Pregnant with the Tycoon's Heir (The Ladies of The Burling School Book 5)

by Elizabeth Lennox

  Startled, Jessica looked up at Naya with hopeful eyes. “You do?”

  “Yeah,” Naya replied with a nod. “And you can ask me for help.”

  “Will you…” she paused, shuffling her feet slightly as she rubbed her hands on her denim-clad hips. “Will you come to me when you need help too?”

  Defiantly, hope blossomed in Naya’s heart. “Yes. I will. In fact,” she took a deep breath. “That’s why I’m here tonight, Mom. I had…” she blinked, fighting back the tears. “I did something stupid last night, Mom. And I just…needed to be with you.”

  Jessica’s whole demeanor changed. Naya’s comment seemed to brighten her eyes. Even Jessica’s shoulders straightened slightly. “You…you needed me?”

  Naya smiled, wiping away the tear. “Yeah. I needed my mom,” she admitted.

  Jessica laughed and cried. “Oh, honey!” Naya was enveloped in her mother’s arms. It was exactly what Naya needed, but hadn’t hoped to get. “I’m so sorry!”

  Naya sniffed and hugged her mother back. “I needed to see you. So here I am.” She pulled back. “So yeah, when life gets to be too much, I’ll come to you. So now that you know, will you call on me too?”

  “Yes!” Jessica replied with an energy that Naya hadn’t seen in her for a long time. They were silent for a long moment, absorbing the monumental shift in their understanding of each other. Then Jessica seemed to pull herself together. Clapping her hands, she looked around her mostly empty kitchen. “Okay, we need dinner! I’m going to make dinner.”

  Jessica tried to hide her cringe of horror. Naya didn’t have any delusions about Jessica. Not after the numerous times that Jessica had come back into Naya’s life, only to disappear without warning. So Naya took Jessica’s current vow not to leave again with suspicion, laced with a small, glowing dash of hope.

  But as for cooking? Naya shuddered. One thing Naya knew for certain was that Jessica was not a good cook! The woman tried, God love her. But usually, she failed miserably. “We can just order out,” Naya suggested nervously. Hopefully!

  Jessica waved that suggestion aside. “Nope! I got pasta and sauce. I’m going to make spaghetti tonight!” she announced with an enthusiasm that caused Naya to sigh inwardly.

  A half hour later, the two of them sat down in the old, rusty lawn chairs that graced Jessica’s tiny, concrete balcony and ate bowls of pasta. It wasn’t a gourmet meal, just canned spaghetti sauce and white flour pasta, but it was a whole lot better than some of the meals they’d shared in the past.

  What was even better in Jessica’s mind was that the two of them talked. Not about anything controversial. But they talked about life. Her job. Naya’s job. The weather and Jessica’s hopes for her bag business. At the end of the evening, Naya stood up and smiled at her mother’s worn, weary features. “That was great, Mom,” Naya said and gave her mother a hug before leaving. “Let me know how else I can help you with selling your bags. I really think it’s a great idea.”

  “I do too. Maybe if I can make enough of them, I can do this full time,” she offered hopefully.

  Naya wasn’t sure if there was that much of a market for cotton grocery bags, but she kept that opinion to herself. Naya was going to do everything she could to help her mother make a success of her small business. Even if Jessica only made a few extra dollars, that money might keep her mother’s stress lower.

  Of course, her mother might just spend all of her extra money on booze, but Naya knew that there was nothing she could do to save her mother from her alcoholism. Jessica had to do save herself from that demon on her own.

  For right now, Jessica was sober and excited about life, Naya thought as she walked down the steps to her car. And she was seeing a counselor, which was amazing. Plus, Jessica had found other resources of income and assistance. Life looked pretty good, she thought.

  At least for a while, Naya cautioned as she drove home that evening. Jessica Banks wasn’t used to sobriety. And when she started drinking, she shifted into a depression. When her life became too difficult, Jessica just…got up and walked away. Her thinking was that she could just leave all of her problems behind.

  The issue in the past had been that Naya had been one of those problems. Twice! Naya had been five years old the first time that her mother had found child-rearing too difficult to deal with. She’d just driven off one afternoon, leaving Naya sitting on a park bench all alone. Naya hadn’t understood, but even her five year old mind had grasped the tears on her mother’s cheeks as Jessica had walked away. It wasn’t until a neighbor had noticed Naya sitting alone on the park bench that the authorities had been called.

  The second time, Naya had been thirteen. By that point, she was a ward of the state, in the foster care system. Thankfully, that had been the year she’d been invited to join The Burling School on a full scholarship. She’d been a good student, but had had no hopes of going to college. She couldn’t afford college and wasn’t sure how she could get a job that would pay her enough to support herself. But the boarding school had opened doors for her, trained her to use her mind and think critically. It had changed her life.

  Jessica had been back now for just over a year. Naya tried very hard not to get her hopes up. Jessica would eventually leave again. It was her nature. But that didn’t stop Naya from hoping that things might be different this time around.

  Still, Jessica was the only family Naya had. Her father had left the year before her mother disappeared the first time. He’d just left the house one day and never came back. So Naya should be used to people disappearing by now.

  Unfortunately, she wasn’t. Naya was waiting until the day when her mother left again. But until then, Naya had decided to enjoy her time with her mom for as long as it lasted.

  Chapter 4

  Two months later, Naya wanted to just curl up in bed and pretend the world didn’t exist. Was this what her mother felt like, Naya thought? Did Jessica just get so sick of the stress of her life that she simply wanted to lay down and…not move in any way?

  “What’s wrong?” Bonnie demanded, coming in to sit in the empty chair.

  Naya glanced up slowly, trying not to move very quickly. “I’m fine,” she told her co-worker, not wanting to admit how horrible she felt.

  “You’re not fine,” Bonnie countered. “You look like death. You’re sick,” she announced.

  Naya didn’t argue, mostly because moving her head might cause her to throw up. So she sat at her desk, quietly staring at…nothing. She couldn’t even focus.

  “You need to go home.”

  Naya breathed in slowly. “I can’t go home. Something is going on here at the office. You and I both know it even if we can’t figure out why everyone is so stressed out.”

  Bonnie groaned. “I agree there is an odd tension in the department. It’s all over the building, actually. So whatever the problem is, it isn’t specific to our department. I have a friend in the accounting department and her manager keeps disappearing into super-secret meetings. Plus, someone is asking for some really weird reports, and no one seems to know what’s going on.”

  “See?” Naya argued. “That’s why I can’t leave.” She tried to shift in her chair so that she was sitting up straight, but the effort just caused her stomach to clench worryingly. “I’m fine,” she repeated, pressing her lips together to keep herself from sobbing with misery. This was the third day this week that she’d felt like this and it was really getting old. By the afternoon, she felt better. It was just…getting through the morning.

  “Eh!” Bonnie waved her hand in the air. “It’s been like this for more than two months and you know it,” she said. “This is the new normal, don’t you think? Everyone running around, trying to impress the mysterious person that arrives, stirs things up, and then leaves. We’re probably being bought up, don’t you think?”

  Naya wanted to groan, but she wasn’t sure if the impulse was caused by the idea that their company had been bought out, or because she still felt as if she wanted to curl
up into a ball and cry. Both, probably. Bonnie was right. There had been something going on in the office lately. Something was off and the managers were on edge, which meant that their staffs were also feeling the pressure. Naya didn’t understand what was going on, but when she felt this horrible, she wasn’t sure she cared. Then again, she wasn’t figuring out much of anything out lately. She’d been sick for a while now and…why wasn’t she getting better? Was the tension in the office causing her to have this kind of daily nausea? An ulcer maybe? Or was it something else?

  Something…else? Naya’s whole body froze.

  Two months.

  Something else.

  Two months ago, she’d met a man in that beautiful hotel bar…the most amazing man and they had…!

  Oh no!

  Naya gripped the edge of her chair, trying not to panic. “You’re right,” Naya replied to Bonnie’s curious expression. “I’m really not feeling well. I think I’ll go home.” She tried to hide the panic that threatened to choke her. “Would you tell the boss man?” she asked, then grabbed her purse and raced out of the office before Bonnie had a chance to reply.

  Naya got into her car and started the engine, but her fingers were shaking so badly, she wasn’t sure if she could drive. Taking a deep breath, she steadied herself. “It’s not true,” she hissed, pulling out of her parking space and heading for the parking garage exit. “It can’t be true!”

  Two months. Two months! And then…whammo! She started feeling sick and nauseous and…she pressed her fingers gently against her breasts. They were tender.

  “No!” she whispered and narrowly missed hitting a guy trying to cross the street. The guy made several rude gestures as he yelled while crossing in front of her car, but Naya laid her forehead down on her steering wheel. “Please, don’t let it be that!”

  A horn honking behind her warned her that she’d been praying too long. Jerking upright, Naya was surprised that she didn’t need to pull over and throw up. Instead, she eased her car forward, slowly accelerating now that the pedestrian was safely across the street.

  It took her less than a half hour to reach her small but tidy apartment in one of the more upscale areas of the city. She fumbled her keys twice before she was able to unlock the door. Once inside, she headed straight into the bathroom and threw up.

  Chapter 5

  Naya stared at the stick, hoping she was reading it wrong.

  “What does it say?” Ella demanded from the other side of the door. Naya knew it was Ella because the question was accompanied with a knock, revealing the energetic woman’s impatience and curiosity. It was always dangerous to try to hide something from Ella. The woman was a hard-core detective when even the hint of a secret sprang up.

  Naya glanced at the plastic stick again, then at the instructions. “Um…well…it’s a bit confusing.”

  Her other best friend, Cassy, laughed but the sound was muffled, meaning Cassy was trying to hide her laughter. As a lawyer for a very conservative law firm, Cassy was very conscious of hiding her emotions.

  Cassy, being a lawyer and not one to hide from the truth, wouldn’t allow Naya’s delay tactics. “No, it’s not. Come out, Naya. Let us see.”

  Naya stared at the stick again. “Wait, I’m just going to take another test. This one might be wrong.”

  There was silence on the other side of the door. “The first one was positive, wasn’t it?” Ella demanded.

  Naya couldn’t answer, too afraid of confirming the test results out loud. That would make it real.

  Cassy’s gentle knock startled Naya and she braced her hands on the bathroom sink. “Honey, come on out. We’ll talk about this, come up with a plan, and you’ll feel better.”

  Naya covered her stomach with her hand, precisely where the new life was forming.

  “I can’t,” she whispered. Nothing would be better. Talking definitely wasn’t going to make this situation better.

  The door to the bathroom opened and Ella’s short, dark curls appeared. “Honey, everything is going to be okay,” she said with her usual optimism.

  Walking into the small bathroom, Ella took Naya’s hands and pulled her to a standing position. Tugging gently, Ella slowly led a shell-shocked Naya over to the sofa where Cassy was already sitting.

  Cassy smiled gently at Naya, fully aware of what she was going through. “Okay, so talk to us. Tell us what’s going on.”

  Naya stared down at the plastic stick that had a huge, blue plus sign staring back at her. Mocking her.

  She took a deep breath. Blinking through sudden tears, she looked at Ella. “You remember that night? We were in the hotel bar? The night Kevin broke up with me after telling me what a frigid b…” she didn’t finish the word, bowing her head in shame. She couldn’t look at her friends, afraid of what they might think of her now. Especially after what she was about to reveal. “I had a one-night stand.”

  Ella laid a gentle, encouraging hand over Naya’s clasped fingers. “We know, honey. You told us the following weekend.”

  Cassy leaned forward, running a hand over Naya’s shoulder in a soothing manner. “You also mentioned that the night was incredible.”

  Naya nodded her head. “Yes. But…it wouldn’t have worked out.”

  “Why not?”

  Shrugging her shoulders, Naya tried to remember the reasons. “Because…well, because he was so completely out of my league.”

  They looked down at the stick in Naya’s hands. “Evidence is indicating that he was definitely in your league.”

  Naya laughed, but the sound turned to a sob. “What am I going to do?” she cried, leaning her head against Cassy’s shoulder. “You’re so much stronger than I am, Cas. I can’t do this by myself!”

  Ella was still holding Naya’s hand and Cassy took the other one. “You’re not going to do this by yourself,” Ella assured her. “We’ll get through all of this together.”

  Naya knew that her friend was sweet and had the energy of ten people, but… “Why did I have sex with him?”

  Cassy laughed. “Because you were swept off of your feet,” she declared, hugging Naya gently. “It happens to the best of us.”

  Chapter 6

  Pierce stalked into the building, his anger so ever-present that his staff were too nervous to even speak. It had been like this for the past two months and he couldn’t believe how furious he still was. Over a woman! But damn it, he was still livid that he’d woken up alone that morning. After two months, he really should be over this fury by now!

  He was also livid that he hadn’t been able to find her again either. Damn it, he wanted to…Pierce wasn’t sure what he’d do if he saw Naya again. That thought about making her his woman popped into his head and he…damn it! He was so angry!

  Stepping off of the elevator, he paused, trying to regain his bearings. He had to get a grip. He had important meetings today and a business to run. He couldn’t afford distractions.

  This latest acquisition was the result of his fury over losing that woman. Never had he gone through an acquisition so fast or furiously. Yes, he’d already had this particular company on his radar as a potential acquisition prior to that night. The management staff here was pathetic, even though the products it produced were excellent. Unfortunately, the company was underperforming on several fronts, and, before he’d bought up the excess stocks that had been flooding the market, the company had been losing money. Because of that, it had been an easy target to acquire. The executive staff hadn’t been able to pull up the cash reserves to fight his takeover. Hell, the executive staff hadn’t even realized that he was about to take over the company until it was too late! They’d all been asleep on the job and even that pissed him off! Now Pierce was the majority stock holder and it had been one of the easiest takeovers to date.

  And he had to give credit to the mysterious Naya. Every aspect of this takeover had been fueled by his fury over her absence that morning two months ago.

  This place could be so much more productive with
a bit of…encouragement. Tweaks, he thought, forcing himself to focus on business instead of a certain pair of moss green eyes and full, pink lips. Tweaks to the business model that would shift productivity into high gear. But he’d rushed through the acquisition process that would normally take twice as long, pushing his staff because he was furious. He hadn’t been able to find Naya, if that was even her name, so he’d done something that he could accomplish, something he could control.

  Emotions should never impact business decisions, he reminded himself as he pressed the button for the top floor. Looking around the lobby area, he noticed the slow pace of the workers as they filtered into the building. There was no sense of urgency, no real sense of purpose. Everyone here was just going about their jobs as if they had all the time in the world. And yet, this company had some outstanding products that weren’t hitting the marketplace with enough energy to make an impact on the profit margins.

  In a few hours, that lack of urgency was going to change!

  Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of someone rushing out of the bathroom, her hand slapping against the metal door leading to the stairs. Damn, she was beautiful! He stared…that slim figure. Navy suit, conservative heels, cream silk shirt, and pearls. Was that…? Could it be? After all these weeks of searching, could she be here? Right under his nose?

  Did Naya work here?

  He sifted through the details of that night. The hotel where they’d met was less than a block away. But there were other bars and restaurants closer. Why had she been at the hotel bar instead of the place right across the street?

  He didn’t know, but as he watched her lean over slightly, using her security badge to release the lock on the door, a feral sense of satisfaction settled into his chest. The fury of the past two months vanished, replaced by determination.