Stay The Night

by Parker, Ali

  I got lost in thought, jumping when I felt a pair of arms wind around my waist. Relaxing immediately when I realized it was Blake, I let my head fall back on to his shoulder. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but it doesn’t sound like you’re having a very good morning.”

  He pressed a kiss to my temple and sighed. “This is just classic Danny. He refuses to accept Dad putting me in charge of the company.”

  I frowned, poking the eggs with a spatula. “How could you refuse? Your Dad’s wide awake and told you he wanted you to take over.”

  Blake released me when the toast I put in earlier popped up in the toaster. He placed it on plates I had already gotten ready for us. “He says I’m not the owner of the company so I couldn’t relieve him of his duties. He claims he is going to continue in place since I didn’t have the authority to do what I did and he is threatening to take me to court over it.”

  Eyes growing wide, I cast a look at him over my shoulder. He was remarkably calm for a man whose brother was threatening court action. “Do you really think he’ll go through with it?”

  Blake shrugged. “Who knows? He’s on a power trip of epic proportions, he’s not going to let that power just slip away from him. I can’t do anything to stop him. I can only swing the bat to hit the ball he pitches.”

  “What are you going to do?” The last thing Blake needed now was to get wrapped up in litigation with his brother over the company. “Maybe there is something you can do to stop him.”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head as he buttered our toast. “Speaking to him won’t help. The only thing I can do is to go to my dad so we can get the paperwork finalized and he can sign the company over to me. It won’t stop Danny from instituting court proceedings if he wants to, but it will make my position stronger.”

  He slid the plates over to me. “Dad and I have been meaning to go to the lawyers together anyway, this just means we are going to have to do it sooner rather than later.”

  “Which means you’re going to have to go back to Florida immediately, aren’t you?” I knew he was going to have to leave soon, I just hadn’t realized we wouldn’t even get our weekend together.

  Blake nodded and released a deep breath. “Unfortunately.”

  “I want to come with you,” I blurted out. I told him I would be fine to do this alone and I would be, but I hadn’t seen him for a month and I wasn’t quite ready to let him go just yet.

  Plus, I wanted to support him just as much and in as meaningful a way as he wanted to do for me. If we were really going to be together and raise a child together, it meant we were partners now. Equal partners.

  I still had a bunch of days off I could take, and taking them to be with Blake felt like the best way to use them. I had enough that taking a few days now wouldn’t interfere with the time I would need to go see the doctor for my checkups.

  Blake’s lips spread into a wide grin. “I was hoping you would say that. We’re going to have to leave tonight, though. Is that too soon for you?”

  “No, I’m still only packing for one so I can be ready.” I was already mentally going through my closet, deciding what I would need to take with me.

  He came over, kissing me as he gave me my plate. “Pack everything you need for a couple of weeks, just in case. There’s a doctor in Florida we can go see while we’re there. I met him with Doctor Richards at the hospital once."

  “Weeks?” I didn’t know if I had that much vacation time. Days were one thing, weeks were another. “I’m in. I want to be there with you for all of this, but if we might be away for that long what are we going to do about the management of the hotel while I’m gone?”

  “I was planning on asking you to come with me when I had to go anyway, so I called Tiffany early this morning. She said she would be more than willing to run the hotel while we’re gone. She’s been there with all the plans you’ve been making and she’s quite confident that as long as she can get you on the phone, she’ll be fine.”

  “Tiffany?” I knew she had no aspirations to become the hotel manager. It was a surprise to me that she was willing to take on the extra work. “She doesn’t care about that kind of thing.”

  “She cares more than you think. About managing and about you, and it’s all because of you.” He told me, flashing me a knowing grin.

  A sense of relief washed over me. With my best friend at the helm, I wouldn’t have to worry about the hotel for as long as we were gone. I could trust her, and she would keep me in the loop.

  “Look at us being all domesticated,” he said, as I dished up the eggs and he got us some juice. “Making breakfast together while planning our next couple of weeks.”

  It occurred to me that any onlooker was likely to mistake us for a couple who had been together for years, the way we were with each other this morning. It was a comforting thought.

  Being with Blake had always felt right to me. Natural. I had been afraid that sharing the news would change that somehow, and make him more distant. It seemed to have done the opposite though.

  He was here, in my apartment after spending the night in my bed. We made breakfast together and were planning on leaving the state together for an undetermined amount of time. I felt closer to and move involved with him than ever before.

  “Yeah,” I smiled, accepting my juice and carrying my plate to my small dining room table. It was little more than a nook. Blake filled the space completely with his long legs and wide shoulders, but it still felt like he’d been there before. “Imagine that.”

  After breakfast, the day flew by. Blake went back to the hotel to get his things while I packed mine. He spent the rest of his time on the phone. It sounded like he was trying to get a lot of the administrative details out of the way before arriving in either Florida or New York.

  I let him do his thing, focusing on writing up things Tiffany had to remember to do and the events we had coming up this week. I knew she wouldn’t let me down.

  It felt like only minutes had passed when Blake came to tell me it was time to go. We hopped in a cab which took us to a private air strip I had never been to before.

  “Is this where we are flying from?” I asked Blake, seeing only one plane on the tarmac. Surely that couldn’t be ours.

  Blake nodded and pointed at the plane. “That is the company jet. I called the pilot when you agreed to come with me this morning.”

  Walking up the short flight of stairs onto the plane, I couldn’t believe my eyes. The closest I’d ever come to a private jet was watching television. In real life, it was more luxurious and opulent than I ever would have imagined.

  Inside were what looked like two well-appointed living areas and a workspace complete with a desk, multiple plug points and a printer. There was a bar off to the back of the plane next to a door that led to the bathroom.

  ”I can’t even believe this. It’s incredible. I’ve never flown on a private plane before,” I breathed, turning to see Blake grinning a couple of steps behind me as he watched me take it all in.

  “I usually fly commercial, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way this time. My favorite person and my baby have to be protected.”

  Chapter 49

  Blake

  Being on the company’s jet with Aston was like seeing it for the first time and through entirely different eyes. She was like a kid in a candy store. Collapsing onto one of the seats, she kicked her feet up and lay back with a grin on her face. “Now this is luxury.”

  “It’s pretty nice.” I looked around, shifting my feet on the thick carpet. Dad liked to travel in style and the jet showed it. The finishes were nothing but the best, and the thing had all the creature comforts a workaholic could ever need, including seats that could swivel to have meetings with up to sixteen people, an antique mahogany desk, and a bar that catered to every taste.

  Aston jumped up from the seat and went to explore the rest of the plane. “This is what you call pretty nice? It’s spectacular.”

  She stuck her head into the bat
hroom and reappeared a minute later. “You have heated towel rails on a plane? That’s insane. It’s not only pretty nice. Pretty nice is when you get an empty seat next to you in coach class on a commercial plane. This is amazing.”

  The last few times I was on the jet I didn’t recall even taking the time to notice who the hostess was, never mind looking around at the plane itself. It was hard to imagine how I’d come to take it all for granted, but evidently I had.

  Aston was right. The jet really was something else. “Okay, you got me. It is kind of awesome.”

  Smiling wide, she shrugged playfully and flashed me a wink. “Well, you know, kind of.”

  From the bathroom, she shot to the bar and looked around, sighing. “I’m not even a big drinker and there are so many things in here I want to try. Is that real Limoncello?”

  I nodded. Dad had a thing for buying liqueur from the countries he visited, and then ordering the stuff in if he liked it. “From the Gulf of Naples, if memory serves. Dad was there a couple of months ago to scout new locations.”

  Aston gaped at me, shaking her head. “Who are you people?”

  “Blake McAllen.” I stepped forward, giving her a mock bow. “I thought we’d been over that, given how you’re pregnant with my baby and all.”

  “Oh right.” She pressed her finger to the side of her mouth, on the verge of bursting out with laughter. “I keep forgetting you’re one of the important people around here. Jets are a great reminder that you’re one of the somebodies, you know that?”

  I reached for her hand and tugged her gently out of the bar area, dropping a kiss on the top of her head. “You are definitely a somebody.”

  “Excuse me, sir?” An air hostess dressed in the company navy blue stepped out of the cockpit, her voice crisp and professional. “We’ve been cleared for take-off, sir. Would you and your guest please take your seats?”

  “Of course.” Having just realized I hadn’t noticed who my last attendant on the plane was, I was determined not to be that entitled asshole again. So, I sought out her name badge. “Thank you, Emma. We’ll get settled.”

  Emma nodded and went to the cockpit to take her seat for takeoff. Aston and I took our seats, buckling ourselves in. Her eyes were wide with excitement. “This is absolutely incredible. Thank you for letting me come along.”

  “Letting you come?” I asked, disbelieving. Clearly, she didn’t understand how much it meant to me that she was willing to take leave from work to come with me. “I would’ve thrown you over my shoulder like a caveman to have you with me, if that was what it took.”

  “Really?” She flipped her hair over her shoulder. “I would like to have seen that.”

  “You’re going to have to wait nine months to see it,” I told her, making a mental note to read up on what was and what wasn’t safe during pregnancy. “Wait, we can have sex while you’re pregnant, right?”

  Cracking up, she squeezed my hand gently. “You should see the look on your face right now. You look horrified.”

  “That’s not an answer.” I grumbled.

  Between giggles, she nodded. “Unless a doctor tells us we can’t for some reason, we’re good to go.”

  A relieved sigh fell from my lips. “I’m just saying, it would’ve been a fucking long year if we couldn’t.”

  “Without the sex?” She cracked up again. “But yeah, it would have.”

  The engines of the plane started whining beneath us, not nearly as loud as they were in commercial airlines. Aston fell silent, pressing her face to the window as we started to take off. “Do you have any idea how lucky you are to have grown up with stuff like this? I mean, I know boys have a thing about their toys, but this is a toy not many boys get to have.”

  “True. I hadn’t thought much about it for a long time, but having you here reminded me.” Aston reminded me of a lot of things, like what it felt like to really be alive. My memories before she came into my life were hazy now. Almost like they’d been a dream I was waking up from.

  It wasn’t even just the big things that had changed now that she was in my life. It was smaller things too, like how she made me realize everything I’d been taking for granted, simply by being excited about something I hadn’t really noticed in a long time.

  My world was a lot more exciting now that Aston was in it. Before her, everything was a little bland. Just a touch boring. It wasn’t like that anymore.

  Bringing me out of my thoughts, she pointed at the roads below. “It all seems so small from up here, doesn’t it? I didn’t even notice it on my last flight. I wasn’t near a window and there was so much people watching to do in the cabin, I didn’t notice.”

  “The lack of screaming babies does hold a certain appeal,” I told her with a smile.

  “Not for long,” she said, in a sing-song voice. “Soon enough, there’ll be a screaming baby right here with you.”

  “Yeah, but he’ll be mine so it won’t be as annoying.” I’d heard somewhere that everything your own baby did was cute, even the stuff that irritated the crap out of you when it wasn’t yours.

  “He?” Her eyebrows lifted. “What if it’s a she?”

  I lifted my shoulders. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll be happy either way.”

  “You will?” She asked quietly.

  I nodded. “I will, I promise. It all just needs to sink in a little.”

  “Okay.” She sat back in her chair, looking around the cabin again now that we were in the air. After taking a few minutes to absorb her surroundings, she faced me with a serious expression. “You know, I never wanted money. I just wanted enough to get by so I wouldn’t have to worry like my parents did.”

  “You’ve done extremely well for yourself, Aston. Not many people can say that at your age.” To have worked her way up the way she had took strength and determination not every person possessed.

  “Yeah,” she waved her hand around the cabin. “But as much as I never cared about money, this really is something to envy. Most people couldn’t even dream of something like this.”

  “Money will come and go. It’s everywhere.” I found myself repeating what my mom had told me not so long ago. It actually reminded me of something Dad said to me just before I left for California and met Aston.

  At the time, I thought it was the rambling of an overworked, older man. It made sense to me now though. “Relationships aren’t everywhere, not the good ones anyway. That is something really worth holding onto. When Dad said that to me recently, I didn’t really understand. I thought he was just overworked and didn’t want me to end up the same way. At the time, I thought he was trying to talk me into settling down in Florida.”

  “Would you ever settle down in Florida?” She asked the question, but there was no fear or condemnation in her tone. Only curiosity.

  “You’re not afraid of having to move there if I do? Or of me asking you to give up your job to move there with me?”

  A soft smile warmed her eyes. “I’ve always thought of the job I had now as a step on the ladder. My plan was always to work my way up to the head office, so no, I’m not afraid. It’s where you might be based. If you wanted me to, I would consider moving.”

  “I think that’s exactly what my dad was trying to say about finding a relationship more important than your work. If you and the baby were to stay in California, I would do everything in my power to be there instead of Florida.”

  Contemplative, she gazed into my eyes, and asked, “You’ve come a long way since that conversation with your father, haven’t you?”

  “Yeah, I really have.” I hadn’t even realized how far until just now. The thought of having a baby would’ve scared the shit out of me then, it was different now. I was different. “I’m sorry for not reacting the way I should have when you told me you were pregnant. I could’ve handled it better. I should have known you would see right through me when I tried to tell you I was okay.”

  Sincerity shone brightly from her green eyes, lighting them with a gentle glow. “Hone
stly, I’m just glad you didn’t leave. A part of me was terrified you would. It is difficult news to get when you’re not expecting it and are so unprepared to hear it. It would have been really easy for you to blame work and take off, never to be heard from again.”

  “I would never do that,” I assured her again. It horrified me that even a tiny part of her ever thought I might have done that. The strength and courage it took for her to be upfront with me about it despite her own fears were astronomical. The woman had bigger balls than most of the men I knew.

  “I’m in this with you, Aston. I will never leave you or our baby.”

  Emma chose that tender moment to walk into the cabin carrying a tray with two glasses of champagne on it. “Can I interest you in a drink?”

  “We’re fine.” I said curtly, eager to get back to the moment Aston and I was sharing. It felt big, like something I had to make sure Aston understood once and for all. I didn’t want her carrying my baby and thinking I had one foot out the door. “Would you mind giving us some privacy, Emma?”

  “Of course, sir.” She bowed out immediately, shutting the cockpit door behind her.

  Turning my gaze back to Aston’s, I leaned forward and kissed her deeply. My hand slid into her hair at the nape of her neck. “Where were we?”

  “You were saying something about never leaving me,” she said, her breath ghosting across my lips.

  I smiled. “Aston, I need you to hear me when I tell you that I won’t ever leave you. I need you to believe it with everything you’ve got, because it’s true.”

  “Just how badly do you need me to believe you?” she asked, with a hint of flirtation in her voice. It was almost like she was asking me to show her instead.

  “Do you think you could take it if I showed you?” I was already rising from my seat. Tempted as I was to take her right there, I didn’t want Emma walking in on us. Asking her for privacy didn’t guarantee she wouldn’t come back into the cabin at all.

  Aston lifted an eyebrow and stood up, taking my hand. “Right now?”