We sit down in a booth and I slide in next to her, keeping our legs touching. I feel like I need to maintain physical contact with her or she’ll forget how much I love her and want this charade of a life with all the others to end.
The waitress brings us a couple of glasses of water and the menus. “Hey, Shugs, what can I get you two to drink?”
Before I can say a word, Britt answers, “I need a Scotch on the rocks. Bring two of those for me, please.”
The waitress laughs. “Sure thing, Sweetie. And for you, sir?”
“I’ll have a sweet iced tea and can you bring us an appetizer, a combination of the best ones, please?”
She nods and leaves us alone in the little café which only has three other people in it. Taking Britt’s hand, I pull it up and kiss it. She looks at me with no smile on her beautiful face. “I’m really sorry for acting this way. I’m trying my best to be here for you. You’ve just been into some things I feel are really mean and selfish.”
“I know it looks that way. I do. But you have no idea how hard most of those women came onto me. It’s kind of like they were not taking no for an answer and instead of breaking their hearts, I gave them a little of what they wanted. But I know it was wrong and I know I did it to avoid confrontation.”
“And you know you need therapy, right?” she asks.
Her words kind of stun me even though they shouldn’t. “I suppose I do. And I have a little more to tell you about things. Jackson, my attorney, told me that we shouldn’t get married until we have this child support thing settled. Otherwise, they’ll use your money too in order to decide what I need to pay. We don’t want that to happen.”
“It’s for the best, anyway,” she says.
I freeze then run my arm around her. “For the best?”
The drinks come along with a plate of a bunch of fried stuff and a bowl of Ranch dressing. The waitress places the things on the table. “So what can I get you two to eat?”
“I’m not hungry,” Brittany says.
“Bring us a couple of chicken fried steaks with mashed potatoes and gravy, please.” I look at Britt. “You are eating.”
The waitress nods and walks away. Brittany takes a long drink of the Scotch and sighs. “Life’s weird, huh?”
“I guess so,” I say as I pick up a chunk of fried something and dip it then pop it into my mouth. It’s chicken so I pick up another and dip it then hold it to her lips.
“I’m not…” she says, but I pop it in, anyway.
She chews and glares at me then takes another drink. I’m not about to let her mood affect her eating. With a smile, I say, “You’re going to eat, skinny-mini.”
With no hesitation, I pop another piece of chicken into her mouth as soon as she swallows the alcohol which I’d rather her not have any of at all. The way she’s acting has me worried.
“Jason, I can eat on my own. I’m just not hungry and this is sitting on my stomach all wrong,” she says as she goes to grab her nearly empty glass of Scotch.
I intercept her, taking the alcohol away and moving the other glass of it as well. “Here, have some of my tea. I’m sure it’s the Scotch affecting your stomach, not the food. You shouldn’t be drinking, anyway. We didn’t drink at all since we made the decision to try to have a baby. You know that.”
“Yeah, about that. I don’t think that’s a good idea anymore. With this hanging over your head.” She sips my tea and looks past me, out the large window behind me. “Fuck, she’s coming in here and she has the baby.”
I turn to see who she’s talking about and cross my fingers it’s not Beatrice. But my fears are confirmed as I see it is her. “I doubt she realizes we’re in here.”
Brittany looks sick. “Damn it! I have to go to the bathroom. Shit!” She gets up and hauls ass to the bathroom to puke, no doubt.
Beatrice doesn’t see me or seem to notice the nearly running, Brittany, as she makes her way to the restroom. Instead, Bea goes to the counter. “I ordered a to go plate,” she tells our waitress who went to the cashier station.
“Yeah, we have it in the back, Bea. I’ll tell Johnny you’re here.” The waitress leaves the counter and walks back to the kitchen.
I can barely hear Beatrice as she says what sounds like, “You want to see, Daddy?” She pulls the little blanket back off the baby who is lying in a car seat.
She’s so focused on the baby she hasn’t even looked around the little café once. A man comes out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on a white towel hung over an apron around his waist. His dark hair is covered with a hair net and his white T-shirt has grease stains all over it.
“Hey, Baby,” he says as he goes toward Bea and the baby.
She pulls the tiny baby out of the car seat. The guy kisses her cheek then takes the baby. “How’s Daddy’s little soldier?” He kisses the baby on the forehead then cuddles him. “How was court?”
She looks kind of grim. “He’s making me do a DNA test. This might not work the way we wanted it too.”
The sound of the bathroom door squeaking open has me turning back to find Brittany coming out of it and I pray Bea won’t look that way and see her.
I move to the other side of the booth so my back is to Bea and we’ll be less likely to be seen. With a wave to Britt, she follows my lead and sits on the side I’ve moved to.
She whispers, “What’s up with that man holding the baby?”
“Listen,” I whisper back. “Seems, he’s the daddy.”
Her eyes go wide as we put our heads together and try to hear them talking. Our waitress comes out of the kitchen, carrying our plates. She brings them over and says, “Here you two go. Anything else?”
I shake my head and she places the plates in front of us then leaves. Looking over my shoulder, I see her going straight up to Bea and the man who she obviously is having some kind of relationship with.
“Okay, so tell me how it went today. Did you manage to get anything out of moneybags?” the waitress asks.
“No, Donna,” Bea answers. “He’s making me get a DNA test. And like I told Johnny, it’s a rare chance the in vitro fertilization is what made me pregnant since he and I were having sex at that time. I suppose there’s a fifty-fifty chance, moneybags is the father. No matter what, I get to keep the house and the cars.”
Johnny makes a little hissing sound as he says, “Yes! I get to keep the truck!”
“You do, Baby. His very bossy girlfriend, Oops, I mean, fiancé, made him give me those things. I could see she was kind of sick about what he’s been doing. I’m just glad you came along, Johnny, and showed me what the asshole was really doing. I guess you finding that app was a God send. You know he told me he has forty-something other women he’s doing the same thing to?”
“Fuck me!” the waitress says. “How in the hell?”
“I don’t know or care. I just want restitution for the time I put into his lying, cheating ass,” Bea says.
Johnny clears his throat. “Bea, you weren’t exactly a saint.”
“Well, he doesn’t know that,” she says with a laugh.
I’m seeing red and not because of any jealousy either. This woman merely wants money and now I’ll be damned if she gets any.
Britt’s hand moves over my leg as she mouths, “I’m so sorry, Baby.”
I rest my forehead against hers. “Thank you. You don’t know what it means to me to have you in my corner, Britt.”
“When can I come back home, Bea?” the man asks her.
“Today. I don’t see how he can say a thing about that. He’s marrying someone else, anyway,” she says.
Looking into Brittany’s eyes I whisper, “I am marrying you and I really give less than two shits about that man and Bea.”
A smile moves over Britt’s beautiful face. “I think we should make ourselves known but not say a word about hearing anything. What do you say?” She looks at the food on the plates and points at the gelatinous gravy. “That crap isn’t going into my mouth, anyway.”
<
br /> I nod and we get up and head toward the counter to pay the bill. Beatrice looks at me as we walk up and she goes pale as a ghost. “Jason!”
Chapter 5
BRITTANY
The look on Beatrice’s face is priceless as her mouth hangs open. The man holding the baby nearly falls down. “This is him?” he asks.
Jason nods. “I am him. Is that the baby? Mind if I hold him?”
I look at Jason, not sure about what he’s doing but go along with him. The guy looks at Beatrice. “Do I let him?”
She looks shell-shocked so I answer, “She told him he was the father, so I think you should.”
My bossy tone has him handing the baby to Jason who takes the tiny thing and looks at him. The baby has dark hair but so do both men who could be the father of this poor kid.
But as the baby moves around a little, waking up, he opens his eyes and I see they’re brown too. Both Beatrice and the other guy have brown eyes so that gives me a little hope this child isn’t Jason’s.
Jason notices the eyes too. “Awe, he didn’t get my blue eyes. That’s a real shame.”
“He got my eyes, Jason,” Beatrice says. “He looks like me.”
Jason shocks me as he nudges me with his shoulder. “Want to hold him, Baby. You might be a second mother to him after all.”
My stomach flip-flops as it’s not in me to threaten anyone. Especially with their child. “No. Once we find out for sure if he’s yours then I’ll get to know him.”
Beatrice lets out a sigh of relief then holds out her arms. “It’s time for him to eat. Let me have him.”
Jason hands the baby to her. “I guess I’ll see you back in the judge’s chambers when the test comes back.”
She nods. “You’ll get a call, I guess.”
“I left instructions at the lab to notify me once the results are available. They told me it’s typically two days. You need to go have his blood drawn too. Then a couple of days after that we’ll have the results,” he says as he lays a hundred-dollar bill on the counter. “That should cover our check.”
He takes my hand and leads me out the door. I lean in and whisper, “You handled that very well.”
As we get outside, he turns to me and kisses my cheek. “I did, didn’t I?”
Then a voice calls out behind us, “We should talk, Bobby.”
Jason stops and looks at me. “Damn it!”
I shake my head. “Not another one.”
He nods and we turn back to see a short woman with a blonde bob smoking a cigarette and walking toward us. “I saw you leaving the courthouse earlier and followed you here. I waited just inside the café, in the little game room to the side entrance. I heard it all. So is your name Jason or Bobby?”
“Jason,” he says with a sigh. “I was going to send out messages to everyone later this evening. I’ve been lying to all of you.”
“All of us?” the woman asks as she drops the cigarette and smashes it with her boot.
Jason looks at me. “Brittany, this is Allison.”
I nod at the woman who nods back. “Nice to meet you, Allison.”
“I can’t say the same,” she says. “You see, I just saw this man three weeks ago, and it was my understanding that we were a couple. A couple who didn’t see other people. So when I made a little visit to my hometown and saw him walking with you and holding your hand, well, naturally I was confused. Then I saw this little scene with another woman and a baby. By the way, did you by chance overhear her talking to that other man? He may be the father of that baby too.”
“We did overhear them talking,” Jason says. “Look, Allison, I’m sorry about all of this. I’ve been living a lie and I’m stopping that. I stopped a week ago when I ran into my first love. My only love, really. I didn’t mean to hurt any of you.”
The woman laughs kind of manically. “Hurt me? Don’t worry about it.” She pulls out her phone and presses a couple of buttons then hands it to him.
She has his app. And there on the screen is a blinking green light. He laughs. “So you’re a player too, Allison.”
With a nod, she says, “Why else would I allow my man to spend a day or two out of the month with me? Of course, I have more men on the side.”
“So no hard feelings then?” he asks as he hands her phone back to her.
She shakes her head. “Nah. It was me who pressed the issue.”
Jason nods. “You were on the aggressive side.”
“So, what’s up with that woman?” she asks. “Because I’ve seen her around. She’s about four years older than me, but I know her by reputation. A real tramp that one is.”
“Oh yeah?” he asks. “So is there a chance there’s more than me and that man who could be that baby’s father?”
She nods. “I also noticed that she and he drive some very nice cars for a nurse and a fry cook. Are you footing that bill?”
He nods. “The truck is in my name but the house and the car she drives are in her name.”
“Well, now I’m a little pissed. You didn’t buy me a damn thing.”
I look at Jason who seems kind of uneasy. “Well, you didn’t ask for anything.”
“She asked for those things?” she asks him as her hands go to her hips.
“She did.” He looks a little sheepish and I see the wheels turning in the woman’s head.
The door opens and out comes Beatrice, sans the baby. She shrieks, “What the fuck are you telling him, Allison Gates?”
Allison spins around. “What a fucking slut you are, Beatrice!”
“You stay the hell out of my business,” Beatrice shouts as she comes at Allison with her fists raised, ready to fight.
“You need to stop this, Jason,” I whisper.
He nods and moves his body between the two of them. “Stop it! There’s no reason to fight. It seems we’ve all been lying. It ends here and now. No one is the victim here.”
Beatrice’s eyes are narrowed at the younger woman. “You’ve been fucking him too, Allison?”
Allison laughs and nods. “But it seems you’ve been fucking him in a few ways. You need to get the fuck out of that house he bought and give him back his cars, you money grubbing, bitch!”
Jason seems so out of control of the situation I feel it necessary to step in. “Okay, let’s just calm way the fuck down. I step up to stand beside Jason. There’s a lot to think about. I’m sure that each situation can be dealt with as an individual case. And Jason’s lawyer will be the one handling that business.”
The short blonde seems to be much like a banty rooster as she turns to me. “And why the fuck do you think you get to say anything?”
I look down at the barely five-foot young woman and stifle a laugh. “Because I seem to be the only one here who actually loves and cares about this man. You two seemed to only want things from him. You both are about as aggressive as I’ve ever seen.”
Suddenly, I find the women standing next to one another as they look me up and down. Beatrice says, “This one here is pretty bossy. I think she needs to wake the fuck up about this man. Maybe you and I should let her know what kind of man he is.”
Jason holds up his hands in surrender. “Hey now, let’s stop this! We’re leaving. Come on, Baby.” He grabs my hand and we go toward the rental car.
Behind us I can hear both women shouting about how they’ve fucked the man by my side and how he’s fucked them and my ears are on fire as he puts me in the car.
I know Jason is no innocent in this but damn those women are awful. As he gets into the car I find myself asking, “How in the hell did you find either of them attractive, Jason? They’re such bitches.”
He pulls out of the parking lot. “I honestly do not know, Brittany. What I’ve been doing up until I found you again is a real cluster fuck in my head. I guess I do need to see a therapist because I don’t know why I’ve done any of the things I’ve done.”
Leaning back and resting my aching head against the headrest, I close my eyes. This is all too m
uch to deal with. These women may all be kind of loose cannons. Is that what I want to deal with for the next couple of years until they move on?
He hands me his cell phone. “Can you send out a group message to all the women on my app telling them I’m sorry? I’m a liar and a cheat and am getting the hell out of their lives for their own good. Then I’m getting rid of that phone which is apparently bugged by at least that one nut job.”
Taking his phone, I look at it and think about what he’s asked of me. Then I look back at him. “Don’t you think you should write the message, Jason?”
He shakes his head. “Baby, my mind is soup right now. I’ve finally found exactly what I want, and it’s not coming to me as easy as everything else has in my life. It’s infuriating and I don’t know how to handle it. I want to take you, marry you, and go back to Bora Bora where no one knows us.”
“That’s kind of running away from your problems. You know that, right?”
He looks straight ahead. “That’s my M.O. after all, Britt. Things get tough, I move on.”
“That’s always been your problem, Jason. You have to stand up and face things. We could go with what you want but then you won’t learn a thing. You need to face the consequences of your actions. When you get involved with aggressive people bad things happen.”
He looks at me with a chuckle. “Britt, do you think I haven’t learned that? I have. I have completely learned my lesson.”
“If something happened to me, let’s say I died. Would you be able to keep your ass out of those situations on your own?” I ask as I watch his face go tense.
“First, never talk about you dying.” He looks at me as he stops at a stop light. “And yes, I think I could keep myself out of these situations. I never had the want to before you. But even if I lost you, I don’t want this kind of life anymore.”
His hand moves over the top of my leg as his eyes hold mine. I want to believe him so badly. And that alone has me wondering if I’m being gullible. I haven’t been naïve and gullible over anyone else since him.
I’ve built up the walls to stop that from happening, but here I am again. Just like that nineteen-year-old girl who placed her hope in this man. He’s spun the biggest web of lies I’ve ever seen.
The Shameless Billionaire Series: Billionaire Romance Box Set (An Alpha-Male, Billionaire, Bad Boy, Bad Girl, Romance) Page 15
