Ruthless Billionaire, page 16
We buy a test on the way back, and we can’t stop talking about this.
“Paisley,” he suggests a name, as we’re driving back home.
“Not bad,” I nod. “I like flowers. Rose?”
“Too... ordinary,” he frowns, keeping his eyes firmly fixated on the road. “Chrysanthemum?”
“Well, seriously now,” I laugh at his suggestion, which is obviously a joke. “I know you can’t be serious with that!”
“What?” he laughs. “We could call her Chrissy.”
“Absolutely not,” I can’t stop laughing. “Something more ordinary, please.”
“OK, that’s if it’s a girl,” he changes the flow of the conversation. “What if it’s a boy?”
I think about it for a moment. “No ordinary names?”
“Absolutely not,” he shakes his head. “And no flowers for boys.”
“OK, OK,” I agree.
We continue our fun banter in the same direction, teasing each other, but at the same time trying to come up with good names that we might potentially use. Then, the conversation is somehow steered in the direction of managing two kids and how we’ll organize everything.
“Two kids change everything,” he tells me gravely. “It’s different than one. Much different, I’m told.”
“You mean, much better,” I correct him.
“Sure,” he chuckles. “Much more difficult as well, probably.”
“But we’re a team,” I place my hand on his shoulder gently. “We can handle whatever it is.”
“What if it’s twins?” he suddenly asks.
I gasp. Then, I realize it doesn’t matter. “Twice the fun then,” I laugh.
When we get home, I immediately run upstairs to take a pregnancy test. I know he’s sitting on the bed, just like he did last time, waiting nervously for me to come out.
I stare at the little strip, waiting for the revelation. Every second feels like a whole hour. My body is tingling, trembling. I am completely washed over by this hope.
What if it’s a negative? I suddenly frighten myself with this question.
What if it’s just a false alarm? What if I raised our hopes for nothing, only to dash them against the hard shores of reality?
I banish these thoughts from my mind, as I focus on the strip, waiting for it to change. Finally, it does.
I run out of the bathroom, holding the test in my hand, waving it victoriously in the air.
“It’s a baby!” I shout. “I’m pregnant!”
His lips roll into a look of shock, surprise and delight, all wrapped up into one. We hug each other tightly, remaining embraced like that for a long time.
At that moment, we hear the doorbell, and we know who it is. We both run downstairs. Immediately upon opening the door, Jesse lifts Emma into his arms, and showers her sweet, freckled face with tender, butterfly kisses.
“Do you know we’ve got some news?” he tells her.
I hold the door open for Bobby, kissing him on the cheek. He looks at me, expectant, and I nod, gesturing that there really is something important to be shared.
“What is it, daddy?” Emma asks, her voice thin, as if she were a little mouse from a Disney cartoon.
“Mommy is having another baby,” he announces, and both she and Bobby gasp with delight.
“Does that mean I’m going to be a big sister?” Emma exclaims with joy, clapping her little hands together.
“Yes, little lady,” Jesse nods. “That means exactly that!”
All three of us hug, and Emma pretends like we’re choking her, so we release her from our grip.
“Uncle Bobby!” She rushes over to him. “Did you hear that?”
“You mean, that I’ll be twice an uncle? Yeah, that’s great news!”
I walk over to him to accept his congratulations. “Those are really awesome news,” he adds. “We’ll have kids of a similar age. They’ll get to play together and grow up together.”
“That’s wonderful,” I nod, with a smile, already imagining how beloved that little baby will be, just like Emma is, and just like Bobby’s child will be as well. “Why don’t I make us some coffee, while you and Emma tell us how it was at the circus?”
“Oh, it was awesome!” Emma easily slides into this topic, ecstatic to share everything that they have seen. She spends the next half an hour talking about clowns, jugglers, magicians who performed card tricks and extracting bunnies out of their hats. Then, she continues with wild animals she has seen in the zoo, but it’s of course, very different when you see them in the circus.
That night, none of us have trouble sleeping. We all doze off easily, and the following morning the joy simply extends. That is what happens in the following few months, until our doctor’s appointment.
I am lying down on the doctor’s bed, with my belly all lubed up. The screen is flickering black and white, and occasionally I can see faint outlines of a head or toes, but it quickly dissolves into a blur. The doctor keeps looking at the screen, noting something, when she finally turns to us, with a smile.
“Would you like to know the gender?” she asks.
“Of course, we have both names covered,” Jesse replies first.
The doctor seems confused, then she continues. “You might need them both, because... you’re having twins!”
“Twins!?” we exclaim at the same time, our voices merging together into a unity of shock, disbelief and absolute joy.
“We’re having twins?” I ask again, my voice on the verge of breaking. I feel like I’ve been rewarded for all of my patience with not one baby, but two.
“Yes,” the doctor smiles, pointing her finger at the screen. “See? Here is the girl, she has her little butt turned to us. A cheeky little thing, I can already see that. And your sweet little boy is asleep, sucking his thumb.”
“They can do that, in there?” Jesse asks, incredulously.
“Of course,” the doctor laughs. “That’s where they learn it first and see if they like it or not.”
Our appointment ends quickly after that, and we find ourselves in the car, seated, unable to move, or speak. Our minds need some time to process this information. Our lives will change. Nothing will ever be the same. But we’re smiling. It’s overwhelming to find out we’re having twins, but at the same time, I feel like we couldn’t be happier.
“Twins?” he turns to me.
“Twins,” I reply, unable to stop smiling. “We got this... right?”
He takes my hand into his and brings it to his lips. “You know we do.”
“Is this our happily ever after?” I ask again.
“No,” he shakes his head at me, our fingers intertwined. “This is just the beginning. We continue it every single day, because it’s not about the wedding day or some grand romantic gestures. It is about little things. It is about daily moments of love and affection, the love we share with each other, with Emma, and soon, with the twins.”
He presses his free hand to my belly. I know exactly what he means, because our wedding was just the beginning. I feel like I’ve been falling in love with this man more and more as time went by. And there is no end to this love. It will last forever..
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Chapter One
Lilly
This isn’t my first time in prison, and it surely won’t be my last.
I go through the usual checks, but the guards already know me. How could they not? I’ve been coming here for the last ten years. Some of these men have seen me grow up from a frightened little girl, who had no idea what happened to her father and why he was taken to this horrible, dark place, into the woman I am today, the woman who is trying her hardest to make a change in this world, which sometimes, tends to be so cruel to those who seem to be the weakest.
A guard by the name of Thomas nods at me, as he unlocks the door. I would be able to recognize the sound of prison doors unlocking anywhere. It is a different sound from regular doors or gates. It has a depth, a certain heaviness that presses upon your soul, trying to crush it, if only you allow it.
I don’t need to be shown into the visiting room. I already know where it is. I enter and the visiting room officer is there. In fact, there are three of them present now, because the visiting room is filled with people sitting opposite each other. I can see it in their eyes, how much they want to reach across the table and just touch each other’s hand, intertwine their fingers. Just that physical touch which sometimes means more than a million words ever could, but it is not allowed. All we can do is hug and kiss when we arrive and do the same when we depart. I guess we should count ourselves lucky. There are inmates who aren’t allowed to do even that.
I see my father all the way in the corner of the room, sitting at a table by the barred window. He lifts his hand shyly at me, smiling. I know he’s expecting mom to come, and he’s disappointed she didn’t join me, but he’ll do his best to try and hide it.
I walk over to him at a normal pace. He stands up, embracing me. I wrap my arms around him, and I can’t escape the feeling that every time I come see him, he feels a little less present in his own body, as if he’s losing more and more weight, but it’s not just weight. It’s like he’s losing himself in the process as well and I know I must hurry, if I want to help him.
Our hug is short, almost business-like. We both know we are being watched. Our physical contact is being counted by the seconds that have passed. When he lets go of me, he’s still smiling.
“You look good,” he tells me, as always.
“So do you,” I lie, as always.
We sit down. I know he wants to ask about mom, so I tell him immediately.
“Mom had to do a double shift,” I explain.
He looks worried. “Your mom works too much.”
I shrug. I know he feels guilty that he left us. Well, technically, he didn’t leave us. He was taken from us, stolen from us but he doesn’t see it as such. He thinks this is all his fault, although we try to assure him that it isn’t. He was wrongfully accused and convicted of a crime he didn’t commit but once you land in prison, everyone there keeps claiming that they are innocent. His voice got lost in the masses.
“How are you doing?” he asks me, as we start our usual dance.
I honestly don’t feel like talking about silly unimportant things. I want to keep asking him about what happened that night, although I’ve heard his version a million times. I’ve heard the other version as well, and I still couldn’t see any discrepancies, but I know I must be overseeing something. The truth is right in front of my eyes. I just can’t see it... yet but I also know that he’s had enough of telling that story over and over again. I know he wants to forget it, at least when he’s with me. He wants to try and take part in the life that I am leading outside the confines of these walls that have been keeping him separated from his family for the past ten years.
He wants to know about my life, about my studies, about my friends and the like. I can understand that. So, I comply. I tell him all about the silly, unimportant things that make up my everyday life. I tell him about the Starbucks coffee I have every morning when I go to work, because I am too lazy to get up earlier and make my own coffee at home, when I have a perfectly functional coffee machine that mom got me for my birthday when I started college. Her reasoning was that I would be up late often, and I needed a good cup of coffee to keep my focus going.
Dad agreed. When mom and I told him about that present, I could see how sad he was that he missed yet another birthday, yet another gift giving. There were now so many missed, stolen moments, which none of us will ever get back but we keep looking forward, into the future, hoping for a better tomorrow, which can only come if we ourselves work on it, instead of expecting someone else to do it for us.
“How’s work?” he asks, after I told him that my classes are over for the semester and I have a few exams to take, then I can rest for a month.
“It’s great,” I nod, smiling. “Marley is such a sweet, clever kid. I never thought a ten-year-old could be so intelligent.”
“You were also a clever ten-year-old,” he tells me. I can see that sparkle of love in his eyes. I can sense how much he misses both me and mom, and it kills me every time, that a man such as my father, who would never hurt a fly, ended up in a place like this, just because they couldn’t prove that he was innocent.
“I think such intelligence in children can only come out of some sad event,” I reveal, referring to the fact that Marley lost her mother.
Her sad event was the death of a parent, while mine was the incarceration of one. In both cases, something happens to you, something that changes the reality of your life in a way you never thought possible, in a way you can’t really understand, and it takes a long time for you to accept it. In Marley’s case, it is still noticeable in her speech and mannerisms, although she seems to have accepted the fact that her mother is gone. I wonder if one ever accepts such a thing, especially a child.
“She is lucky to have someone like you,” my father tells me.
“I am just her nanny,” I shrug.
In her case, a nanny is many things. Her father is a busy man. I guess every billionaire is. He has so much to think about, so much to control. I wonder what that must feel like, to have so much power and control over the fates of others.
Although it is obvious that everything he does, he does for her. Even though he should be doing less sometimes and just be with her more. That would mean more to her than any presents ever could but it’s not my place to make such comments.
“Is her father a good employer?” I hear my dad ask.
“I guess,” I shrug again. “We aren’t really talking much, apart from the usual exchange of pleasantries when I come and before I leave home.”
I skip the fact that upon seeing him for the first time, my jaw almost dropped to the floor. I wasn’t expecting him to be so handsome. After all, he is well in his late thirties, making that quite an age gap between us. Sometimes, I wonder what we would even talk about if we ever found ourselves in such a situation. He seems to be the grumpy type, which is exactly the kind of people I usually don’t like around me but there is something about him, something mysterious and brooding; something that I admit, keeps me up late at night.
I wonder about him. We all like to enshroud these mysterious people into realities where they don’t belong. He and I couldn’t be further apart, and yet, we share some parts of our realities together. That, in itself, makes him someone strangely relevant in my life, and as such, I can’t but not think about him. Those aren’t romantic feelings, but rather, it is my mind trying to decipher who he is.
“He’s very respectful and keeps his distance,” I add for my dad’s peace of mind, and I guess, for my own as well. If he were one of those charming types that flirts with everything that has a skirt, I doubt I would feel comfortable enough to work for him. I just don’t like that type and I don’t want to be around them. His desire to keep things professional at all times suits me just fine. However, it makes me even more curious about him, which isn’t all that good, but at least, that curiosity is under control.
“That’s good,” my dad nods, glancing out of the window to his left. The sun is illuminating his face, which looks far older than his years. I resist the temptation to reach over and caress his cheek. My heart breaks every time I come here, and I always spend a minute crying in the car as soon as I leave. It is just my way of dealing with the pain, with the heartbreak. Then, after that minute passes, I can go back to the usual grind and the goal I have set for myself.
We continue talking about mom and how she burned the last batch of cupcakes. He laughs. It’s the laugh that makes his eyes sparkle, because he remembers how bad mom is at making any kind of cakes and cookies, but she always keeps trying. That is where I get my persistence from, my mom and my dad.
We talk for a few minutes longer, then the guard informs us that we only have a minute left. I know what that means. It is just enough to give him a goodbye hug and then I go back to my car to cry for one minute. Sometimes, it is hard to keep the tears from flooding while I’m still hugging him. I don’t want to let go. Every time I touch him, it feels like it might be the last time. He smiles, kissing me on the cheek.
“Same time next week?” he asks with the heartbreaking hope in his voice.
“You know it,” I smile back, fighting back the tears.
As soon as I’m in my car, my eyes are flooded. I let the tears roll down my cheek freely. I need to get it out of my system, all that pain and heartbreak. Once I am able to inhale properly, I check my watch. It’s time to pick up Marley from school.
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Erica Frost, Ruthless Billionaire
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