by Lena Skye
“You should have told me that you were married! I never would have had sex with you I had known you were married! That’s not something that I ever would have done!” He scowled and she raised her hand off her thigh and flipped it in disregard.
“It doesn’t matter. What’s done is done, and you and I were amazing lovers together, and now we’re going to have a baby!” She rubbed her swollen belly happily. “Just think of it… you and me, and our little one…” She got a dreamy look on her face and he turned his eyes away from her, willing himself not to vomit.
“What do you want?” he asked in a level tone.
She moved even closer to him and lowered her voice to a velvety softness. “I want you, Scott. I saw what’s in the papers about that other woman who is going around saying that she’s having your baby. You and I both know that’s not true. She just wants your fame and fortune… but I want you.” She reached her hand over and slid it up the inside of Scott’s thigh, and he jumped slightly and jerked his head, looking at her with wide eyes as he pushed her hand away from his body.
“You don’t know anything about Naomi! You don’t even have any business talking about her!” he snapped at Cora. She lowered her brows slightly.
“I do know about her. I know all about her. Everyone does. She is a gold digging little bitch who’s sinking her claws into you. You need to get rid of her, and you need to get rid of Jennifer, so you can be with me. Just break off your engagement with Jennifer, and I’ll get a divorce from my husband, and then we can finally be together. I know you want me. I know you could be in love with me in no time. We can have this baby together and raise a little family.” She grinned at him like she had just made him the best offer of his life.
He glared at her. “I’m not going to stop talking to Naomi. I’m not engaged to Jennifer, and I don’t care whether you get a divorce or not; you and I are not going to be together as a couple!”
She frowned at him. “Don’t lie to me. I know you’re engaged to Jennifer; it’s all over the papers!”
Scott shook his head. “No it’s not! Those are just assumptions from reporters at trashy magazines and fish wrapper publications that use our old photos to trick everyone into thinking we’re engaged. We are not engaged!”
She shrugged again. “Well, the Times is not a trashy publication, so say whatever you want, but just get rid of her so that we can be together. We have to be together, Scott… we are having a baby! We’re going to be a family! You have a responsibility, and you can’t just walk away from that!”
She slid her fingers into the neck of his shirt and tried to rub them over his bare chest, but he pushed himself up off of the sofa and began to pace back and forth across the floor in front of her. “I am not going to walk away from my responsibility to you or to my child!” He stopped then and stared straight ahead before turning to look sharply at her.
“How do I even know if that is my child?” he asked in frustration as his eyes bored into hers. “You cheated on your husband with me. Who’s to say who else you cheated on him with? You could have slept with any number of other guys. I don’t know that that really is my kid you’re carrying!” Scott took a few steps toward her and planted his hands on his hips. “I’ll tell you what. You get a paternity test. I made Naomi get one, and I’m going to make you get one.
You come back to me and we will open the results together. If that’s my kid, then I will absolutely take responsibility for it and for your care. Do you understand where I’m going with this? Will you get a paternity test?” he asked firmly.
She rose up from the sofa and walked up close to him again. “Yes, I will get a paternity test. Then you’ll see that the one night of burning passion that you and I shared resulted in a life that we created, and that we will raise together. Then you can get rid of your other women, and you and I can have a family, and so many more nights like the first one we had. Remember how much you loved it?” she asked coyly.
He pulled away from her and walked to the end of the living room. “I was drunk. What I remember is having sex with you. That’s it. There was nothing special about it that stayed in my mind. Get the paternity test, and if it turns out that you are actually carrying my baby, then we’ll talk about me taking financial responsibility for it. Until then, go back to your husband and don’t contact me again, and don’t you dare talk to any more reporters or media. That was way out of line. You had no business doing that.”
She frowned sharply and walked toward him as he began to head for his front door. “I can talk to anyone I want to! I had to set the record straight! I had to tell them the truth, because they were printing such outrageous stories about that rotten Naomi girl and Jennifer Jones!”
Scott leveled his gaze at her. “They’re still printing outrageous stories, and you’re adding to it. Now, get the test and then I’ll talk to you again, and don’t open it until you see me. I want us to open it together.” He looked at her seriously and she waved her hand in the air dismissively.
“Whatever. Fine. It’s your kid. I’ll be back with the proof of that, and then you and I can talk about being a family.” She turned on her heel and strutted out of the door. Scott glared furiously at the back of her head as she walked away, and then he closed the door hard behind her.
There was no way that he was doing anything for her until he had proof that the baby was actually his, and there was no way he was ever going to be with her, no matter what the results of the test came out to be.
He hadn’t been at his desk for more than an hour after Cora left when his phone rang. He looked at the screen and saw Jennifer’s face smiling back at him. He answered the phone with a tired sigh and a smile.
“Hey lady.” He leaned back in his chair and gave her his full attention. “What’s going on?”
There was a pause before she spoke with some hesitation. “What’s going on?” she asked in a soft voice. “Okay… so you haven’t seen the papers. We need to talk. Can I come over please?”
“What do you mean ‘seen the papers’? What’s happening now?” he asked worriedly.
She sighed. “I’m on my way over.”
“All right. See you when you get here.” He ended the call and frowned at his phone, wondering what more could possibly be happening.
Twenty minutes later, she was at his door. They walked to the back patio together and sat at the table beneath the umbrella.
“You look good,” he complimented her as they took their seats.
“Thanks! I changed my diet. I think it shows up in my skin and hair pretty well. So… we have a new problem.” She pulled the Times from her bag and laid it out in front of him, open to the pages where their engagement had been announced.
Scott’s jaw fell open as he stared at it, reading it in utter disbelief. “This?!” he gasped. “This… how did this… who… ohhhhhhh.” He groaned, leaning back and covering his face with one hand.
“So we’re officially engaged. Congratulations. I had no idea either until my housekeeper showed this to me.” She picked up a water bottle from her bag and took a long sip.
“I can’t believe this. Is it ever going to stop?” he muttered miserably.
“Well, this one isn’t a fish wrapper. This is the Times, Scott. This is one of the publications that takes this kind of thing seriously. This isn’t a rumor.” She eyed him expectantly.
He sat forward again and looked at the newspaper before him, shaking his head. “This is what Cora was talking about today. This is why she came over here.” He groaned.
“Cora? Who’s that?” Jennifer asked curiously.
He planted his forefinger on the photograph of the single woman at the bottom of the page. “That’s Cora,” he said quietly. “She showed up here a little while ago wanting me to dump Naomi and break off my engagement with you and shack up with her and her baby.”
Jennifer frowned. “Yeah… about that. What’s going on with you and Naomi? I thought that she was just your decorator. Then I saw this photo do
wn here, and… that is you, isn’t it? What are you doing walking out of an obstetrician’s office with her?”
Scott sighed. “Naomi is my decorator, and she has been my lover for a little while. We were keeping it under wraps for just this reason. I didn’t want the press or the public involved. I just wanted to keep her to myself, and keep our relationship to myself, and now the whole world is pointing fingers and judging and blowing up.
Yeah. That is me in the photo with her at the obstetrician’s office. We were walking out because she is pregnant with my baby… or at least, we think she is. She was there to get a paternity test. I’m sure it will wind up being mine, but we still had to get the test.”
Jennifer looked at him with wide eyes. “You and Naomi are seeing each other? My god! I never would have guessed! She never said a word about it and we talked forever!”
He shrugged. “Well, that was decent of her to keep it quiet, but now everyone knows.”
Her eyebrow lowered and she leaned forward on one elbow. “Wait a minute… so this woman Cora is pregnant with your kid, and Naomi is pregnant with your kid, and you are supposedly engaged to me and everyone knows it?”
He closed his eyes and nodded. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”
She shook her head. “That’s about the worst mess I’ve ever been in… almost. I might not top it, but I could come close.”
He opened his eyes and turned his head to look at her. “You could? How? What happened to you?”
With a sad sigh, she looked down at the water bottle in her hands. “My ex-boyfriend David got out of jail and showed back up at my house. He wanted to get back together with me, and we got into this big fight, and I left and he followed me. Of course there were reporters just waiting for me to leave my gate, and they followed us and then when I stopped at Madge’s café for a salad, he came in behind me and we got into another fight, and the paparazzi got photos of it, and it hit social media. He got arrested again.
It’s all over the place now, and my people are pushing me to go with this engagement with you; they were on the phone with me all morning. I argued with them like crazy that you and I can’t be officially engaged, but they are pushing so hard for this. They think that it will fix my publicity nightmare. I’m so sorry, Scott.”
“Yeah, my agent has been all over my case about saying that we’re engaged, too. He was talking with me about it yesterday, as a matter of fact. I’ll be honest; I wouldn’t be surprised if this was his idea…” He tapped the newspaper with the tip of his finger. “I’m really sorry about David. I know how much he means to you. That’s sad news.”
She nodded. “It is sad, but I’ve tried to help him. There’s nothing I can do. He has to make that decision on his own. No one is ever going to be able to make it for him or do enough for him that it will change him. He has to change it himself on his own. I don’t think that day is ever really going to come, but I wish that it already had.”
“I wish that for you, too. Or at least that you could find a good guy. You sure as hell deserve one.” He smiled at her and took her hand in his.
“I have one!” She gave him a half-hearted smile in return. “I have you.”
He nodded. “We’re lucky. And now it looks like we’re engaged. So… what do you want to do about this?”
She knitted her brows thoughtfully. “Well, my people are pushing me to go forward with the engagement and make it real, because they tell me it’s going to get rid of all of the bad publicity that I’m getting from the ongoing disaster with David. I think it’s extreme, but that’s what they are saying to me. What is Harold telling you?”
Scott raked his fingers through his hair and gazed out over the sunlight glinting off the turquoise blue water in his swimming pool. “Harold said that most of my sponsors are talking about leaving me because I got two women pregnant… or I might have, and I’m not the upstanding family man that I ought to be.
They think my morals are compromised. So that’s a big chunk of my income. Then, the team owner is talking about getting rid of me because he feels like I’m making his ball club look bad. I know what they are saying… I mean, I get it. Any guy who got two different women pregnant at the same time can’t be a good guy, right? Except… I didn’t know.
It wasn’t like I was playing them or cheating on them or anything. I had a one night stand with Cora, and that was it. Then I met Naomi… and sparks flew, and just as things were getting good for us, Cora shows back up and tells me that she’s pregnant.
I was drunk the night that I had sex with her. I barely remember it. Naomi and I have had a lot of problems, but she is an amazing woman and I care so much about her. She came to me and told me she was pregnant and Harold insisted that she get a paternity test.
Now they are both getting the test, and we’ll see how it goes, but I can absolutely understand why the sponsors and the team owner are ready to back off from me. The problem is that it’s my whole career. I’m on the edge of losing everything I’ve worked my whole life for.”
In his heart, he was terrified of losing it all, and the idea of it almost paralyzed him. He looked over at Jennifer and frowned.
“I have a lot in savings; I mean, I’d be okay, but… where would I go from here? What would I do if I lost all my sponsors and my place on the team? I don’t want to move from here. I love this house. I love this city. This is where I want to live, and I guess raise a family. I don’t want anything to change. I can’t lose it all because of everything that’s going on right now. I can’t risk that. Does any of that make sense to you?” He looked at her imploringly.
“It makes perfect sense,” she answered with a sigh. “I’m not in the same boat, but I’m definitely taking a hit with all of David’s nonsense.” She pursed her lips and looked carefully at Scott. “So, what if our people are right? What if it would be better for us both if we got engaged?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know if it would work, and that’s a big gamble if it doesn’t. We go public with an engagement, then we have to follow up with a wedding, and we have to act like we’re really married in public. That means no outside relationships for us, because that would be an even bigger problem, and we would be living a lie every single day.
I love you, Jennifer, and you’re one of my best friends, but that’s a big step, and I’m not entirely sure it’s a step in the right direction. On the flip side though, if we don’t do that, we could both take huge hits with our careers. Neither one of us wants that.”
She nodded. “I know what you mean. This is a tough one. So, what if we sleep on it? What if we give it some thought and get back to each other on it? What do you think?” She looked at him earnestly.
He smiled at her. “Yeah, that sounds like the best plan for now. Let’s give it some thought. There’s a lot riding on it, no matter which way we go.”
She stood up and he followed suit. “Okay,” she said, reaching her arms around him for a hug. “I will call you soon, or you can call me. For now we’ll just leave it in limbo. If anyone asks, just don’t answer them, or tell them there’s nothing that is being made public at this time.”
He agreed and walked her to the door, waving goodbye to her as she left. After he closed the door, he went back to the patio and sat down in his chair once more, looking at the newspaper that was still laying on the table.
He picked up his cell phone and call Harold.
“Yeah?” Harold asked when he answered.
“Harold, it’s Scott. I just saw the Times. Would you care to explain this to me, please?” He had his suspicions about how the news had been leaked, and while he didn’t want to point fingers or blatantly blame anyone, he was pretty sure that with not much more than a nudge, he could get the truth.
“Explain what?” Harold asked gruffly.
“Explain why I’m engaged to Jennifer Jones,” Scott said coolly, looking at the photographs on the page before him. It was their photograph from the Grammy’s. They had gone together and Jennifer had won four
Grammy’s that night. He had been so proud of her.
“Look, you made a huge mess knocking up two different chicks at the same time. Your sponsors are ready to walk, the owner of the club wants to let you go, and you’re scrambling to try to fix it all and not making any kind of headway. As your agent, it’s my duty to look out for you and fix all this crap that you’ve gotten yourself into. What we know for sure is that the public loves the idea of you and Jennifer together.
She has her own problems right now with that druggie ex-boyfriend of hers, and her camp is looking for a good way out too. I have talked to them. We’re all working our asses off here to try to fix the whole disaster so that the two of you can go on having good lives and lucrative careers, so don’t bust my chops over this!
Yes, I leaked your engagement to the paper. That son of a bitch reporter was only too glad to take my call. I’m going to clean his clock one day, that’s a sure bet.” His voice grew more tense.
Scott listened and let his breath out in a long, slow sigh.
“You need to think about what you have, Scotty. You have a crap load of money coming in from so many sponsors, and they’re good ones. Half the guys in the league would give one arm to have the sponsors that you have. You know that! You have a prime position with the Waves. You have worked your ass off for years to get where you are, and whether you like it or not, you were irresponsible, and it’s landed you in a huge mess.
You are about to lose it all, and for what? For nothing… that’s for what. You want to save what you’ve worked so damn hard for? You marry Jennifer Jones. That makes you the hero. That makes you the family man. You don’t marry her, and you can pretty much kiss it all goodbye.
If those two kids wind up being yours, then you can pay child support. No one cares about child support. Half the country or more pays child support. You won’t be a bad guy. You won’t be a womanizer. You’ll be settled down and you’ll be one of the hottest celebrity couples in the city, or heck, even in the world, if you play it right.
