant she had to be only a few weeks in at that time for her to be showing now. But then I remembered the first time we slept together a few months back. I clearly remembered neither of us had used any protection, unless she had been on the pill, which didn’t seem likely. As realization struck, I plopped down on a bench.

Could it be that she was… that she was pregnant with
my
baby?

She had, after all, told me there was something she wanted to tell me when she had asked me to Ghyslain. And I hadn’t heard her say anything about someone else in her life. When she asked me to leave her alone, was it because she wanted some space for herself and not because there was someone else in her life? Was she carrying my baby and not telling me because she was afraid I would walk out on her?

I knew where I needed to go. In fifteen minutes, I was outside Tia’s apartment building. As I rang the intercom on her apartment, a girl who was definitely not Tia answered. “Who is it?”

I took a breath of relief. “It’s Neal Callaway. Is this Ella?”

“Yes.”

“Can I have a word with you, Ella? It’s about Tia.”

I remembered Tia speaking very highly of her friend, Ella, who was like a sister to her, during coffee in Ghyslain.

“Tia’s not home. But I’ll be down in a minute,” she replied.

When she came down, I remembered her as the girl with the cartoon character t-shirt from the first night I had picked Tia up to take her to the charity dinner at my parents’ house. It had only been a few months since that had happened, but it felt like ages ago.

We went to a bar close to Indiana East where, amid the noise and chaos of a soccer game on TV and mostly drunk college students, I told Ella everything that had happened between Tia and me so far.

When I had finished, her mouth was hanging open. “I need a drink,” she said finally, and I ordered an appletini for her and scotch on the rocks for myself. When she had drained her drink, she looked at me and said, “I knew something was going on that she was too upset to tell me about.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Tia usually talks to me about everything. When I set her up on that app, she resisted. You have to know, Tia is not the sort of girl who would ever do anything like that. But she was depressed… She was so depressed after her mom died. And I was desperate to change that.” She paused and ordered another drink from a passing waitress.

“She didn’t tell me about what happened when she came back from your parents’ charity dinner,” she continued once her drink had arrived. “She didn’t even tell me she went on a second—I’m sorry, first—date with you,” she said, her expression clouded.

“She told me to leave her alone,” I said quietly.

“Yes, of course. Like I said, Tia was depressed following her mother’s death. Not to mention that every man in her life so far has turned out to be a bastard. And I stupidly sent her on a weird, supposedly-platonic date with you…” She paused to take a breath. “If and when she felt something between the two of you, she must have been confused and scared.” She drained the rest of her drink.

“Yes, but what I need to know now,” I said, “is if there is someone else in her life?”

“Hang on a second,” she said, trying to focus on my face. “Aren’t you engaged?”

I scowled. “Not anymore.”

“Okay.” She shrugged. “Anyways, no. There is no one else in her life. Not that I am aware of. There definitely was no one in her life when she got pregnant. Except…you know,” she made a face, “you.”

“Thank you,” I said, clenching my jaw as a bubble of quiet relief burst inside me. “Thank you, Ella. You have been very helpful,” I said with a curt expression.

“Yeah? Well, what are you planning to do about it?” she asked, as if I were avoiding something terribly obvious.

“I’ll have to think carefully before doing anything,” I said, rubbing my temple. “Your friend is very challenging.”

She frowned. “If I remember correctly, aren’t you a notorious playboy?”

In spite of myself, I smiled briefly. “Thank you, Ella. I think it’s time I took you home.”

Once I had dropped Ella off at her home safely, I drove out of the city instead of going back to the house. Since I had met Tia, I had been in Richmond more often than I had been in the last few years. These days, I practically lived here. Yet it was the first time—since I had been there with her—that I was going back to my solitary escape, the stadium.

The summer night was much warmer than when I had been here with Tia in the spring. It was clear but not completely starry because the moon was full. I did not turn any lights on; instead, I walked to the center of the stadium to the exact spot where I had laid with Tia on that fateful night.

I pulled out an earring from my wallet. It had fallen to the ground the night Tia and I had made love on the field of the stadium. I had picked it up with the intention of returning it but had stuck it into my pocket. I had carried it with me since that night.

I lay down on the ground, and above me, the full moon shone in all its vibrancy. I looked at the little earring I held in my hand. The moon might be the brightest thing for miles, but for me, it was the object I held in my hand.

The thing about coming here, to this place, and lying on the ground under the sky, was that it gave me perspective. The times I had to spend in this town were usually some of the most turbulent times for me, emotionally. Some of the most uncomfortable realizations I had had in my life were in my early years while I still lived here with my parents. It came as no surprise that every time I was in this town, I was in a fouler mood than usual, a mood which simply could not be drowned in alcohol or women. They were the two things that at any other time I enjoyed very much, but when I was here, even they could not distract me. Coming out here in the open, lying down, and gazing at the sky was the only thing that calmed me.

But things had become topsy-turvy since I met Tia. Alcohol and women no longer distracted me. She sort of made me realize that the way I had been going about and doing things had been wrong. I had realized that the way I had seen things being done in my family was wrong. And most importantly, she had made me see that I’d had my priorities wrong my entire life.

With Tia, I discovered the significance of a human connection—of love and of companionship—for the first time in my life. And when she told me to leave her alone, I wanted and tried to replace her instantly. I had recently learned what was valuable in my life, and I wanted to keep something. In my haste and impatience, I had made a mess of things. I not only landed myself in a terrible relationship, I had also not been able to make an effort for the one I loved. All the time I had been thinking of her and pining for her and trying to get closer to her, I had only been thinking of myself, my needs, and my feelings. I had failed to consider her
even once.