by Helen Cooper
New Beginnings (The Billionaire’s Baby)
Helen Cooper
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is entirely coincidental. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2013 by Helen Cooper
This book is dedicated to the fans that wanted to see more of Maxwell and Sophie.
Prologue
Sophie saw the envelope and her heart stilled. Another letter had arrived to bring her out of her detached numbness. The handwriting looked straight and neat. It was as if he had hoped that his apparent calmness would soothe her broken heart and wounded soul. She picked up the letter lifelessly. She didn’t want to read the words that would crush her all over again. She didn’t know if she was strong enough to withstand the gamut of emotions that were sure to pass through her as she read his letter. She preferred the silence of her numbness to the burning screeches of her pain. But she couldn’t resist the magnetic pull of the letter. She ran to her bedroom and ripped open the envelope, falling to her bed in sobs as she finished reading the poetic words of the man she loved.
My Dearest Sophie,
I hope this letter does not meet you with too much grief. By now you should have received one other letter from me. I remember how you loved to receive letters as a child. I hope that you are beginning to understand my actions. That’s all I dare ask of you now, Sophie. Remember me as the man you loved and not the man I became.
Please kiss Winter and Jacob every night and give them an extra long hug from me. Tell them that their father loves them dearly and I hope that one day they will see that I was trying to protect them. Thank you for being the kind of mother that welcomes everyone into your heart. My love for you has tripled in these last few weeks as I have witnessed the magnanimity of your devotion.
Sophie, you know that it pains me to say this but Nicholas is a good man. Know that you have my blessing.
Always yours, in sickness and in health, in life and in death,
Maxwell
Chapter 1
Sophie
Sophie looked at the wedding magazines in front of her and sighed. There was so much that went into planning a wedding. So much that she wasn’t really interested in, flowers, catering, decorations, music, gifts, invitations; the list just seemed to go on and on. Maxwell had offered to get her a wedding planner but she hadn’t wanted one. She had thought she could handle it all herself; she’d thought it would be fun. But boy had she been wrong. She looked at her phone and picked it up, checking her text messages again to see if Ella had returned any of her messages yet. But there were no new messages. It seemed like another day was going to go by with no contact from Ella. She ran through her contact list and tried calling her again. “Hey Ella, it’s me, Sophie. Just calling to make sure you are okay. Call me when you can.” She tried to keep her voice happy but she found it hard to keep the stress and desperation out of her voice. She was worried about Ella; she just hadn’t seemed the same since she and Maxwell had picked her up from Joseph’s apartment.
The phone rang and Sophie grabbed it up eagerly. “Hello.” Her voice was excited.
“Hey, honey.” Maxwell’s smooth drawl came down the line.
“Oh it’s you.”
“Well nice to see you missed me.” Maxwell’s voice held mirth.
“Sorry. I was just hoping Ella would call.”
“Oh no, she’s still giving us the silent treatment?” Maxwell sighed. “Should I go and see her?”
“No. No.” Sophie knew that would only aggravate matters. “She’ll come around eventually.”
“I wish I would never have hired Joseph. It’s my fault.”
“No, Max.” Sophie’s voice was soft. “It’s not your fault.”
“For once.” He laughed. “In all seriousness, let’s talk about this tonight and see what we can come up with.”
“Okay.” Sophie smiled into the phone. “I love you, you know.”
“You do?”
“I do, Mr. Van Harkel.” She grinned.
“As much as the sky?”
“Only if you include all the clouds.”
“I think I can do that.”
“What about you?” Her voice was low, almost embarrassed.
“What about me?” He paused. “I love me too.” He laughed.
“You know what I mean.” She giggled nervously. Their relationship was so new and their love too recent for her to believe that it was true.
“Oh, I love you more than the galaxy. More than ten trips to the moon.”
“Okay, as long as you love me more than nine trips.” She laughed happy and then gasped. “Ooh.”
“What happened, Sophie?” Max’s voice was worried. “Are you okay?”
“The baby just kicked me.” Her voice was full of wonder. “I think she’s happy to hear we love each other.”
“You mean he?” His voice was dry. “I told you I wanted a Maxwell, Jr.”
“I think it will be a Maxina then.” She laughed.
“We’ll see.” She heard him talking to someone in his office and she sat back on the couch and picked up one of the wedding magazines she was looking at. “Hey sorry about that.” Max came back to the phone. “What were we talking about?”
“How would you feel about a wedding on the beach?” She stared at the photos in the magazine and thought she could go for a wedding in Hawaii. “Somewhere like Hawaii?”
“If that’s what you want, my love.” His voice was sweet and pleasant and Sophie could hardly believe that this was the same Maxwell that had been so hot and cold with her in the past. “Can you have it arranged by next week?”
“No.” She laughed and then sighed. “You know I have to plan the wedding around my school schedule. I really want to finish before the baby comes.”
“I know. But maybe we can just go to Vegas and elope and have Elvis marry us?”
“Are you serious?” Sophie’s voice was excited.
“I wasn’t but it seems like you are really interested in the idea.” Max’s voice was incredulous. “Go figure. You have millions of dollars at your disposal to plan the wedding of your dreams and you want to go to Vegas for a quickie wedding.” He laughed. “Well, I know I’m not marrying a gold-digger.”
“Was there ever any doubt?” Sophie mocked an offended voice.
“No, my dear. Anyway I have to go. I’ll see you for dinner. Oh and by the way, I think we’re going to have a girl as well. I love you.” And with that, he hung up. Sophie smiled at the phone, still unable to believe that all of her dreams were coming true. Soon she would be Mrs. Maxwell Van Harkel. She flipped back to the wedding magazine and sighed. She just wasn’t interested in reading about weddings right now. She got up and walked to the window and looked out at the park. She wouldn’t admit it to Maxwell but she was beginning to love his apartment and its view of Central Park. She loved being able to leave the apartment and do just about anything her heart desired. She could go to the movie theater, Trader Joe’s or the park in under five minutes; and she could catch the subway and be on campus at Columbia in less than ten minutes. Some days she even walked up to 116 Street. She never told Maxwell that though, she knew that he would be upset to hear that she was walking that far by herself. He was very overprotective; something that she loved, when she didn’t feel like she was being cloistered.
As Sophie watched the Upper West Side mothers walking their dogs along with their babies she realized that she wanted a dog. She’d have to ask Max if they could get one. She went and sat back on the couch a
nd turned on the TV. She flickered through the channels and sighed. There was nothing good to watch and she was bored. She wanted to do something but she had no one to hang out with. Ella was her only real friend and she had cut her off. Sophie checked the wall clock and grabbed her bag before running out of the apartment. She was going to go over to the apartment she had shared with Ella until very recently and wait for her until she got home. She was fed up of Ella treating her like this. She needed Ella and Ella needed her; they had been friends for too long to let an affair with a married man come between them. Sophie bit her lip as she hailed a cab. She hoped that the only problem Ella had concerned Joseph because if she was upset that Sophie was dating her brother, then that would make things a lot more complicated.
She rode in the back of the cab in silence running her fingers through her long brown hair, which she was sure looked a frizzy mess. Ella would tell her to deep condition it. Or maybe she would have deep conditioned it for Sophie herself. They had played hairdresser for years, with Ella taking over the role as Sophie’s stylist in boarding school. Sophie had only been seven but she had always gone to class with the cutest shiny lips thanks to a dab of Ella’s lip-gloss. Sophie missed those days. Sometimes she lay in bed and just thought about all the tricks she and Ella had gotten in to. They’d been as thick as thieves and Ella had dragged Sophie into one stupid stunt after another. There was nothing Sophie would say no to. She’d clung to Ella like a child clung to its favorite teddy bear. Ella taking her in had made her feel whole. It was Ella who would come and hug her close when she would wake up in tears remembering her parents. She sometimes wondered what would have happened if her parents hadn’t died in that car crash. Would she ever have met Ella or Maxwell? She doubted it. And sometimes she didn’t know if she would have changed the past if she could. Would she have reversed her parents dying in the car crash if it meant she would never meet Maxwell? She tried to banish those thoughts from her mind. It wasn’t healthy for her or the baby. And it wasn’t like she would suddenly develop a gift to go back in time.
***
Sophie let herself into the apartment and looked around. It was dark, desolate and messy. She walked through the pile of clothes carefully, picking them up as she walked further into the apartment. She knocked on Ella’s bedroom door before she entered. “Ella. Ella, are you there?”
Silence greeted her as she pushed the door open. She wasn’t going to snoop. She just wanted to put the clothes on her bed. She stood there looking around the normally immaculate room and gasped. There was a broken mirror on one side and piles of empty take-out bags and empty tubs of ice cream. She screamed as something scurried across the room; she was pretty sure it was a cockroach. She bent down to start picking up the trash but then hesitated and stopped. If she cleaned up the room then Ella would know she had been in there, she may even think she was snooping. And Sophie didn’t want to know what Ella would do then. She decided to go to the living room and wait on the couch but as she passed the door she saw something in the trash that made her stop. It was a pregnancy test and as Sophie looked at it, she felt the color drain from her face. She was pretty sure she knew what those lines meant as she had just been witness to them herself very recently. She dropped the test back into the trash and walked back to the couch slowly unsure if she should say anything. It wasn’t like she was in any position to say anything. She wasn’t exactly the moral police.
She turned on the TV and occupied her mind with an old episode of ‘King of Queens’. She laughed as Doug and Carrie argued over how to get rid of an ugly piece of art and without realizing it, she fell asleep on the couch. She awoke a couple of hours later and Ella still hadn’t returned. She looked at her watch and sighed. She had to leave, Maxwell would be waiting for her, wondering where she was. Everything between them was still so new that she didn’t want to rock the boat and have him worried about her whereabouts. She turned off the TV and tried calling Ella again. She was worried about her friend. She knew that emotionally Ella was pretty fragile. She’d gone through a stage when they were freshmen where she slept with a lot of different guys. It was as if she thought sex would make them love her. For a confident beautiful girl, Ella had a lot of issues and Sophie was really worried about her. She only hoped that Ella wasn’t going to turn to sex with random strangers to help her get over Joseph. She tried calling Ella once more as she walked out of their apartment but once again there was no answer.
Chapter 2
Ella
Ella looked at her ringing phone and sighed as she saw Sophie’s name pop up again. She knew she should just answer but she was so angry and frustrated. And if she admitted it to herself, she was jealous. It just wasn’t fair that Maxwell and Sophie had paired up. Now she had no one. She’d lost her brother and her best friend and was all alone. Even Joseph was ignoring her. Now that she’d gotten him fired, he wanted nothing to do with her. She knew she should be happy that he had ended it once and for all. She didn’t want to be the other woman; but he had said that he was going to leave Lily. She’d counted on him leaving Lily. Why would he stay if he was so unhappy? It just didn’t make sense to her. She was young, rich and beautiful and Lily was a slob. Why would he stay with her?
She knew she was acting like a bitch. But she couldn’t help it. She just felt so sorry for herself. She didn’t understand why he didn’t love her like she loved him. How could he have made love to her so tenderly if he didn’t love her? She picked up her phone and tried Joseph’s number again. It rang twice and then went to voicemail. He had sent her to voicemail on purpose, she was positive of it. “Thanks for being an ass, Joseph. You better call me back. I think I’m pregnant.” She hung up quickly and sat back in the park bench. She looked at the kids on the swings and sighed. If that voicemail didn’t get him to call her then nothing would. It wasn’t a complete lie. She had thought she was pregnant when she took the test last week but then she had gotten her period and gone to the doctor and taken another test. And he had told her that she was definitely not pregnant. And then he’d given her a handful of condoms. She’d wanted to giggle as he handed them to her but she didn’t think he would appreciate the humor in the situation. She’d been buying boxes of condoms since she was in high school, she didn’t need a lecture on how important they were.
“Hi.” A young African American lady came and sat next to her on the bench. “Which one’s yours?”
“Huh?” Ella looked at her with a frown. She didn’t want to be social with anyone.
“Which kid is yours?” The blond smiled and pointed. “That little tyke in the red sweater and red pants is mine.”
“He sure likes red,” Ella drawled staring at the pudgy little kid running around with a stone in his hand.
“That he does.” The lady laughed. “My name is Capri.” She held out her hand as she introduced herself.
“Capri?”
“Like the drink.” The lady laughed again. Ella studied her face as she talked; she was pretty when she smiled. She must have been about twenty-six. She must have had the kid around Ella’s age. She looked at Capri’s hand and there was no ring on it. She must have been a single mother. She looked pretty happy for a single mother. Ella was surprised and tried not to stare at Capri’s clothes. They looked like she had bought them at Target. Not the sort of clothes Ella would be caught dead wearing. And then Ella laughed at the absurdity of her thoughts.
“What’s so funny?” Capri smiled at her waiting for her to share the joke.
“Oh nothing.” Ella smiled back at her, a genuine and wide smile. “You just remind me of my best friend, Sophie. And by the way, I’m Ella.” She paused. “And no kid.”
“Ah, just spending your time here thinking?” Capri smiled kindly.
“Something like that.” She nodded and tried not to sigh. “I just got out of a bad relationship and I’m trying to not let it rule my life or thoughts.”
“Ah, I’ve been there.” Capri laughed. “Boy, have I been there.” She stood up then.
“Leroy, drop that stone right now or we are going home.” Leroy looked at his mother like he wanted to cry but then dropped it and ran to one of the slides. “Oh children.”
“Hard work, huh?” Ella sympathized with Capri. She couldn’t imagine what it must be like to be a single mom.
“Yeah.” Capri laughed. “But thank God my husband is hands on. It takes a lot of pressure off me.”
“Oh, you’re married?” Ella looked at Capri’s left hand disappointed. For some reason she thought she and Capri could have become single girls on the prowl now that Sophie had gone out and hooked up with Max.
“I know, no ring.” Capri grinned. “We couldn’t afford to buy one yet.” She shrugged. “I’m just happy he was willing to take me and Leroy on.”
“Oh, he’s not Leroy’s dad?”
“Not his biological dad, no.” Capri grinned. “But he is a better father than his real dad. Leroy, come here now,” Capri shouted at the little boy who came running over to them, with his hands all full of dirt. Ella stared at him in interest. He was a gorgeous kid up close. And his clothes looked nice. A lot nicer than Capri’s. Ella smiled at the boy who looked at her unabashedly. He then reached his muddy hand over to hers and squeezed.
“Oh I’m sorry, Ella.” Capri sighed and gave her a tissue. “I bet Leroy is in love with you. He’s never seen such a beautiful girl before. Have you?”
Leroy continued staring at Ella with a small smile and she grinned at him. “That’s no problem. I guess I should get used to it. I’m going to be an aunt soon.” She looked down into her lap as excitement poured through her. She was looking forward to being an aunt. She realized that now. She sighed with annoyance at herself. She’d been such a brat—she was sure Sophie was worried sick about her. She resolved to herself that she would call Sophie as soon as she got home.
