Addison cried out, “Hey! What about lunch?”
I didn’t reply. I raced out the door. My Manolos clicked along the sidewalk. In a second, I arrived at the intersection where the Park Avenue traffic whizzed by in both directions. The commotion confused me until my eye landed on the newsstand at the corner. I strode over and picked up the same tabloid magazine Addison showed me.
The enormous headline screamed to the world. Two in the Oven for the President’s Billionaire Bad Boy Brother. A glossy candid photo of me walking in the park with Gray covered the whole magazine, but I didn’t notice that. I focused on the date in the upper right-hand corner. Today was June 15th, and I married Gray on the first of May. I hadn’t had my period in over five weeks.
I slipped the magazine back into its place, but I made sure to do it slowly and carefully. I made sure I did nothing then or on the trip home to attract anyone’s attention. The last thing I needed was some paparazzi splashing another headline across the world about how irrationally pregnant I was acting.
What if that magazine was right? What if I really was pregnant? What would Tanya do to me then? I couldn’t paint Gray in a worse light than this. I could just imagine the headline then. President’s Brother Fakes His Own Wedding? No, wait, Billionaire Bad Boy Knocks Up Patsy Hooker. Or even better: Billionaire Bad Boy Bags Another One.
I had to slow down near Central Park to get myself together. My stomach fluttered thinking about it all. I didn’t even know if I was pregnant. I might just be late—very late, catastrophically late.
I couldn’t face Gray. I couldn’t bear to see the look on his face when he found out. That satisfied glow in his eyes would turn to icy hard disgust. He would turn his back on me. I would never again feel his silky skin. I would never kiss that tender place next to his heart. I would never fall asleep hearing his heartbeat in my ear when I laid my head on his sternum.
I couldn’t tell him. I wouldn’t tell him. I would take this secret to the grave. I stepped to the curb and flagged a cab. I got in and gave the driver his address. How much longer would I stay in his penthouse? When I started showing, I would move back to my parents’ house in disgrace.
11
Gray
I held the limo door open. Gabi shielded her eyes from the explosive flashbulbs popping off in every direction. I didn’t. I looked right into them. I confronted the paparazzi, took Gabi on my arm, and escorted her to the restaurant.
I nodded to the maître d’, who waved me forward, even though other patrons packed the entrance and waited for tables. Gabi took two steps when someone called out from behind us, “One more, Mr. Donovan.”
I turned around. “Okay. One more.”
The photographer crouched behind his camera and crunched up his face. “Let us see you kiss her. Come on, Mr. Donovan. Kiss her just once.”
I turned my beaming face on Gabi. “Okay. Just this once.”
She smiled when I took her in my arms and kissed her. More flash bulbs blew, and bystanders took out their phones to snap pictures. I took her arm again, and we followed the maître d’ inside.
I sat down at the quiet table in the back where the maître d’ gestured us into our seats. I pulled out Gabi’s chair for her, and we settled down to dinner. The maître d’ brought a bottle of the best Merlot, but Gabi waved him off at half a glass.
I cocked his head. “What’s the matter? I thought you liked the Merlot.”
“I do,” she replied. “I guess I’m just tired.”
I looked around. “Maybe you’re tired of this place. We’ve been here at least once a week for the last two months. Maybe we should try something different.”
“I like this place,” she told me. “Besides, you want to frequent the same place all the time so you can maintain your hold in the magazines. The paparazzi can’t take your picture if they don’t know where to find you.”
I shrugged. “They would find us, and maybe we would have a week or two of peace and quiet until they do.”
At that moment, a shout went up from the front door. The maître d’ put out his hand, but a young reporter already broke past him and rushed up to our table. He held his notebook in his palm and a pencil at the ready. “Can you confirm the rumor, Mr. Donovan? Are you and Mrs. Donovan really having twins? When are you due? How’s the pregnancy going? Any morning sickness yet? Have you seen a doctor? Have you had your first ultrasound?”
The maître d’ hustled over and snatched the man by the jacket. “Get away from them.”
The reporter struggled to break free, but I only beamed at him. I waved his hand. “Cut it out. You know it’s all BS.”
The reporter stopped putting up a fight, and the maître d’ hauled him out of the restaurant. The maître d’ came hurrying back, but when he tried to apologize, I brushed him aside. “Forget it. You did all you could. I saw that.”
The man vanished, and I took a luxurious sip of wine. I trained my gaze on Gabi, but she kept her eyes fixed on an invisible speck on the tablecloth.
I waited, but she didn’t look up. “Babe?”
She flicked the speck away. “Hmm?”
“Are you okay? That guy didn’t mean anything. You know how these reporters are.”
She didn’t look up, and she didn’t say anything.
I frowned. “Is anything bothering you?”
She glanced up, but a solid wall of invisible ice separated her from me. All her warmth drained away. I might as well be looking at a marble statue. “What could possibly be bothering me?”
I glared at her. Thunderclouds roiled and boomed inside my head. Now I knew for certain something was bothering her. “Don’t tell me you’re letting all these pregnancy rumors get to you. Since when do you care what the papers say? They’ve said a lot worse about us.”
Just for a second, her old self flickered beneath the surface. She bent forward. “What would happen if it was true? What would happen if I really did get pregnant?”
I jerked his neck sideways. “How the hell should I know? What could be so wrong if you were?”
“What would Tanya do to me?” she asked.
“Tanya!” I snorted. “What’s Tanya got to do with this?”
She lowered her eyes again, and the glass window came down between us. “Forget it.”
“I will not forget it,” I ranted. “What, I might ask, does Tanya have to do with this? What does Tanya have to do with anything?”
She fixed her eyes on me, but those eyes chilled me to the bone. I barely recognized her. “Tanya said if I did anything to sully your reputation, she would nullify the contract. She would withdraw all the compensation you’re paying me to marry you. She would take away all my spending account money—everything—gone.”
“So, what?” I shot back. “You’re not pregnant, so what difference does it make?”
She threw up her hands. “Forget it. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
I flung myself back in my chair and scowled at her. She looked sideways at nothing. She didn’t even look at her menu.
I made a show of studying the entree section. “What are you going to have?”
She wadded up the napkin in her lap and threw it on her plate. “You know what? I don’t feel very good. I’ve got a stomachache. We’ve put in our appearance for this week. Can’t we please go home early? I want to go to bed.”
My mouth fell open. “You want to go home? But the night hasn’t even started yet.”
“I know.” She stood up. “Can’t we please just go? I don’t want to be here right now.”
She didn’t wait for me to get up and escort her. She just walked straight out the back door of the restaurant, leaving me no choice but to follow. She had to stand on the sidewalk in the fresh night air while we waited for the limo to come around and pick us up. She trained her face into the breeze and wouldn’t look at me.
I stared at the back of her head. What in the world was wrong with her? Everything went so great this last month, and she changed over
night. Now she gave me the cold shoulder. When I took her hand, her fingers hung cold and limp in my grasp. None of the warmth infused her touch and the inner light that used to shine out of her no longer radiated in my direction.
She didn’t linger when she got out of the limo. She usually hesitated to hold my hand so we could enter the penthouse together. Now she marched to the elevator cocooned in her frigid isolation. When the elevator opened in the penthouse foyer, she made a bee-line for the bedroom.
I hung back to see what she would do. When I got to the bedroom, I met her coming out of the bathroom in a large white terry cloth bathrobe. She clutched the lapels together under her chin. She wound up her hair in a loose knot on top of her head, crawled into bed still bundled in the robe, and pulled the feather comforter up around her chin.
I toppled onto the bed next to her. I bent close to murmur in her ear. “Hey, baby. Come over here and let me make you feel better. You know I can give you what you need.”
She closed her eyes. She turned over on her side, so she presented her back to me. “I can’t tonight. I’m too tired. I just want to go to sleep. Sorry, baby. Have a good night. I’ll see you in the morning.”
She didn’t move again. I reclined back on the pillows and scowled at her bunch of hair sticking out from under a mountain of down. I couldn’t see any other part of her. Why was she acting so weird all of a sudden?
I might think she came down with a cold or something, but the way she acted around that reporter made me wonder. She only got weird when he mentioned the pregnancy rumor. Something fishy was definitely going on, and I’d be blamed if I sat back on my hands without finding out what it was.
12
Gabriela
I sat at my dressing table and studied myself in the mirror. I made sure to hide the pregnancy test I took three days ago. Finding the spare time to sneak away from Gray to buy the thing and then take it back to the penthouse proved a much bigger challenge.
Now I couldn’t do anything but sit here and stare my problem straight in the face. The rumor was true. I was pregnant. I could only hope that the rumor about twins wasn’t true as well. Now how in God’s name could I break the news to Gray?
I hated to look him in the eye with this elephant in the room. He knew something was wrong. He went out of his way to be extra nice to me—like he wasn’t nice enough already. The better he treated me, the more care he took to give me everything I wanted, the worse I felt. I wanted to kick myself for not trusting him, but what could I do?
One year of marriage. That was the contract. Now along comes a baby. That changed everything. What would the PR team do? What would Tanya do? Would they sue me for everything I didn’t have? Would Gray be upset? I racked my brain and tried to think if there was anything in the contract about a baby. Gray had never mentioned birth control. Somehow, that minor detail got forgotten in the chaos of planning this disaster of a marriage.
Gray came into the bedroom. I caught sight of him in the mirror. He looked better than ever in his tux. He waltzed up behind me and laid both hands on my shoulders. He nuzzled into my ear, and the same old quivery excitement squeaked down my body and ran down to in between my legs.
That was the real problem. Being pregnant made me hornier than ever. I didn’t want to keep doing it, but I had to. He worshiped my curves. He sucked my breasts until I couldn’t stand it. He fucked me night and day, and I could never get enough.
However, despite all that, I couldn’t talk to him. I couldn’t share the joys of living with him when I carried this secret around. It weighed my shoulders to the ground and crushed the life out of every waking minute. I took refuge only in those blessed moments when we came together for rabid, wild, screaming dripping wet sex.
He fucked me anywhere and everywhere. We couldn’t get into the limo without him slipping his fingers up my skirt to push my body towards ecstasy. We couldn’t sit down at a quiet booth in the back of some restaurant without him kissing my neck, and whispering all of the naughty things he wanted to do to me in my ear. I couldn’t lounge in bed next to him watching TV without catching sight of his package lying under his pajama pants. I would slip my hand under the covers, and the rest would be history.
I couldn’t help cringing at the scene. I played my part. I smiled and kissed him in front of the cameras, not because I got paid to do it, but because I really loved kissing Gray. I didn’t care who saw me kissing him. I was proud of him and proud to kiss him. Showing up in public on his arm, with his rocks on my hand and his money in my bank account filled my heart to overflowing with pride. He decorated my life better than any diamond. He was a diamond. Too bad it would never actually last.
He nibbled my earlobe, and I pressed my head against his mouth. “Mmm.”
His strong hands scooped up my breasts and heat coursed through my body. “You should get dressed. We’ll be late.”
I purred into his embrace. “Then we’ll be fashionably late. Isn’t that what we want?”
“I want everyone to see how stunning and sexy and beautiful you are,” he growled.
I covered his hands with mine and guided their movements in circles over my breasts. I eased one hand down between my legs to stroke my panties. “Just a little while longer.”
He fingered the wet cotton teasing my slightly. “You’re so wet right now. That’s the way I want you. I want you aching for me all night. I’ll finish you off afterwards when I can take all time in the world.” He pulled his hand away and gave my ass a hard pinch. “Now get dressed. That’s an order.”
I smacked my lips. “Yes, Sir.”
He shot me a grin in the mirror. “Good girl. Do as you’re told, and I might reward you later.”
I grinned back. “Goody. I can’t wait.”
He strode out of the bedroom, and my heart sank. I had a long night at a fancy gala to get through before I could look forward to another night of guilt-ridden sex. Deep down, I knew I had to tell him. That’s all there was to it. I couldn’t live like this any longer. If he threw me out, at least I wouldn’t have to live with this racking tension all the time.
I pulled my satin gown over my head and settled the shimmering folds around my hips and bust. I pushed my breasts up into place to show off my cleavage. Just handling my own breasts made me so raging hot I couldn’t stand it. I should sneak off to the bathroom and give myself a buzz with the vibrator Gray used on me sometimes. Then I could face this evening with my head screwed on straight.
I squared my shoulders and gave myself one last look in the mirror. This couldn’t continue. I made up my mind that I would tell him after the gala for his brother’s campaign. After we came home, after we took off our clothes and crawled into our own bed, when it was just him and me together in the quiet and the dark—that’s when I would tell him.
Maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t blow up. Maybe he would kiss me and tell me it was all going to be all right. Maybe, just maybe, he would forgive me for keeping this a secret from him.
He came back to get me, and he whistled through his teeth when he saw me. I flapped my hand at him. “Shut up.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back to admire me. “You have so got it going on, babe. I’m the luckiest guy in the world.”
I blushed. “But only for another eleven months, right?”
As soon as I said those words, I regretted it. He doubled over like I punched in him the guts. He grimaced and turned away. “Yeah.”
Eleven months? Eleven months from right now? In nine months from now, I’d be stuck with a kid. I would be a mother. I would be tired and grumpy and without a job yet again. I would become just another mother trying to hold it all together.
I knew all about that. I saw it every day of the week. I knew dozens of fashionable, successful women who got married, got pregnant, and found themselves living very different lives than the ones they led before.
I wouldn’t be going out to fancy restaurants every night of the week. I wouldn’t be attending galas l
ike this one—at least, not as often. I would be stuck at home, changing diapers, breastfeeding, doing my best to stay sane. That’s the best any mother could hope for.
I didn’t want to think about that, but I couldn’t stop myself. Every time I looked at myself in the mirror, the words kept repeating in my mind. I was a mother. I was already a mother. My life already changed. I became a different person with a new set of priorities.
What about Gray? What would he turn into when he found out he was a father? Maybe he would settle down for real the way his PR team wanted him to. Maybe he wouldn’t have to put on an act by marrying a stranger.
Once he got rid of me, he would find someone he really loved, someone he really wanted to be married to. He would find someone at his level, someone as successful as him in her own right. He wouldn’t hook up with any desperate would-be waitress from the south side.
He probably couldn’t wait to finish this contract. I noticed him cursing at his phone when he searched for clubs and restaurants his team allowed him to take me to. He must long for the days of freedom when he could go anywhere he liked, tie one on with the best of them, pick up a fast chick, and bang the daylights out of her.
I was nothing but a live-in lay to him. He wouldn’t want to give up that freedom to raise a kid. Who in their right mind would?
He took my hand once more, and we went through the same routine of riding the elevator to the street where the limo waited for us. Gray didn’t finger me and paw my dress down or gnaw my nipples to distraction. He stared out the window at the city scrolling by. He brooded and rubbed his thumb across his mouth.
When the limo glided to a stop in front of the gala hall, we entered the streaming crush of bodies all dressed in tuxes and evening gowns. I flashed my brightest smile, and Gray put his arms around me to pose for the cameras. He even kissed me. Then he escorted me inside, and we vanished into the crowd.
Triplets Make Five Page 30
