Beautiful Illusions Duet Bundle: Eighty-One Nights and Beautiful Ever After

by Georgia Cates

“Is she all right?”

  “Is Cait safe? Yes. Is she all right? No. She’s definitely not all right.”

  She’s not all right because she’s hurting the same way that I’m hurting?

  “She left, disappeared without a word, and she won’t respond to my calls or texts.”

  “I know, but please understand that it hurt her deeply to do so. It’s still hurting her.”

  “What happened? Why did she leave me?”

  Rachel sighs, shaking her head. “I can’t tell you what happened, but make no mistake about it. She didn’t want to leave. It killed her to do so.”

  “She was forced to leave?” I knew it. I fucking knew it. Lou didn’t leave me by choice.

  “She won’t let me confirm any of the details about what led to her leaving. I’m only allowed to tell you that she will always love you and Ava Rose.”

  “I need to see her.” I have to make right what Blair has done.

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  “Because someone is forcing her to stay away from me.” And I know who.

  Lou isn’t used to dealing with the Lochridges. She can’t see that Blair doesn’t have the power to hurt her.

  “I know Blair threatened Lou the day that she left.”

  “I can neither confirm nor deny that.”

  “I don’t need you to confirm it.” Blair is conniving but not nearly as clever as she believes. “I’m well aware of how my late wife’s family operates but Lou isn’t. They can’t hurt her. You have to tell her that.”

  “I will, but it won’t change anything.”

  “I want her to come back to me.” She has to come back.

  “I understand that you enjoyed having Cait as your inamorata, but she isn’t coming back.”

  This isn’t how I wanted to do this, but Rachel is my only line of communication to Lou. I have to lay my heart at her feet and hope that she will deliver it to Lou on my behalf.

  My chest tightens and my heart hammers against it on the inside. “Lou wasn’t an inamorata to me. I love her. I. Love. Her. And I want her back with me where she belongs.”

  There. I’ve said it aloud.

  A quick breath catches in Rachel’s throat. “Hearing that will make her happy, but it’s not going to change her mind.”

  “I love her. She loves me. We should be together.”

  “I couldn’t agree more, but it’s more complicated than that.”

  “All of this is Blair’s doing, but I’m going to make it right. She’s going to come back to me.”

  Are those tears in Rachel’s eyes?

  “Until that time comes, will you please tell her that I love her, and that Ava Rose loves her, and that we miss her terribly?”

  “I will tell her.”

  My nightmare isn’t over.

  Time to come up with a plan B for dealing with Blair.

  43

  Caitriona Louden

  Lou wasn’t an inamorata to me. I love her. I. Love. Her. And I want her back with me where she belongs.

  I love her. She loves me. We should be together.

  She’s going to come back to me.

  Until that time comes, will you please tell her that I love her, and that Ava Rose loves her, and that we miss her terribly?

  Oh my God. He loves me. He really and truly loves me.

  Why does hearing that hurt so much?

  I cup my hands over my mouth to mute the sound of my sobs so Hutch doesn’t hear me. He can’t know that I’m in the next room listening to every word he says.

  I slide down the wall, becoming a crumpled mess on the floor. And that’s how I remain until Hutch leaves and Rachel comes into the room.

  “Oh, Ra—” My voice breaks and I’m unable to voice the rest of her name.

  She lowers herself to the floor and wraps her arms around me. “He loves you, Cait. That changes everything.”

  I shake my head. “It changes nothing.”

  “You silly lass. How can you possibly say that after hearing him profess his love for you?”

  “The world as he knows it will be over if I’m in it. How long do you think he’ll continue to love me when my presence in his life means losing everything that he has worked so hard to achieve?”

  “If he truly loves you, and I believe that he does, he won’t care about what he loses.”

  “He won’t want me if he knows the truth.”

  “There’s only one truth and it’s that he loves you. Of course, he wants you. Why would you think otherwise?”

  I blink rapidly, trying to force back the tears that are forming a blurry lens over my eyes. “Because I’m pregnant.”

  The words, even as I hear them come from my own mouth, don’t seem real.

  “Oh, Cait.”

  “I don’t know how it happened. Even if he’s not sterile, which he obviously isn’t, I took my pill every day. This shouldn’t have happened.”

  She pulls me against her and squeezes me tightly, igniting a whole new series of sobs. “Are you sure?”

  “I haven’t seen a doctor yet, but my period is late and the test I took was positive.”

  “You haven’t said a word about it.”

  “I thought my period was late because my body was thrown off by not eating and sleeping.” I never dreamed it was because of a pregnancy.

  “It could be a false positive. That happens sometimes.”

  “Six times?” Because that’s how many tests I’ve taken.

  Rachel sucks air though her teeth. “Ooh. That’s a lot.”

  “I have an appointment with a doctor tomorrow.”

  “What are you going to do if you are?”

  “I have no idea.”

  I’ve always seen things differently in my mind when I imagined what it would be like to find out that I was going to be a mother. My baby would be the long-awaited answer to a prayer. My husband would be thrilled and walking on air. But neither of those things is the case.

  The reality is that Maxwell Hutcheson may love me, but he will not be happy about a baby. He’s made his feelings about it very clear. And that shatters my heart into a million pieces.

  I may not be able to have Hutch for myself, but I’ll always have a piece of him. That brings me a little bit of happiness.

  I’m sitting on the exam table waiting for the doctor. I realize how hard I’m gripping the edge when I notice my blanched knuckles. I bet my face doesn’t look much different.

  “Stop fidgeting. You’re making me nervous.”

  Did Rachel really just say that I’m the one making her nervous? “Oh, I’m sorry. I wouldn’t want you to be nervous or anything since it’s you sitting up here on this exam table about to find out if you’re pregnant or not.”

  Rachel flips to the next page in the magazine she’s looking at. “You took six tests and every one of them was positive. Are you really still holding out hope that you’re not pregnant?”

  She’s right. Six positive pregnancy tests can’t all be wrong. But a girl can hope.

  “Let me live in my world of denial for just a little while longer, okay?”

  “Okay. If that’s what you want… Mummy.”

  The door opens and my doctor comes into the room. “Good morning, Miss Louden. How are you doing today?”

  “That all depends upon what you tell me.”

  Butterflies dance in my stomach and my heart beats out of my chest while I await the verdict.

  “You’re pregnant.”

  My face suddenly feels cold, yet I feel flashes of heat, and my head spins.

  Rachel reaches out and grips my arm when I sway a little. “Cait! Are you okay?”

  No. I’m not at all okay. “I need to lie down.”

  I twist, lowering myself to lie on my side on the exam table.

  “Slow, deep breaths,” the doctor says.

  Woozy. Short of breath despite my gasps for air. Spots in front of my eyes. “I think I’m going to pass out.”

  “Listen to me. You’re hyperv
entilating. Slow your breathing, and you’ll feel better.”

  I do as my doctor says, taking slower breaths. After a few moments, I begin to feel like things are returning to normal. “I think I’m better now.”

  “Are you sure? You still don’t look right to me,” Rachel says.

  I hold out my hand, watching it tremble. “I’m as good as I’m going to be.”

  My doctor offers her hand. “Let’s see how you tolerate sitting up.”

  She pulls on my hand and grips the back of my shoulder, helping me to sit. “We need to figure out how far along you are. When was your last period?”

  I don’t remember the date off the top of my head. “I need to look at a calendar.”

  Rachel takes out her phone and holds it up, showing me a calendar.

  “August twelfth.” I remember now because I was so happy it wasn’t happening the last two weeks Hutch and I were together.

  My doctor twists a plastic wheel in her hand. “That places your pregnancy at six weeks and a day, making you due on May 19th. Does that sound right?”

  “I guess so.”

  “We should do an ultrasound to confirm your dates and make sure that the fetus is developing as it should. Let me check with radiology and see when they can work you in.”

  Pregnancy. Due date. Ultrasound.

  This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening.

  Except it is.

  Rachel comes to me and wraps her arms around me. And that’s when the tears begin. “Shh. Stop that now. This is going to be all right.”

  “In what world is this going to be all right?”

  “I don’t know. It just sounded like the right thing to say.”

  In the back of my mind, I still had hope that my relationship with Hutch could somehow work out. I didn’t know how. I only knew that a small flicker of hope was still burning. And now it’s not.

  Hutch has worked hard and has warmed up to the idea of being a father to Ava Rose. I’m proud of how far he’s come, but he still has a long way to go. How can I ask him to do it all over again with another unwanted child?

  I don’t think he can bear it.

  The nurse returns to the exam room a few minutes later. “Radiology has to work you into the schedule, so it could be a while. You have time to call the baby’s father if you want him to be with you during the ultrasound.”

  Absolutely not. “My friend is going to be with me.”

  She opens a drawer and takes out a sheet. “Remove your bottoms and wrap this around your waist. A tech should be with you soon to do your scan.”

  Naked from the waist down, my body trembles as I lie on the exam table. Rachel pats my arm. “Are you cold?”

  “No.”

  “Nervous?”

  “Very.”

  “I wish I knew what to say to make this better. but I can’t think of anything.”

  Words aren’t what I need right now. “Your being here with me makes it better. I don’t know what I’d do if I was alone.”

  “I would never let you do this alone. But what about Hutch?”

  “He isn’t going to want any part of this.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  I do know that. “He’s already had one child forced upon him that he didn’t want. How do you think that he’ll feel about another one?”

  “This is an entirely different situation. He loves you and this baby belongs to him. He has the right to know about it.”

  I would never keep anything so important from him. “I’m going to tell him about it, but I need time. I’m not ready yet.”

  I lie on the exam table, imagining everything about this baby. Is it a boy? A girl? Will it be tall like Hutch or short like me? Will it have my hazel eyes? Or Hutch’s pale blues? I hope for the latter. His eyes are beautiful.

  The door opens and a woman that I assume is the ultrasound tech comes into the room, rolling a large machine behind her. “Miss Louden?”

  I rise to a sitting position and straighten my sheet. “Yes.”

  “I’m Diana and I’m going to be doing your ultrasound.”

  She sits on the stool beside me and taps on the keyboard of the ultrasound machine. “Based upon your last menstrual period, it looks like you’re around six weeks along?”

  “That’s what Dr. Kimble told me.”

  The tech adjusts the sheet and squeezes a generous amount of warm gel on my stomach. She presses the wand against my lower belly, rocking it back and forth. “I’ll take measurements of your uterus first.”

  I stare at the ceiling, wishing all of this would go away.

  “Don’t you want to look?” Rachel asks.

  I don’t think I can without losing it entirely. “No.”

  The tech pushes harder against my stomach. “Ah, there he is. He was hiding from us.”

  Opening my eyes, I jerk my head around and look at the screen. “I want to see it.”

  Reaching out, she touches the monitor. “This little white dot is your baby.”

  How can a little white dot be a baby? “Are you sure?”

  “Positive,” she says.

  “Everything looks normal?”

  “It’s still very early but all looks well from what I can see today. The baby appears to be growing right on schedule.”

  I’m entranced by the white oblong circle on the screen, the beginning of a tiny human being. A baby that Hutch and I came together and created.

  Part of him.

  Part of me.

  Our baby.

  The ultrasound tech tears off a printout from the machine and hands it to me. “All done. You can get dressed now.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Congratulations and best wishes.”

  Congratulations and best wishes? That makes all of this feel far too real.

  Rachel gets up and fetches my clothes, holding them out for me. “You’re eating for two now. I think you need a big cheeseburger and some beer-battered onion rings.”

  Grease. The thought of it makes me want to hurl. “I’ll pass.”

  “You’ve barely eaten enough to keep a bird alive. You need to put some nutrients in your body for the baby.”

  I know Rachel is right.

  “Pick a place.”

  “Tigerlily.”

  This is her way of bribing me to eat. She knows that I can’t resist their chicken-and-bacon club sandwich. “Tigerlily sounds really good right now.”

  The server places our food on the table. “Enjoy and let me know if you need anything else.”

  “Thank you.”

  I wasn’t sure that I would be able to eat, but I feel hungry for the first time in weeks now that my favorite sandwich is in front of me. “This looks really good.”

  “I thought that sandwich might entice your appetite to return.”

  “Thanks for bribing me into coming.”

  “You have a bairn to look after now. Going without food is over.”

  It’s nice to have someone looking out for me. “I have to eat for the baby and I understand that.”

  “May 19th feels like forever away, but it isn’t. The baby will be here before you know it.”

  I wonder when graduation will be. It has to be sometime around my due date. “At least I’ll be able to finish classes before I give birth.” Unless something happens and I deliver early.

  “Would you be mad at me if I told you that I’m excited about the bairn?”

  “I wouldn’t be mad but I’d wonder why you were excited.”

  “Because you’re going to have a wee one. It’ll be so adorable. And so much fun.”

  I wish I could feel like Rachel. “You should be the one having a baby.”

  “I wish I was.”

  “Do you really mean that?”

  “I do. I would love to be a mum.”

  “What does Claud have to say about that?”

  “He wants a child. And at forty-four, he doesn’t want to wait much longer.”


  Sounds as though they’re having some serious discussions about it. “Lucky you.”

  “You don’t know for sure that Hutch doesn’t want this child.”

  I clear my throat. “‘I lack the gene that drives a man to want to father a child.’ Those were his exact words. And you’ve not seen the way he struggles with being a father to Ava Rose. He works at it, but it’s an uphill battle all of the way for him.”

  “If he’s so opposed to parenthood, do you think he’d ask you to have an abortion?”

  I swallow my food and think about that for a second. “I hadn’t even considered that possibility.”

  “I know how much you love him so if he asked, would you consider doing it?”

  I’m in shock about this pregnancy, but I want this baby. “I would never consider abortion. If he doesn’t want to be a part of this baby’s life, he doesn’t have to be. I can raise it on my own.”

  “You’re the strongest person I know, so I don’t doubt that for a second. When are you going to tell him?”

  “I think I should wait at least a couple of weeks. Let me come to grips with it before I try to tell him.” Because quite honestly, I don’t know what in the world I’ll say.

  “I think the baby negates all of the ultimatums of the sister-in-law.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re having Maxwell Hutcheson’s baby. That’s a truth that is going to come out. Her threats about exposing your relationship seem null to me.”

  “I hadn’t thought of it that way, but you’re right. She lost her leverage when I became pregnant.”

  “Would he ask you to not name him as the father?”

  “I don’t think so.” And if he did, it would break my heart all over again.

  “I think this baby is going to bring you back together.”

  “Don’t say that.” Hearing things like that makes me get my hopes up.

  “After talking with him last night, I believe it will for sure. He loves you so much, and I think he’s going to surprise you with how he takes this news.”

  Is it possible? Could Hutch want this baby?

  I’m afraid to hope.

  44

  Maxwell Hutcheson