Stay The Night

by Parker, Ali

  Our tongues twisted and tangled together. Aston’s hands twined into my hair and gripped it hard, like she was trying to keep me against her.

  We were like two fires raging, coming closer and closer together to meet and combust in a giant ball of pent-up passion. Our kiss was fierce, hungry, filled with longing that broke me apart before it started putting me back together again.

  When we finally came up for air, she smiled against my lips. “You sure seem happy to see me.”

  “Ditto.” I kissed the tip of her nose and then ran mine down its length. “I missed you, too. How are you?”

  Something in her expression faltered, but it was gone in a flash. “I’m surviving. Doing much better now that you’re here.”

  “Yeah? That makes two of us,” I told her. When she stepped out of the circle of my arms, I realized that she looked a little tired. Stunning, but tired. Her big, green eyes were a little red and there were darkish smudges beneath them. “Are you okay? You didn’t tell me that you haven’t been sleeping.”

  “I’m okay,” she said, but then her eyes dropped to the ground. “I just, I mean—it’s been a long month. A lot of things have happened.”

  “You’re telling me. It’s been crazy,” I said, watching carefully. She had taken a few more steps away from me and seemed to be avoiding my eyes now. Looking everywhere but at me, she walked to the window and gazed out at the ocean.

  “We need to talk, Blake,” she said. My heart plummeted. I’d never been at the receiving end of that particular line before, but I knew it wasn’t good.

  “Okay, let me order us up some wine from room service and then we can go talk out on the balcony.” I was about to put in the call when she stopped me.

  “I’m okay with just water, thank you.”

  Setting down the receiver, I grabbed two bottles of water from the mini fridge and wrapped my arms around her from behind. Her hair was soft against my lips as I pressed a kiss to the back of her head and lifted my arm in front of her to hand her the water.

  “I’m sorry I’ve been traveling so much. I wish I could tell you that the end was in sight, but it’s not. I’m going to have to keep going like this for at least the next couple of months.” I knew the circumstances weren’t ideal to try and have a relationship, but I was hoping she would bear with me until I got the shit Danny caused all sorted out.

  The company and my family needed me right now, but I could try to make it out here over the weekends more often. Aston turned around to face me before I could make her that promise though.

  “I understand all the traveling and how busy you’ve been,” she said. “Truth be told, even if you had been in California all month, I doubt we would have been able to spend that much time together. Things have been crazy here as well.”

  “I know, and I’m so proud of you.” I had been planning on keeping the news to myself until we could celebrate properly over dinner with a bottle of champagne, but it felt like the time was right to tell her now. “I have some great news.”

  She looked surprised but distracted at the same time. “Yeah? So do I, but let’s hear yours first.”

  I was curious to know what her news was, but I knew she was going to be positively exhilarated by mine. “I got the new branch statistics yesterday and you guys have climbed the ranks so much that you’ve even got New York beat now.”

  Aston’s lips curled up and her eyes widened. “You wouldn’t joke about something like that, would you?”

  I shook my head. “You’ve turned this into one of our top branches, Aston. I would never joke about that. You’ve worked too hard for it.”

  She let out a happy little squeal and threw her arms around my neck, pulling me in for another hug. I held her close, breathing her in until I felt something wet against my neck.

  Alarmed, I leaned back and looked down at her to find silent tears streaming down her cheeks. “Are those happy tears?”

  I sure as hell hoped they were. I’d just given her what I thought would be the best news. Tears were the last thing I was prepared for.

  She tilted her head from side to side. “I don’t know. You’re going to have to tell me.”

  I stepped forward, taking her cheeks in my hands and wiping away her warm tears with my thumbs. “What do you mean? I think it’s time you tell me what you wanted to talk about.”

  My heart pounded like a bass drum as I watched her take a deep breath, looking like she was gathering the courage to tell me whatever it was she had to say. A foreboding feeling bloomed in my chest. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.

  “Blake, I don’t really know how to tell you this so I’m just going to say it. Earlier this week, I was feeling sick, so I went home early and I, uh, I took a pregnancy test. It was positive. I took three tests actually, they were all positive. I’m pregnant.”

  Chapter 47

  Blake

  Life rarely surprised me. So far, the curve balls it had thrown at me were pretty limited—the day Mom left us, and a couple of weeks ago when my brother called to tell me about my dad having a stroke.

  But now this? I blinked.

  Tears glistened in Aston’s eyes, causing the hope in them to shine brightly. She wrung her hands, waiting for my reaction.

  There were probably a million things I should do, should say. None of them came to mind. I was completely blank. All I could think of was that one word. The word that changed everything.

  Pregnant.

  My heart hammered in my chest. Before I could stop myself, I blurted out. “Are you sure?”

  One tear escaped from each eye as she nodded. “I did three tests. The symptoms are all there. I’m tired, nauseous. My body is achy.”

  It sounded like the flu to me, but what did I know? This was one area where I was flying blind. What I did know was that the tests could be wrong. They gave false positives all the time. “Have you been to the doctor?”

  Releasing a quiet sigh, she wiped her eyes as she shook her head. “Not yet. I only did the tests a few days ago. I wanted to talk to you before I did anything else.”

  “Okay,” I nodded, taking her hand to pull her into my arms again. Breathing deeply, I repeated, “Okay. That’s okay. You’re going to be fine.”

  Whatever I felt right now didn’t really matter. My mind was racing so fast I didn’t even know what I was truly feeling about being a father. What mattered was showing Aston that I supported her and would be there for her.

  My feelings had to wait. It wasn’t a problem. I honestly didn’t know what they were anyway, and I had no clue where to start sifting through them. Fatherhood wasn’t something I’d ever really thought about.

  Hell, I didn’t even have a house because I was never in one place long enough to justify it. Fatherhood was a much bigger commitment than property if you wanted to do it right, which I definitely did. My Dad was my rock growing up and I knew how much it stung to have one parent missing, I would never be able to do that to a child.

  But—fuck. A child? I didn’t know anything about babies. They were tiny bundles of mystery to me. I couldn’t recall ever even holding one. And what if it was a girl? The youngest girl I’d ever held was fourteen—and I was only fifteen.

  Fuck.

  I released Aston and ran both hands through my hair, scrubbing them down my face. A deep breath later, I forced my mouth into a wide smile. “This is actually good news, Aston. It’s great.”

  She arched an eyebrow, clearly not believing me. “Great, huh?”

  I was trying my best to act excited, but judging from Aston’s expression, my acting wasn’t up to scratch. Trying harder, I put my hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. “It is great. I mean, how do you feel? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, “but I’ve had a few days to process the news. You haven’t said much, though.”

  Turning away from her, I walked to the window and amped up my smile before facing her again. “I’m okay. Fine. Just shocked. I’m excited. This is exciting n
ews.”

  As the words slipped from my tongue, my hands started trembling. Great. Now my body was rebelling against me. I flexed my fingers, then shoved my hands in my pockets. “Really, I’m happy. I want you to know I’m here for you.”

  “Thanks,” she frowned, hesitating before she approached me. She walked slowly, like she was afraid of spooking me. When she reached me, she put her hands on my hips. “Blake?”

  “Yeah?” My throat was dry. My voice cracked a little. I cleared my throat. “What’s up?”

  “Something is wrong,” she said quietly, never letting her eyes stray from mine. “What’s wrong? I know this is big news and I know we never talked about kids or anything.”

  “Nothing is wrong, I’m fine. Really. Excited.” The words nearly choked me.

  I needed a drink. Glancing down at my watch, I wondered if it was still too early. It was ‘five o’clock somewhere’ right? Besides, with this kind of news, surely I was entitled to one drink. Or one bottle. I wasn’t planning on counting.

  But then I looked at Aston. The shock must have been far worse for her. She couldn’t have a drink. I wasn’t sure what the protocol was, but being supportive probably meant I couldn’t have one either.

  Fuck.

  She watched me patiently, a small smile forming on her face as these thoughts raced through my jumbled mind. “Sure. You’re excited. I got it. Do people usually go super pale when they’re that excited?”

  Pale? I was pale. Fuck. I didn’t get pale. Shaking my head, I sighed and took her hand, brushing my thumb over her knuckles. “I’m sorry. I am excited, or I will be. I just need time. This is—”

  “Big?” She finished for me. When I nodded, she released my hand and walked over to the bed, patting the spot beside her. “It’s huge. We didn’t plan for it to happen. You don’t need to be a hundred percent okay. It’s life changing.”

  Nodding, I went to the bed and parked my butt next to her. She rested her hand on my thigh and her head on my shoulder. “Want to talk about it?”

  I didn’t really. But Aston deserved the truth. She had to be freaked out enough already. Being all macho about it and refusing to talk and tell her where my head was at would only make it a thousand times worse for her. I couldn’t do that to her.

  Apparently, she was carrying my child. Stress was supposed to be bad for expectant mothers, I remembered that from sex-ed class or somewhere. “I can’t imagine bringing a child into all of this. With all that’s going on, even if I had thought about having kids and we had decided to have them, now wouldn’t have been the right time.”

  “Your family is in turmoil,” she stated. It was a fact, not a question. She didn’t wait for me to answer before she continued. “It would have been preferable for this to happen when everything with your family was sorted out and we were more stable in our own relationship.”

  There. That was what I was feeling. She just summarized it much more perfectly than I was able to under the circumstances. Fuck, I couldn’t even pinpoint it exactly until she said it. “I’m at odds with my brother. I don’t even know where I stand with him at the moment, but it’s not a good place. I have a mother I don’t even know suddenly back in my life, and I just almost lost my father.”

  “You’re also taking over a company you never expected would become yours, and having to fix some very public damage that was done to it,” she noted. “I get it, Blake. I really do. It’s okay to be overwhelmed by it all. Frankly, I’m surprised you’ve held up as well as you have even without this news to top it all off.”

  Overwhelmed. It wasn’t something I’d felt often, but it sure as hell was what I was feeling right now. I took her hand and squeezed. “I’m in awe of you, you know. This couldn’t have been easy for you to find out either, but here you are trying to get me out of my head.”

  She smiled. “To be fair, I’ve had a couple more days to wrap my head around it. Plus, it wasn’t hard to know what would have been going through yours. There’s a lot on your plate at the moment.”

  “I just don’t want any child of mine to have to go through all this,” I admitted. It was okay for me to be going through it, but an innocent child—I didn’t even want to think about it.

  Aston turned her head from my shoulder to plant a kiss on my jaw. “The fact that you understand and acknowledge that is exactly what will make you a terrific father. If you want to be—but you’re under no obligation to me. I want you to know that.”

  “Under no—wait, what?” I trailed off, almost unable to believe what I’d just heard. It dawned on me then that this was what she was afraid of—that I would run and leave her alone in this.

  Sitting back, I lifted her chin with one hand and looked deep into her eyes while gripping her thigh with the other. “Listen to me. This baby is mine as much as it is yours. I would never, ever abandon you or the baby. Okay? It’s just going to take me some time to get used to it, that’s all.”

  “You have nine months—give or take—depending on how far along we are,” she said, leaning forward to kiss my lips. “Take all the time you need.”

  “I want to be there for you both,” I told her, already trying to figure out the best way to make that happen. The next few months involved a lot of traveling for me. I was expected in New York in a matter of days and I didn’t know how long I was going to have to stay there. “I have to go to New York next week though, there’s an urgent matter there I need to take care of.”

  “I understand,” she said. I watched her closely for any sign of disappointment, but there was none. She looked strangely peaceful, serene even.

  I thought about the week ahead of me, of what waited for me in New York. But when I looked at Aston, I knew I didn’t want to be away from her just yet. I wanted to be there for all the big moments if I could, holding her hand and having her hold mine. Going to the doctor for the first time was one of those moments.

  Work could wait. It would always be there. “I’m going to put it off so we can go to the doctor together.”

  Her eyes widened. “You don’t have to do that. You have a multinational company to run, Blake. Your dad is out of action and your brother isn’t talking to you. I know you’re needed there right now.”

  “Yeah, but you need me, too. You and the baby take precedence over work. You have to.” I always promised myself I would be a present father, not just a paycheck or a figurehead. It wasn’t necessarily a conscious decision, since I’d never really thought about kids, but growing up I always looked at the dads who were around and promised myself I’d be like them.

  Aston sat back on the bed, crossing her legs and leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. “I’m okay, Blake. Really. I would tell you if I wasn’t. I can do this on my own for now until things get settled with the company. We can keep talking on the phone and Skyping, I’ll video call you from the doctor’s office. We can make a plan so you can be in both places at once.”

  I brought a hand to the nape of her neck and kissed her forehead, bumping our noses together. “I want to be there with you and for you. This is what I want, Aston.”

  She smiled against my lips. “Okay, if that’s what you want, we’ll work something out.”

  Bringing her mouth to mine, she twined her hands into my hair and kissed me. As her soft lips moved with mine, I felt the anxiety seeping out of my body. The longer we kissed, the more the anxiety subsided.

  For now.

  Chapter 48

  Aston

  I woke up lazily, stretching like a cat on my bed. After our talk yesterday, Blake came home with me and spent the night. I knew the news had come as a shock to him and for a moment or two, I thought he was going to deny the baby was his or just take off.

  A lot of guys would have done that. I didn’t need experience with men to know that many in his situation would have bolted.

  But not Blake. When I confronted him about his feelings, he was honest. I appreciated that more than he could ever know. It wasn’t like a baby was part of my
plan either, but at least my life was slightly more settled right now than his was.

  I had a home, a job that didn’t require travel, a city I lived in. He had none of those things. Okay, he happened to have billions of dollars and a company, but a baby fit into my life much more smoothly than it did his right now.

  The maternity benefits at the McAllen Group were decent, as I learned when I did some homework right after I found out I was pregnant. Maybe it was denial or maybe I was still in shock, but I was surprisingly calm about everything.

  After I had cried it out. Multiple times.

  But then I put on my big girl panties and got on with things. The first and biggest hurdle was telling Blake. If he had reacted differently to the news, I doubted I would have been as okay as I was.

  I could live with him being away though. Travel was as much a part of his job as staying in one location was mine. As long as I knew he was still out there, thinking about me—us—from afar and coming back whenever he could, I would deal just fine.

  When I opened my eyes and started coming to, I realized I could hear Blake talking in the living room. There were no other voices, so I assumed he was on the phone.

  He sounded tense and upset. “Do what you have to do and I’ll do what I have to do.”

  There was silence as he listened, then a string of curses. “Bring it on, big brother. You can huff and puff as much as you want, but you don’t have a leg to stand on.”

  There was a quiet simmer in his voice. A cutting edge to his tone that belied his position at the company and confidence in what he was saying.

  Yikes! I was glad I wasn’t on the other end of that line.

  Deciding to do what I could to make his morning a little better, I swung my legs off the bed and went to make breakfast. Blake was still seething in the other room when I cracked some eggs into the pan trying to mind my own business, watching as the whites began to bubble gently.