“Your daughter is on line two.”
With a nod of acknowledgment, she picked up the phone to attend to her top priority.
✽✽✽
Hours later, Rochelle sat back in her design chair as she waited for her friend, Brittany, to finish using the bathroom and tell her whatever she’d come to spill in her lap. Suddenly, the office door was almost torn off its hinges.
“I passed; I’m graduating!” Hannah screamed, causing Rochelle to jump. Her Apple laptop cluttered onto her lap as she tried to prevent it from falling to the floor off the little desk that she used to hash out her newest designs.
Rochelle had met Hannah and Brittany in Milan, at a fashion event a few years ago. With Stacey and Macey already settled with their husbands, she had welcomed the added ears to speak to; though they couldn’t understand her like her old friends could. They had brilliant sewing techniques, and design marketing, though; so with so much common ground, the three had pulled tight in the last two years, seeming more like sisters than employer-employees.
For two of those three years, Hannah had been on a mission to complete her degree in designing, but before Rochelle could even congratulate her, another voice chimed in.
“Fuck no!” Brittany groaned, from the bathroom across the room before exiting to flop down on the large settee. “Congrats, Han, but shit, I got a blue line,” she choked, holding up the pregnancy test, which caused Rochelle to freeze.
“José?” She questioned; Brittany’s expression immediately softened slightly.
José has been her regular on and off again boyfriend for the past two years. That was one relationship that Rochelle wanted no part of trying to figure out. José had too much money for his own good, and Brittany was way too stubborn. She was interested, however, in how her friend would handle it.
Rochelle frowned, as Brittany and Hannah’s eyes widened suddenly, and the soft click of the door sounded behind her.
“We aren’t expecting anyone at the moment,” she muttered, without turning around.
“I’m sure of that, Rochelle; I ensured to check your schedule.”
Rochelle froze, a flush running over her caramel skin. “Carter,” she breathed.
“Oh, you do remember me; after all, didn’t I father your daughter?”
“Fuck!” Brittany murmured, as her tongue seemed to unstick from the roof of her mouth, while she took in Carter’s six-foot-five-inch, well-toned body, encased in Armani, and handmade Italian leather, with his dark hair curling at his nape and temples.
Rochelle shot her a warning look as her friends’ eyes continued to ogle him. Struggling to slow her racing heart, she chose to act nonchalant, deciding then to answer him in like manner. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she muttered, causing Hannah’s eyes to widen at her lie, but Carter did not even flinch behind her.
He didn’t even bother with the pretense; for without hesitation, he listed their daughter’s date of birth, the labor length, the doctors and nurses, and so on, only stopping when her shoulders slumped. She then realized that she was cornered. He didn’t even care that the girls were still in the room. At least he’d had the decency to close the door.
“And I met your mother too, talkative lady. Cried a lot when she read your old diary; our daughter accidentally found it while they sorted through your old boxes, showing me pictures.”
“Fuck.” Was that the only thing anyone else in the room could say? But Rochelle still remained quiet.
“That was your last link to him, to all this, right? The fact that your mother had no idea of the hell that you’ve been through? Well, now it’s severed, and I’m sure that you’re glad to know that he no longer has a hold on you.” He paused. “As a matter of fact, as of this moment, Percival is finished; both here, and any other country, that he has ever set foot in.”
“Carter, you cannot do that; you have no authority here,” she whispered, as weird emotions coursed through her. Still, she couldn’t even turn to acknowledge him, but though she hadn’t moved, he had. She dragged in a sharp breath when his fingers threaded through her loose hair, as if all the times of separation had vanished from between then, and her limbs froze.
“I think that I forgot to mention that I am a prince, cara. So you see, I have all that authority and more,” he stated frankly.
That explains a lot, she thought. Now, she understood his natural air of authority; he’d always claimed and controlled everything around him wherever he went but that didn’t faze her. She’d come in contact with plenty in her time. His fingers fisted in her hair, as if testing something and she moaned in response, forgetting about the two other bodies in the room, or the words that he’d so casually stated. Only his next words jolted her to reality.
“My authority goes beyond your imagination, but whether or not I had that kind of clout here wouldn’t have mattered, after he suggested that I introduce my nine-year-old daughter to a renowned sex club.”
He sucked in a harsh breath, along with her shocked one, as if trying to reign in her anger.
“Your mother had to prevent me from hitting him through all three floors of your house.”
“Carter—”
“If she ever tells me that he had ever laid a finger on her, Rochelle, you’ll be burying him before the end of the day,” he stated succinctly.
Rochelle shuddered, as he pressed his body against her back, fear for her child flooding through her mind. Had he ever touched her and Alisa hadn’t told her? Just like she’d been too afraid to tell her mother? She wondered. And Mom. She swallowed shakily at the thought of her mother finding out the way that she had. Oh, Mom.
He said something to the girls that had them disappearing, but she didn’t know what because her mind was too deep in the thought of how her mother was taking this. But as soon as his lips brushed against her ear, she was sucked back to the present time and space. She could only worry about one thing at a time. “And you… You are coming back with me.”
She pulled out of his hypnotizing embrace before she sold her soul to the devil and moved behind her office desk, the laptop left on the small bench. “And if I don’t want to go with you?” Rochelle demanded coldly, squaring her shoulders and holding his piercing, green eyes. He might know about their daughter, now, but that didn’t mean that she was going to give up without a fight. The air was cleared of secrets with her mother so she could move on to rebuild freely.
His face hardened, as he took in her words and her stance. “Then I will ensure that you have no contact with your son, and I will relieve you of your inadequate duty of a mother to our daughter!” He bit out as chillingly as she had delivered.
Rochelle had blanched from the mention of a son. Her lips trembled as she took in what he was saying, momentarily stunned, and then she realized that she would have had to know. “We don’t have a son, Carter, and this is Jamaica- not wherever you wheel your thunder hammer!” She hissed.
Carter took a step forward, and she instinctively shrank back; instantly, she saw her mistake: it gave him the upper hand. “Are you forgetting that this is Jamaica and I’m sure- if I can recall correctly…”
Rochelle rolled her eyes mentally; Carter had the memory of an elephant and he knew it.
“Your government grapples with everything beyond the fact that the individual has a title and stupid money behind it.”
Rochelle cringed at the truth within his statement.
“If I throw a pocket change of, say, a million US dollars… How much is that here now? Oh, roughly a hundred and twenty-five million... There would be nowhere that the law couldn’t be bent a lot for me.”
By now, Rochelle’s very plump lips were pressed very tightly together at her predicament. Slowly, seemingly collected, she pushed to her feet and tried to suppress the sudden rush of nausea. “I don’t care how many millions you will throw at the government, you are not getting my daughter,” she stated frostily.
Carter raised a brow, before he slid his hands into his pocket in a relaxed
pose. “I’m expecting you to say, ‘Not over my dead body,’ any minute now.” A smile that didn’t reach his eyes touched his lips, as she shot him a cold stare. “You keep on forgetting that I have enough resources for you to never see your son, and to claim our daughter as well,” he stated flatly, as if it was nothing new or stressful for him.
Anger caused her face to flush. “Why are you trying to confuse me into handing over Alisa to you?” She laughed cynically. “That’s the stupidest trick to pull when I’m sure I would’ve noticed if I had given birth to two children!” She snapped; he raised an immaculate brow, before reaching into his jacket’s internal breast pocket.
“That’s what you were made to think, Rochelle. Did you ever see a picture of your first ultrasound?” He questioned tersely.
She shook her head honestly. “The ink had run out on the printer,” she stated firmly, flushing from anger when he chuckled.
“When they knew that they were booked for an ultrasound that day and the patient might want a printout?” He demanded.
“It happened, Carter!” She stated, a bit less confident than her previous statement.
Carter gave her an exasperated look, before dropping a black and white image onto the desk. Tentatively, she picked up the sonogram and looked at it. She could clearly see two separate fetuses. She frowned, remembering how the doctor had turned away the monitor during the scan, so that she couldn’t see, and turned off the heartbeat monitor after she heard the first few beats, because he had claimed to have been having a blinding headache. She, on the other hand, had just been excited and scared about her fragile state. After that, the scans hadn’t seemed as important to press to see.
There were so many answers to his questions. But she couldn’t just accept that this could be a game, something to tie her up in knots until she unknowingly handed over her darling daughter. Carter couldn’t be that cruel, could he?
How would you know what a man that you knew for a handful of months before a ten-year gap can do? How can you even consider trusting his word? Reason questioned fiercely.
“I can clearly see the doubt in your face, Rochelle; how scared and uncertain you are about believing me. The date and time are on it, Rochelle, even the doctor’s signature,” he stated bitterly, bringing her eyes to his.
She threw the sonogram onto the desk angrily. “That still could be anyone’s, with you wheeling your authority,” she spat.
He shook his head. “Then you are even more clueless than I thought.” A muscle twitched in his jaw. “So ignorant for not accepting the truth that is sticking you in the eyes with how close to your face it is!” He snapped harshly, and her shoulders leveled her spine, steeling itself, her chin lifting.
“Get the fuck out, Carter!”
He shrugged and leaned more heavily on the chair across from her, almost sitting on the chair’s handle. “This isn’t a play, Rochelle. I didn’t come here just to get my daughter; I could’ve done that without coming here. Your father had been quick to attempt to sell her to the highest bidder; just as he had done with our son,” he started coldly, hatred for her father hardening the jade of his eyes. He plucked another photo from his pocket, and dropped it on her desk, this one colored.
She brought her shady hazel eyes up his green, a sarcastic gleam of mirth in them. “This is clearly you,” she stated flatly.
“That is our son, Rochelle. I can go for his birth papers in the car, but you should cut this crap now, Rochelle. You’ve lost this argument, and you need to accept the fact that you have a son,” he snapped, his anger kindling.
“I would have known at the delivery, Carter; there is where you lost me. I would have known,” she started softly.
“Are you forgetting that you blacked out after you heard a baby’s cry, because of the fragility of your body then? That cry had not come from Alisa, but our son. Alisa had gone into distress when you lost consciousness, and they had had to rush you to surgery. You have a small scar on your tummy to prove it,” he stated flatly, raising perfect brows when her color leeched. “It’s all in your hospital records, Rochelle; any fool could have retrieved them. But it also helps to talk to the people who’d been in the room.”
Could what he was saying be true? Her hand shook, as she brought it to her lips. “They told me that it was because I had begun hemorrhaging,” she whispered brokenly, her whole body beginning to shake. “But who would go through so many lengths…” Her words faltered, as her eyes sought his, and a chill ran down her spine. “How could you; how could you!?” She screamed, hysterical words beginning to spill from her lips. She hadn’t even realized that she had shrunk the space between them until her palms struck his solid chest. “How could you? I trusted you; I loved you, you horrible—!”
“Stop it, Rochelle, and please discontinue jumping to conclusions. I was just as surprised about Aeri and Alisa as you are now, but your father, and my grandfather, had been up to some demonic task. If Rafael hadn’t almost died, I would have continued in my ignorance. And you… You’re here acting all innocent.” He pushed her from near him. “You kept my daughter from me for ten years! Which sick person does that?” He spat.
“One trying to protect her child from a man who had no problem walking away when her mother needed him most!” She hissed back.
Carter ran his fingers over his face and swore venomously. “I had no recollection when I left your side, Rochelle. I was airlifted from Cornwall Regional to Spain, while I was in a damn coma- just like you.” A harsh laugh parted his lips. “It was to protect you they said. We were both too fragile to protect ourselves, much less each other.” He hid his hands in his pockets when his fingers curled into fists. “Initially, I was told that you were dead when I woke up.” He saw her pale at his words, and squashed the urge to reach for her. “I guess that they realized that it was hindering my recovery by telling me that, so they pulled me out of my mental prison by telling me that that they had mistaken another passenger for you, but by then, you wanted nothing to do with me.”
He stepped back when she reached out to him with confused sympathy.
"Carter, no one informed me that you were hurt, at all." His cold laugh had her realizing how truly stupid that sounded. "I thought that you'd just abandoned me," she whispered.
"A twenty-wheeler, with who knows how many tons, crashing into a real-life scrap of a sports car, and you expected one side to stay wholly intact? You're damned lucky that we even came out of it alive!" He swore in his native tongue, turning his back to her to stride towards a full glass window. "I figured, rather, I had hoped, that you'd have thought more logically about it than this." He sighed, the anger seemingly draining from him. This time, her hand dropped halfway its ascent, from fear of rejection, even though he was a good distance from her.
Rochelle closed her eyes as she sat on the top of her desk, his words weighing heavily on her; sinking in dreadfully. She had a son; one her father had sold like cattle to the highest bidder, just as he was now trying to sell her daughter. She could've literally, gone home and found herself childless. She looked at his tense and angry stance, realizing how stupid she was being. Carter’s a prince. He could've taken both her children without her consent, but he’d come to her first.
"I'm sorry; I'm just a bit—"
"I can't believe that after I proposed—"
Both froze as words rushed out of their mouths at the same time. Carter turned to face her once more and she sucked in a breath. He indicated that she should go ahead.
"I was just apologizing. But whatever you were saying sounded a lot more important."
Carter placed his hands in his pockets and studied the nervousness that kept flickering across her face. "I was just making an observation. It's just disappointing to know that you think so little of me even though we had exchanged how we felt about each other, and I'd asked you to become my wife." She raised a hand to interject briefly, which caused him to straighten his shoulders, as if to brace himself for what she was about to say.
"I had partial amnesia after the accident, and have only recently recalled that bit of information," she supplied simply.
"And yet, you judged me so harshly, when you couldn't even remember?" He questioned.
"My judgment grew from what I had been fed about you when I woke up!" She snapped, and his lips turned up at the corner, making her even more irritated.
"Fed by a man who you have despised almost all of your life, Rochelle. How brilliant of you," he stated sarcastically.
In anger, she moved forward to thump him on his biceps, which only drew a chuckle from him. In one very calculated move, he pinned her against the wall with his large frame.
Just as she was about to protest, the intercom sounded, but it wasn't her personal assistant.
"Chelle, you old trickster! Why did you let my husband tell me the great news, and not you?" Christine's voice boomed over the speakers and Rochelle froze. Instinctively, she tried to push Carter off so that she could silence the intercom but he held her steadily, trying to analyze her distress.
Christine was none other than her doctor's wife. Though they were friends, she was not known for her discretion. She had been scheduled for a dress fitting in a few minutes, but excitement had her arriving earlier. Rochelle had no doubt that the cat was now going to come out of the bag.
"Alisa is going to love having a baby around! Buzz me in and tell me who the lucky guy is," Christine purred from the other side of the thick, bulletproof doors.
She released a frustrated breath, when Carter's muscles stiffened, his fingers around her forearm tightening almost painfully.
"Is she saying what I think she's saying?" He questioned darkly.
Rochelle kept her eyes closed, fearful of what she might see on his face. "Yes, I'm pregnant again!"
Another slew of expletives rocked the room causing Rochelle to cringe. She wasn't going to like here on after at all.
"Buzz her in, cara, so that we can share the happy news," he bit out coldly.
"Carter—"
"I don't want to hear it, Rochelle, not even after the wedding; not until you understand what the fuck I mean to you, and what our children mean to me!" He spat.
From A Harlot To A Princess Page 17
