by Bella Rose
“Ugh!” Bella stomped her foot. “You’re impossible!”
“Please,” Courtney said softly. “Could you just tell me if all of this was part of the revenge plan Mikhail intended to take against my father?”
“All I know is that you were never part of that plan,” Toby assured her. “He was so shocked when you suddenly reappeared on scene. I’d never even heard of him speak about you until then. And he had been talking about getting back at your father ever since I’ve known him.”
“But why?” Courtney sank down onto the sofa.
Mikhail felt as though he were looking into a very distorted mirror. How could the woman not know? How could she not understand? Didn’t she realize what her father was?
“Courtney,” Toby began. Mikhail saw his friend inhale deeply. “I don’t think you have any idea how badly your father messed things up for Mikhail when he was young.”
And there was no way that Mikhail wanted Toby enlightening her either. He stepped into the light and strode right into the living room.
Chapter Fourteen
Courtney nearly lost what was left of her composure when Mikhail came walking into Toby and Bella’s living room as if he owned the place. The arrogant swagger and the look of supreme confidence on his face were enough to drive her insane.
“What are you doing here?” she growled, surprised at the vehemence in her own voice. Was she truly that angry with him?
“I came to speak with Toby and discovered that he was already engaged in a conversation where I happened to be the topic of interest.” Mikhail gave Courtney a glaring look. She felt the sting of his condemnation all the way across the room.
“Do you want to deny any of this?” Courtney shot back. “Are you saying that you didn’t take my father’s business as an act of revenge?”
“I purchased your father’s failing business and gave him a more than fair price for it,” Mikhail said snidely. “He was the one who ran it into the ground. Perhaps you should blame him for incompetence and not me for taking an opportunity when it presented itself.”
“Oh, and what was I?” She felt the tears and refused to let them fall. This jerk was not going to make her cry. She wouldn’t allow it.
“You were an accident.”
The scorn in his voice made both Courtney and Bella curse. Then Bella took a deep breath to give Mikhail a piece of her mind. The tirade never happened. Toby grabbed his wife, picked her up, and slung her over his shoulder. “I think we’ll give you two some privacy.”
“Thank you,” Mikhail murmured.
“We don’t need it!” Courtney told him darkly. “I already know what I need to know. You used me when I was just a girl. Then you left without a word because you got a better deal. My father told me that you were dead to protect me.”
“Is that what he told you?” Mikhail raised an eyebrow.
Courtney felt some of the wind go out of her sails. “Well, no, but it makes sense.”
“How about you try this one on for size?” Mikhail’s undertone was nasty. “A young girl tries to do something nice for a boy she likes. Unfortunately, it brings the boy to her father’s attention. Because the man cannot accept the possibility that his daughter might eventually become enamored of this young man who has no family or fortune to speak of, the man concocts a story to tell his daughter to explain the young man’s abrupt disappearance from her life. The daughter buys it without even checking the facts. In the meantime, the boy is fired from his job amidst false allegations of wrongdoing that land him in jail. The legal situation leaves the young man no choice but to contact some distant relatives that have both money and power. Unfortunately this leaves the boy in debt to these men, which requires him to commit a string of acts that he never would have done otherwise.”
“What are you talking about?” Courtney couldn’t wrap her mind around what he was saying. “My father had you arrested? That is what you’re trying to tell me?” She couldn’t imagine her father doing such a thing. Or was it that she just didn’t want to imagine it? Could he have tried to ruin Mikhail’s life like that just to keep him away from Courtney?
She thought about her current predicament and how her father hadn’t exactly turned out to be the man she wished he was. How long was she going to believe the best about a man who always lived up to her worst expectations? That was the definition of futility. Wasn’t it? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result?
“Courtney, your father is not the man you think he is.” Mikhail actually seemed to be remorseful about this. Why?
She shook her head. “I know that. I don’t put him on a pedestal. I’m just trying to decide how far this goes. The business stuff—” She tried to reconcile that in her head. “—I suppose what happens in business is just what happens if it’s legit and you didn’t intentionally bring him down in order to buy him out.”
“I didn’t have to help him fail,” Mikhail said drily. “Your father is a man that doesn’t deal well with change. He can’t manage to update his business practices or embrace new philosophies that cut costs. He just keeps plugging along, waiting for something different to happen even thought everything is the same.”
“Futility,” she whispered.
Mikhail gave a hard nod. “Exactly.”
The cold wave of disappointment and dread that washed over her was disheartening. Courtney wrapped her arms around her body and stared around the room at the warm and friendly atmosphere in Bella’s living room. Her friend had everything. Truly. She had a man who loved her, a family that was a little crazy but still supportive, and a wonderfully safe home. If Bella and Toby decided to have children, they would grow up in a warm, loving environment with parents that would love their child to distraction.
What would Courtney’s baby have?
“I’m pregnant,” she whispered.
He actually took a physical step backward. “What?”
“I said I’m pregnant.” She gazed up at him and wondered why he looked like he wanted to bolt. Was the news so very bad in his mind? Had the night they spent together been nothing more than an itch he needed to scratch?
“How?”
His question almost made her laugh out loud. “Well, the two of us had sex that night after Bella and Toby’s reception. I think the rest is pretty self-explanatory.”
“We had sex,” Mikhail murmured. “Yes. But you’ve had sex with other people.”
“What?” Courtney was dumbfounded. “Are you talking about Creighton?”
“Of course.”
Courtney shook her head. “No.”
“That’s the only possible solution. I can’t father children. I’m sterile.”
“Says who?” Courtney demanded.
“The doctor?” Mikhail shot back sarcastically. “So nice try, but I’m not the fool you thought I was.”
Courtney watched in shock as Mikhail turned on his heel and left the room.
* * *
“Okay, Mikhail, you have to calm down.” Toby handed Mikhail a snifter of brandy and gestured to the couch. “Bella has Courtney on the other side of the apartment in the kitchen. You stay here and relax, before I call Frank and have him come get you.”
“You’re acting like a woman,” Mikhail snarled. But he threw back the brandy and swallowed the whole glass. It burned like the devil, but he slammed the glass down on the tray and gestured for his friend to pour another.
Toby poured a whole lot more liquor in the glass than Mikhail probably had any business ingesting, but Mikhail threw that back as well. The burning gave way to a pleasant floating sort of feeling.
Then Toby sat down with his own glass and gave Mikhail a million-dollar stare. “So you don’t believe that Courtney’s baby is yours.”
“You knew she was pregnant,” Mikhail guessed.
Toby nodded. “The two of them told me tonight. I believe that was to be their intended catalyst to get me to spill whatever I knew about you and your motives.”
“Motives,” Mikhail snorted. “I didn’t have any motives. At least nothing more than simple revenge. Why the woman is trying to rope me into her pregnancy fiasco is beyond me.”
Toby frowned. His face was set in a thoughtful expression. “I know that you obviously believe you cannot father children. How long ago did you receive this diagnosis, and why would you even pursue such a thing?”
“I didn’t want to have children,” Mikhail said flatly, “after my atrocious childhood and the baggage of all that shit.” Mikhail let the sentence hang. “I didn’t want to perpetuate that situation any farther. So I went to a specialist to have a vasectomy and take care of the problem. The doctor did one test and told me that I was sterile anyway and the procedure wouldn’t be necessary.”
“How long ago?” Toby asked again.
“I don’t know. When I was in my early twenties and just starting my business?” Mikhail frowned. “Why does it matter?”
“There are a lot of reasons for infertility in men,” Toby mused. “I didn’t realize how many until Bella and I started trying to have a family.”
“You’re having issues?” Mikhail couldn’t quite hide his surprise.
“Apparently stress can be a factor in infertility in men.” Toby sounded so thoughtful. Then a slow smile spread across his face. “When this doctor told you that you couldn’t have children, what did they say exactly? Did they use the word sterile? Or is that just what you heard.”
Mikhail had to think about that one. It had been long ago, and he had sort of filed that away in his memory as an incontrovertible fact. “I suppose what they actually said was something about low sperm count. So low that there was zero chance of me impregnating anyone.”
“That’s not sterile,” Toby informed Mikhail with a laugh. “Especially not ten years down the road.”
“What?” Mikhail was having a tough time wrapping his mind around that notion. “Are you trying to say that Courtney is right and I’m wrong?”
“I think so.”
Mikhail didn’t want to believe it. There were so many reasons he didn’t want to. It was horrible to think that he’d been playing with fire all these years. It was worse to imagine that he had just impugned the character of a woman he never intended to hurt and yet always managed to emotionally wound. Surely Toby was wrong.
“This can’t be,” Mikhail whispered.
Toby shrugged. “I’m going to tell you that when Bella and Courtney were in here talking about this topic, there was not one bit of uncertainty in either one of them about the identity of Courtney’s baby daddy.”
“Ugh!” Mikhail snarled. “Do not use that phrase!”
“When a woman lies about something like that, especially when she’s telling someone else, there’s generally something in her manner that gives her away. Don’t you think?” Toby pressed.
Mikhail had to admit that Toby was correct. “I accused her of sleeping with Creighton once before,” he told Toby. “In my office. She stormed in yelling about revenge and her father’s company. Things got heated. We—uh, well, things happened.”
Toby’s eyes went wide. “Dude! You fucked her in your office? Right on!”
“I don’t know whether to give you a high five or deck you in the face,” Mikhail told him. “I don’t know what happened. One minute things were fine, and then Creighton was standing between us like a wall.”
“You’re jealous,” Toby guessed. “Admit it. You’re worried that she might actually like that dipshit.”
The idea was abhorrent, and yet there was a niggling doubt in Mikhail’s mind. What if Courtney did carry a torch for Creighton Kemper? That asshole wanted to use her in the worst way. Yet women sometimes didn’t see that sort of thing until it was far too late.
“I might suggest something a little more complicated actually,” Toby said in a tone that reeked of philosophical bullshit. “Maybe it’s easier for you to imagine Courtney has a thing for Creighton, because it means you don’t really have to entertain the notion that she wants you. If she does want you, especially now that there’s a kid involved, that’s a shitload of commitment all at once. It’s safer to think that she’ll wind up with Creighton, and you can be mad at her for being stupid.”
“I’m sorry, why didn’t you go to medical school and become a psychologist or some bullshit?” Mikhail griped.
“Because I am far better at business using my mega-mind psychobabble mumbo jumbo,” Toby teased. “There’s no money in the field of psychology.”
“So what you’re saying,” Mikhail began slowly, “is that I owe Courtney one big fat apology.”
“Yeah. Pretty much. I’d get some kneepads for the groveling.”
Mikhail grunted. “Fuck off.”
Chapter Fifteen
Courtney curled into the fetal position and faced the wall of Bella’s guest room. She’d opted to stay here instead of going back to her father’s place. Sooner or later—really sooner—she was going to have to get her living situation straightened out. But now that she had this pregnancy issue to deal with, everything was just that much more complicated. It was one thing to provide for herself; it was quite another to imagine she could raise a child all by herself.
She tossed and turned, rolling to her other side and stacking her hands beneath her cheek. The clinic doctor’s words about options kept running through her mind. How could she even imagine doing such a thing? Aborting her baby seemed like the worst possible option, and yet simultaneously it seemed like the easiest one. An abortion would allow her to continue along as she had been without all of the turmoil a baby would inevitably bring.
Courtney flopped onto her back and sighed. Who was she kidding anyway? Continue on as she had been? There was nothing to continue on with. Not really. Her life was a disaster. She was supposedly engaged to marry a complete tool, and she never intended to go through with the wedding she was currently planning. Her father had lost their business. She was secretly working for her best friend’s husband while trying to figure out if she had enough money and income to get her own place.
“Oh wait,” she whispered caustically to the darkness. “I’m actually having to grow up. No wonder this sucks.”
All her life she’d done what she was told and reaped the benefits of just being the good girl from a well-to-do, distinguished family. She hadn’t ever really had to sacrifice much. And she had never asked questions. Everything had been by the book. In fact Mikhail was almost the only thing she had ever done that could be considered reckless. Both when she was a silly infatuated fifteen-year-old, and now when she was a silly infatuated old-enough-to-know-better grown woman. What was wrong with her that she couldn’t just settle down and make good decisions? Why did she always have to go do something to mess things up? Or really, the question was, why couldn’t she seem to stay away from Mikhail? He was like her own personal kryptonite.
There was a noise at the door. She rolled over again and found herself staring at a dark shadow she knew to be Mikhail. Her anger at him had long fizzled out. She had sprung that whole pregnancy thing on him on purpose. Maybe she’d expected him to react differently, but she hadn’t really been fair about it. Especially not if the guy truly believed that he was sterile. But it rankled that he would believe her capable of sleeping with Creighton after everything she’d already told him about that jerk’s presence in her life.
“I owe you an apology.” Mikhail’s low voice floated across the room. “I just wanted to say that before I go home.”
There was something a little off about the way he spoke. “You sound drunk.”
“I’ve had some brandy, if that’s what you’re referring to. But I assure you I’m perfectly capable of owning my words and actions.”
“Is that right?” She couldn’t help but smile. He was throwing his hand around as he spoke, and Mikhail didn’t traditionally make a lot of gestures. He was a rather closed individual.
“Hell yes!” He staggered into the bedroom, catching himself on the four-poster bed
to keep upright. “I know I hurt your feelings when I told you that there was no way I was the father of your kid.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “It hurt because you were calling me a liar. I’m not.”
“I know that.”
He seemed to be searching his brain for the words he wanted to say. In the dim light barely spilling into the room from the hall, he looked like one handsome devil come to tempt her in the night. Of course, he also smelled like a liquor cabinet.
Courtney sat up in the bed and pulled her knees up to her chest. She wrapped her arms around and rested her chin on top. “Why are you here?”
“Because I don’t want you to think badly of me.”
She drew back, surprised. “Well, that was candid.”
“You asked,” he grunted. “I’m just telling you what pops into my head.”
“Certainly not the norm for you, is it?” Courtney wondered if this was the time to get some of her questions answered. “You really didn’t have sex with me just to get back at my father?”
“Woman, I’m not sure if you’re just having trouble believing you’re desirable without additional incentive, or if you truly believe I’m that much of a jackass. Which is it?” He was practically glowering down at her.
“Gee. You just look so encouraging that I’m sure you’re making me feel like your motives are pure as the driven snow.” She didn’t bother to temper the sarcasm in her voice. “Now get your drunk backside out of my room before I scream and tell Toby to throw you out.”
To her shock, he flopped down onto her bed. “No. I think I’ll hang around a bit.”
“What? I thought you said you were getting a ride home?” She was feeling a little panicky without even knowing why. “You can’t sleep in here with me.”
“Why not? This isn’t even your bedroom,” he pointed out.
“Ugh!” She tried to kick at him with her feet. “Get off!”
