by Mj Fields
She smiles. “We eat it because it makes him happy.”
I hook my ankle around her chair leg under the table and pull it over toward me. Then I lean in and whisper, “I eat because it makes you—”
“To Pierre!” she all but yells, raising her glass.
Oliver, Maisie, and Natasha look confused, but they raise a glass anyway. “To Pierre.”
In Maisie’s room, we are all on the couch, watching a movie that both she and Natasha decided on, Sense and Sensibility. Maisie is between Angela and Natasha, and Oliver and I are both pretty fucking bored. Maisie made us read the book.
I’m sure there was a lesson in there. I’m sure it had everything to do with coming from nothing and love conquering all.
I lean forward and smile at her. “Lesson learned.”
“I couldn’t be happier for you. You did good, Bass.” She smiles at me then at Angela. “Very well indeed.”
“Now, if you could work on this guy.” I thumb toward Oliver.
“Oh, he’s well on his way.” She snickers.
When Maisie dozes off, I notice Natasha doing the same.
“Do we have rooms picked out for them?”
“Of course.”
Angela leads us all up the stairs. She gives Oliver the room she was in, and then we walk to the west side and show Natasha hers.
Natasha smiles. “Unreal, Mom. This is unreal.”
“Isn’t it?” Angela smiles as hugely back at her.
Natasha looks at me. “I’m sure she liked you before she knew you were loaded, syphilis guy.”
“I don’t doubt that. If I had, that would have disappeared when I learned she was just as loaded.”
“What?” Natasha laughs like it’s a big joke.
Angela looks at me.
“I didn’t tell her everything.” I promise Angela. “Some things aren’t my business.”
“What is he talking about?” Natasha asks her mom.
Angela looks pale. I realize she’s worried that Natasha will wonder why Jean did what he did.
And some things I never want her to worry about at all, I think to myself.
I tell Natasha about Jean. Well, everything except his relationship with her mother. I tell her how I acted and how ashamed I am now, knowing what I do. And I tell her that he had every reason not to trust I wouldn’t sell off his company. In fact, I had planned to do just that.
I stop when I see tears in her eyes, but she insists, “Go on.”
“He split the shares so that his company and the people who worked for him wouldn’t lose the dream he created, one built on his love for my mother.”
“That’s kind of beautiful.” She smiles down at her feet then looks up. “Their love story should be told.”
I nod.
“No, really, it should.”
I smile and nod again.
“It’s epic.”
“Better than The Notebook?”
“Yeah.” She smiles. “But tragically so.”
“Not everyone’s cup of tea,” Angela whispers. “Not a typical happy ever after.”
“It should still be told.”
“Then tell it. In your work. Next year’s line. Tell the story of my mother.”
She nods. “I’d be honored.”
After a few moments of quiet, I laugh, and they both look at me.
“Natasha, you completely missed the part where you and your mother are filthy rich.”
She smirks, reaches into her pocket, and then pulls out my watch. “Money doesn’t mean a thing. People do.”
When she hands it back to me, I look at it. “I thought—”
“You thought wrong. My ten-dollar flea market find served its purpose. That’s a Rolex. I’m not crazy.”
After Maisie is settled in, and the overnight nurse, the one we plan to pass off as a housekeeper so Maisie doesn’t feel out of place and act out, like she did in the hospital, we head up to the master bedroom.
I look around the room and laugh when I see the sign over the bed that says, “Welcome To The Hamptons.” The entire room has a beach vibe.
“This is fucking perfect.” I lift her up, spin her around, and laugh.
When see wraps her legs around me and kisses me, I walk over to the bed.
There’s a shark pillow on the white bedding.
A shark pillow.
Shark Week.
“Let’s fuck in the shower.”
“Okay …?” She looks confused.
“White bedding,” I whisper.
“What?” She laughs.
“It could end up looking like a shark attack.” I wink.
She still looks perplexed.
“Natasha said something; I suppose to warn me off from wanting to bang her mom. She said it was Shark Week.”
“No, that’s …” She unwraps her legs and starts counting on her fingers. Then she shakes away the confusion and begins again. When she finally looks up at me, she looks shocked.
“You okay?”
“You said you had a vasectomy, right?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Then I bet it’s just stress. It happens.”
“Thank God.” I lift her up. “Resume the position, Captain.”
She wraps her legs around me, and I kiss her as I walk her over to the bed.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Angela
I woke to coffee, a kiss, and a brown paper bag with a pregnancy test inside it. I sipped the coffee, took the kiss, and threw the bag at him before telling him to get out.
Of all those layers in his eyes, of all the different shades of chocolate, I had never seen one matching the brown bag.
Guilt. It was the look of guilt.
When he didn’t leave, I stormed into the bathroom, bag in hand. When he tried to open the door, I told him he better think again. When he left me alone, which quite frankly shocked me, further confirming his guilt, I peed on the stick.
Now standing in the bathroom, I look in the mirror. There is no way this happening. I’m forty years old. Four. Zero. And he’s supposed to be fixed, for the love of God!
I look at my phone. Four more minutes. Four. Minutes.
When the door is opened, I am fully prepared to let him have it, but when I see Natasha, I immediately want to cry.
“Mom? What’s …? What’s …? Is Maisie …? Oh God, I just met her. I thought … Wow, all this and a sober grandma and …” She stops when her eyes catch on something.
I look back and see the test.
She looks back up at me. “That must have been one heck of a kiss.”
I laugh, cry, and hug her. What else can I do?
“Do you love him, Mom?”
“Right now?” I sniff and step back.
“Yes, right now.”
I nod. “It’s terrifying trusting your heart to someone again. But he … He just …” I look at Natasha. “He makes me believe in fairy tales for the very first time in my life.”
“Then, why are you sad? And why isn’t he in here with you?”
“He’s fixed.” I grab a tissue and blow my nose.
She holds up the stick. “He should ask for a refund.”
“I can’t look.” I sniff back tears as the door flies open and Bass walks in.
“I can.”
“Get out,” I nearly beg.
He looks at the stick then at Natasha. She nods her head, and I cry.
She walks over and hugs me. Then he hugs me from behind. And as upset as I am, I need them both.
“Did you lie to her?” Natasha asks Bass.
“No, of course not.” He kisses the back of my head. “Ang?”
“Not now.”
Natasha moves away and looks at her phone, reading something then sighing. “Did you …?”
“Did I what?” Bass asks.
“Go for your follow-up?”
He doesn’t say anything.
“With your sample?” she asks.
I look back at him. “Did y
ou jerk-off in a cup, Bass?”
“Angela …” he sighs. “I was—”
“Oh, my God,” Natasha groans. “I am suffering the worst case of secondary embarrassment for you right now.”
He laughs. “Would it have been better to say yes, I jerked off in a cup?”
“It would have been best had you followed the doctor’s advice.” Natasha covers her face. “Oh, Bass. Bass, Bass, Bass.”
“Look, I can’t defend myself because my behavior was indefensible.” He looks at me, eyes smiling, but he’s trying to hide it. “But damn, I got you pregnant.” Now he smiles. “I got you so fucking pregnant, Ang.”
His excitement shocks me.
“Aw, Mom, he’s cute. Can we keep him?” She pouts.
“No choice now.” He lifts me up and kisses me.
“My daughter—”
“You can do better than that.” She laughs.
“You bet your ass I can.”
He kisses me softly, adoringly. He kisses me like he has from the moment our lips first touched. He kisses me like he loves me.
When I hear Natasha croon, “Aw …” I know without a doubt that everything that seemed wrong is right.
“Who are you texting?” I ask Natasha as she, Maisie, and I sit on the couch.
“Autumn, your best friend, the one who is going crazy over some guy but doesn’t want to burden you with it.”
“Burden me?”
She looks at me. “Mom, you do have an awful lot going on, you know.”
I laugh. “When it rains, it pours.”
She smirks. “But it’s pouring kisses.”
“It is.”
“Impregnating kisses.” She giggles
Maisie sits forward. “What kind of kisses?”
Natasha and I look at one another, not saying a thing.
“Bastien!” Maisie yells.
He runs into the room, sliding across the floor, which makes him look his age for once.
“Do you have something to tell me?” She points to the ottoman, and he sits.
“Like …?” He looks at me.
I scrunch up my face.
“Like Angela and I are …” He pauses, and I look at Maisie, who is smiling from ear to ear. He smiles back. “Pregnant?”
She sits straight up and slaps her hand to her leg. “Thank you, Lord! I have grand-babies!” She squeezes Natasha’s hand then reaches for his. “I have grand-babies.”
He leans in to hug her. The pride in his smile, the love he has for her, it melts my heart.
“That means you need to get to work on physical therapy so you can hold him.”
“Or her.” She laughs. “Or them.”
“Oh no.” I laugh. “One. Just one. And we wait three more months before spreading our joy outside these walls.”
I look at Maisie, “Three months, okay?”
She nods. “Three months.”
It’s been two months since I found out I was having a baby. Bass’s baby. In that time, Natasha has been here every weekend, the conservatory has become like an office, and we have had some of the seamstresses from de la Porte Paris come on weekends.
Seeing Natasha grow in self-confidence even more, I know that has everything to do with Bass. He was right; she has such an eye for detail. Her pieces on paper were beautiful, but hanging on mannequins, they are exquisite.
Natasha’s winter line, although behind the typical timeframe for winter release, has caught the attention of many. Department stores in NYC, LA, Paris, and London are already buzzing about the eighteen-year-old fashionista who is going to turn the fashion world upside down.
It’s a lot of pressure for her, but Bass was right when he whispered to me one night as I watched her work well into the midnight hours, “You taught her right. Let her do her thing.”
When Davis found out, he was angry that we hadn’t told him. The truth is, we were too busy with life, being present, just as he had been for years.
When Bass sat next to me on the FaceTime call, making his presence known, he saw him, and he coward.
Before the call ended, Bass told him that in an effort to be transparent because his daughter was involved, and not that I owed him a thing, that he and I were together. Davis’s face turned nearly purple when he nodded and nearly choked on a, “Congratulations.”
When the call ended, something came over me and, as per my recent norm, I became emotional. As for Bass’s norm, he comforted me with a hug and said, “Tell me why you’re upset.”
“It saddens me. I have never wished him ill, no matter how much angst and pain he caused, yet he can’t be happy for us.”
“People who aren’t happy will never be happy for others.”
Reason nine thousand and ninety-nine our gap in age doesn’t bother me, he is wise beyond years.
Oliver is in New York full-time, but he also flies in every couple weeks to see Maisie.
Bass says, since coming here, she seems to have found a new zeal for life.
Because I’m trying to ensure I don’t get as big as a house, the entire family is eating very healthy. Not that I didn’t before, but now, now it’s even more important. I want to hold Natasha’s children, and I want to hold the one in my belly as well. I also want to be with him always, by his side, in his arms, under him, over him. He has given me a new zest for life. He makes me feel young again.
Since things have become a contained sort of chaos, Autumn and I are chatting more. I’m so glad. I have missed her.
She’s coming here until the line releases, and hopefully, for longer. I know as soon as she gets here, I will have to tell her my news. I’m actually excited to tell her. I’m also excited to make her my assistant, but I will do that in person. It should make things easier for her and Oliver, Bass’s assistant in New York, who is doing the job I once did alone. And Oliver will be able to be here for Maisie more often.
I’m also excited to tell her—hell, I would shout it from the rooftop if I knew it would reach all the women in the world—that I was wrong, that yes, true love, the one that gave inspiration to every author who penned a story about a princess and a prince, a hero and a heroine, falling in love, must have seen it somewhere or felt it themselves to inspire it, is real.
When I suggested a party be hosted here so we could share the beauty with all who helped make it so, Bass shook his head no.
“It may be selfish, but I want it to be for just us, just my family.”
I agreed.
Maisie, Natasha, Oliver, Bass, and myself celebrated Christmas Eve by attending church and eating a wonderful dinner that I insisted on cooking. After everyone goes to bed and after Bass exhausts me and himself in our bedroom, I still can’t sleep.
Downstairs, I walk around the once cold mansion, taking in all its splendor. Bass and Natasha overdid themselves with the decorating in the most magnificent way, while Maisie and I made all her favorite cookies and candies. Pierre even joined us.
Standing in Maisie’s wing, the true heart of the home, I look up at the picture of Jean and Elle Mae, the one Bass hung. That’s when I feel arms wrap around me from behind.
I’m not startled nor spooked. I know who it is. It’s always him.
He touches his soft lips to my neck in light pecks that trail upward. He catches my earlobe between his teeth as he massages my belly with a feather light gentleness.
“I woke up alone.”
“I couldn’t sleep.” I lean back and turn, seeking his lips.
He kisses me softly, almost lazily. I enjoy any kiss this man gives me.
“If Santa Clause sees you, he’ll turn around and not come back.”
Smiling, I turn and look up at him in the soft glow of the tree lights. “I think he would.”
“I bet you’re right, but just in case”—he takes my hand—“come with me.”
I follow him through the hallway, through the kitchen, and by the door, he stops and kneels.
“Put these on for me?”
I look down
and see my red Louboutins. “I wondered where they were.”
“Never far,” he says as I push my feet into them, stands and grabs my sweater off the hook by the door, and drapes it over my shoulders.
He opens the door and steps out onto the decorated patio, all white lights and red bows. I follow him as he walks toward the center. There, he faces me, lifts my hand, and kisses one then the other. Then he kneels on one knee.
“Angela, I have loved you from the moment I saw you. I’ll love you until both our moments come to an end and we have children looking up to the sky as we watch over them.” He opens his hand, exposing a ring. It’s a beautiful, round, solitaire set in the middle of an antique gold etched band. “Will you do me the honor of being my first and only love and let me be your last and forever love?”
“A million times, yes.”
Standing up, he slides the ring on my finger. It’s a perfect fit. Then he swoops me up in his arms and kisses me as the snow falls down around us.
With his forehead pressed against mine, he whispers, “I love you first.”
“I love you forever.”
### The End ###
Epilogue
Eight Months Later…
Bass
Natasha’s Winter line crushed that of all our competition. Everything sold out within weeks. We kept up as best we could with production while she busted her ass to produce a Spring line that would do even better. She succeeded.
That girl, is certainly her mothers daughter. She works hard, too hard. We tried to get her to stop putting such high demands on herself, she wouldn’t.
Ines became so enraged by the success, that she had someone leak the video of her and I. The old adage, all press is good press, backfired on her.
Somehow it was leaked that I was underage, and that ruined her reputation. She’s selling in discount department stores and online through fucking ads.
I’m pretty sure I know who leaked that information. And honestly, I love her more for it.
In May, Natasha finished her semester. We flew into London to get her. On our way back to the states, somewhere over the Atlantic, Angela’s contractions started.
