by Lee, Kimball
“Damn sister, how many are you planning to have?” Amanda asked. “I’m only doing this once more, the moody pregnancy thing is not going over well with JP.”
“We always said we’d have three,” Charlotte said, “so that’s what I want, two boys and a girl.”
“Well, heaven knows Charlotte always gets what she wants,” Amanda said, and Charlotte told her to speak for her own bratty self.
“I don’t want to be fat and pregnant again,” Maddie said, taking a small bite of her tofu salad, “but Alex already says he wants one more baby. He won’t admit it, but I’m sure he wants another boy. Like royalty, the whole ‘heir and the spare’ way of doing things. I have news for him, I’m not getting pregnant again, ever.”
“Well Maddie, whatever makes you happy,” Amanda said, and Charlotte could hear the disdain in her voice. “So Charlotte, did you bring any of the ‘almost famous’ photos of Atticus?”
“What does she mean?” Maddie asked Charlotte, and her voice held a hint of panic, “did Spencer Beck take pictures for you?”
“God, no!” Charlotte said, “And honestly I’m surprised he did your wedding pictures, Maddie. Your ex-boyfriend, how did that come about?”
“He called Alex and offered, I didn’t think it was a good idea, but Alex wanted him to do it. So what about the baby pictures, is your son really going to be famous?”
“Not any time soon if I can help it,” Charlotte said, “I had his one year portraits done earlier this summer and they turned out great. The photographer is showing some of her work at Pacifica Maternity Center and she wanted to use a picture of him. I said no, surely it’s not safe to have pictures of your baby on public display.”
“That’s where I’m having my baby,” Maddie said, pushing away the salad she’d barely touched.
“Yes, me too,” Amanda said, “but how cool that she wants to use a picture of Atti, he is movie star gorgeous, there’s no denying it.”
*
Charlotte kissed her friends goodbye after lunch and they promised to meet the next week, same time, same place. She buckled the seatbelt of the Volvo and dialed Finn’s number as she sat in the parking garage.
“Hey stud, wanna meet me in the restroom at Starbucks?” she asked, and they both laughed.
“I’ll meet you anywhere, my love, but tell me, are we ever going to simply have sex at home in our own bed again?”
“Maybe” she said, “what’s wrong, did you get a little nervous when what’s-her-name from the loft caught us in her bed?”
“Well, we did have to agree to three months free rent to stop her from having us arrested,” Finn said, and Charlotte could feel him smiling.
“Don’t forget the new set of sheets she insisted on,” Charlotte said as she laughed. “Now, I’m going to pick up Atti at your mother’s house because I miss him like crazy. Meet us at home in an hour and we’ll have quality family time. Then later I’m thinking we might watch a DVD I ordered on the internet, it’s called, The Lady Submits. I think it’s supposed to be educational, in fact, I believe you can earn college credits just for watching it and acting it out.”
“Hang up the damn phone and meet me in our big bed, soon,” he said, and his voice meant business.
When Charlotte turned onto Georgina’s street she could just see the roof of her house, and she wondered if Atti was wiggling his toes in the grass, enjoying the California sunshine. That was the last thing she remembered before another young mother ran the stop sign while texting, and totaled the Volvo. Charlotte didn’t wake up as her car lay upside down with her trapped inside, and neighbors from up and down the street gathered and screamed for someone to call 911.
“Oh, dear God!” Georgina said as she walked toward the wreck with Atticus on her hip. She stopped when she saw the blood on Charlotte’s face, and her next-door neighbor stood at her side.
“Is that your daughter-in-law?” her neighbor asked.
“Yes, here, take the baby to the house, do you have your cell phone?” Georgina asked, and she handed the baby over and called 911, and then Finn.
When Finn ran out of the office and flattened a parking meter with his car, JP caught up with him and told him he would drive. JP had never imagined that Finn would cry over anything, but when they reached the scene of the wreck, huge tears rolled down his face. Firemen were using the Jaws of Life to cut Charlotte out of the overturned car, her face was streaked with blood, and although her eyes were closed, she was moaning.
Policemen yelled for everyone to stay back, but Finn pushed his way through the barricade they’d set up. He got as close to Charlotte as he could, without disturbing the paramedics and firemen, and he spoke to her.
“My love, hang on. Do you hear me Charlotte? Don’t give up, we need you, Atticus and I need you desperately. Please don’t leave us, please my love,” he begged, and his voice was heavy with pain and raw fear.
As they cut her free from the crushed metal, and the seatbelt and airbag, she opened her eyes for a moment as the paramedics stabilized her neck.
“Finn,” she whispered, with a huge amount of sadness in her eyes.
He saw that she was bleeding from a cut to the forehead, and when her hands moved instinctively to her belly, her skirt was covered in blood, as well.
*
“My love my love,” Finn whispered against her ear as she woke in the hospital.
“Ouch,” she said, and he smiled.
“I know it hurts, my love.”
She pushed the blanket down and touched the swollen area under her naval, and tears ran in torrents down her cheeks.
“You’re here with us,” he said, lying down beside her and gathering her against his body. “Our little family is just fine, you, me and Atticus.”
She began to sob then and he wanted to cry, too. A perfect little boy, the doctor had said, the impact and the shock to Charlotte’s system had caused her to miscarry. They’d preformed a D and C even though her body expelled the baby on its own. “Just to tidy things up,” the doctor said nonchalantly, and JP had to hold Finn back from hitting the man. He also said there was swollen tissue in her lower abdomen, but the reproductive organs were tucked well away in the pelvis. She would have follow-up visits with the doctor and with luck, she had a fifty-fifty chance of becoming pregnant in the future.
When she could finally speak, she said, “I wanted a little boy… for you.”
“I have a little boy, my love, and I don’t want you to ever worry about that again. DNA, such a stupid thing, it doesn’t matter at all. Just blood and cells, that’s not what makes a child your own, is it? He loves me and I couldn’t possibly love him more, no matter what,” he whispered to her, and she turned toward him and buried her face in his neck.
“When did you know?” she asked.
“Long before you did. You and my mother, you saw what you wanted to see when you looked at him, you saw me. Bly must have been so afraid that Atticus wouldn’t be his, he couldn’t see the truth, either. I saw Atticus, and I knew right away. I also knew he was meant to be my son, and maybe his little soul just needed to get to earth early. None of that matters, my love, the three of us, we belong together.”
She raised her lips to his beautiful mouth, and as he kissed her, the salt of her tears mixed with the taste of their love.
Chapter Three
JP rarely spent time at home, and Amanda rarely noticed. She was busy looking at houses that her brother’s money would pay for, and planning for her baby, and he was busy fucking Lizzie.
“Oh, fuck baby,” Lizzie screamed, as she climaxed, her back was to JP and she pressed her pretty ass back against him.
They were lying on their sides in bed in the loft, and his hands held her small hips as his cock thrust deep into her. Her own fingers circled her swollen clit and she shuddered and bucked against him.
“I can’t get enough of you,” he said, when she turned and lay with her face against his heaving chest. Her long hair spread out and covered them
both, and he asked when her baby was due and if they should be fucking so much.
“What is this, the middle of August? I guess it’s due in about a month,” she said, not seeming to care. “I love the taste of you,” she said taking his cock in her mouth.
“That’s pretty much the taste of you,” he said. He held her head and closed his eyes and was immersed in the feeling of her magic tongue and lips.
They fucked incessantly, and when they weren’t fucking, they went to the beach and paddled out into the waves on their surfboards. Her belly had grown too large for her to surf, but she still wore her tiniest bikini and looked sexy in it. They sat on the boards and let the waves carry them back to shore, and then they swam out again. She was nineteen, she said, she ran away from home when she was fifteen and no one came looking for her. She lived on the streets at first, then she sold drugs for some guy, and took whatever small jobs she could get to keep from selling her body. She’d only done that once, and look where it had gotten her. Her baby’s daddy was some old dude she got paid to fuck. Now she was about to have a screaming kid when she couldn’t even support herself. She had intended to talk to an agency and give the baby up for adoption, she said, then she met JP and she’d forgotten everything else.
“I’ll do anything you want, baby,” she said, and held up a small bottle of lubricant from the bedside table. She smoothed it over his growing erection and he kissed her and said he didn’t think they needed it. She smiled and kissed his neck and broad, muscled chest, then licked and nipped his nipples with her teeth.
“Lizzie, wait,” he said, but she lay face down on the bed with her beautiful ass in the air.
“Come on, lover,” she said, and he kneeled over her, not sure that he was interested in what she wanted. She slipped her fingers between her legs and squirmed and said things that made even the hardened sailor in him blush. It wasn’t long before nothing else mattered to JP, there was only constant mindless sex, and the girl who couldn’t get enough of his cock in every part of her body.
*
“Evangeline Bly is marrying that bodyguard,” Charles Tremont told Charlotte. He had come to California to see how Charlotte was getting along after the car wreck, and he sat on her living room floor helping Atticus stack brightly colored wooden blocks. “It’s a travesty, she’s an inspiring woman, and I was hoping she would wait for me.”
“Well, we don’t always get what we want,” Charlotte said, she lounged on the sofa in her nightgown and ran a finger over the scar on her forehead. She wanted her father to take his problems and his sordid love life elsewhere. She wanted to be left alone to grieve, and she wondered why Finn was so late getting home. “You are married, aren’t you, Charles? Wouldn’t you be a bigamist if you married Bly’s… if you married Evangeline?”
“I’m getting a divorce, and don’t give me that look, it was my wife’s idea. She won’t let herself be happy since we lost our son. I miss him, too, Charlotte, but those who are left behind have to go on living.”
“Well, it sounds like you are, living that is. I imagine you’ve been sleeping with Evangeline, is that right, Charles?” Charlotte said, and although she was angry, her voice sounded flat.
“Now listen here, young lady. I’m your father, and no matter how badly you’re hurting, there’s no excuse for rude behavior or bad manners. I’m sure your sweet mother raised you better, you’re still alive, darlin’. You have this exceptional little boy right here and a husband and a father who adore you. So pull yourself together Charlotte, and count your blessings, and by God, don’t judge unless you want to be judged yourself.”
She started to say something mean, to make him hurt like she was hurting, but she knew he was right.
“I’m sorry… Dad, I do have so much to be thankful for,” she said, and realized how selfish she was acting. “What was his name, your son?”
“Christopher, he was always a good boy, and a very good man,” he sat beside her and gave her a warm hug, and wiped tears from his eyes. Then he forced a smile and brushed a finger over the cut on her forehead. “That’s not bad at all, it’ll heal just fine. It won’t hurt you to have a little scar, you’re too perfect as it is. Now go have a hot shower and we’ll go someplace nice for dinner. Where’s that husband of yours?”
Charlotte dressed up and in a cerulean-blue Dolce and Gabana dress and pulled her long hair into a low, messy ponytail. She dressed Atticus in a Polo shirt and faded jeans and the tiny pair of cowboy boots Charles had brought for him.
“What about you?” her father asked, “you can wear western boots with that fancy short dress, can’t you?”
He pushed the open Lucchese box toward Charlotte as she walked down the stairs, and inside was the most amazing pair of handmade cowboy boots she’d ever seen.
“Handmade in San Antonio,” he said, “just for my beautiful daughter.”
“I love them!” she said, pulling them on. They were exquisite hand-tooled leather with pattered inlay, they came up to her knees and fit like a glove. “Let’s go find my husband, Dad,” she said, and for the first time since the accident, two weeks before, she felt like herself again.
*
“Let me run in and see what’s keeping him,” Charlotte said as they parked in front of the Thomas and Hale offices. “Finn?” she called out as she walked into the dark office, only a light in the back was still on.
“Hey, my love, we’re back here,” he called out, then stood up behind his desk and said, “Wow, you look amazing! What’s the occasion?” He looked at his watch then, and said, “Damn, I had no idea it was so late, let’s get back to these depositions in the morning, Nina.”
Nina looked at Charlotte like she had showed up at exactly the wrong time, or exactly the right time, depending on whose side you were on.
“Hello, Charlotte. You do look lovely, interesting boots.” Nina said, as she stood with bare feet and gathered stacks of papers. “I’m really sorry about your accident,” she said, and as she leaned forward over Finn’s desk, Charlotte thought her boobs would surely fall out of her low-cut blouse. When she stood up and stretched, muttering something about her back, it was obvious she wasn’t wearing a bra.
“Thank you, don’t give it another thought,” Charlotte said, and she felt a surge of betrayal for a moment, imagining that Finn had told this woman something of their private lives.
“See you in the morning, Finn, I’ll be ready and waiting for you,” Nina said and winked at Finn, and Charlotte’s happy mood disappeared.
All through dinner, Charles and Finn sipped scotch and talked about interesting cases they’d tried in court. Charlotte drank martinis and brooded on the woman who was out to steal her husband.
“Maybe you should take it easy drinking those martinis, my love,” Finn said, and Charlotte finished her drink in one large gulp and held the glass over her head until a waiter brought her another one.
She finished the drink quickly and said, “Maybe you should mind your own damned business.”
“Charlotte darlin’ are you feeling alright?” her father asked, he was holding Atticus on his lap and had a worried look as he watched Charlotte.
“”I’m feeling fine, Daddy!” she said. “I’m just thinking about this hot, gorgeous, two-timing husband of mine and wondering why his temporary paralegal is still working for him. Is that the way it is with all lawyers, always a little something on the side? Well, fine, I’m a lawyer, too.”
She stood up unsteadily and a handsome young waiter caught her as she stumbled away from the table.
“Hey, just what I need, young, gorgeous and available,” she said, and wrapped her arms around the young man’s neck.
He was completely caught off guard by the beautiful woman he held in his arms and he began to smile.
“I’ll take that,” Finn said, lifting a very drunken Charlotte away from him and carrying her outside.
“Put me down, you fucking jerk,” Charlotte yelled and beat her fists against him. When they reache
d the sidewalk he let her slip down the front of his body and held her against him. She could feel his huge erection through the thin fabric of his suit. “Don’t try that hard-on bullshit with me, it won’t work anymore. How dare you continue to employ that filthy, bra-less, skank? Ugh, I’m going home, you and my father take a cab too, please. I don’t want you drinking and driving with Atticus.”
“Don’t you think you’re being a bit dramatic, my love? She doesn’t mean anything to me,” he said, trying to keep her from getting into a cab.
“Oh really? Well, I thought you gave her two weeks’ notice and my math isn’t very good, but her fucking two weeks have come and gone. What did you tell her about us, anyway? Ugh, I hate your ass right now! I’m going home and I wish you’d go to your mother’s or go to hell for all I care,” she said through clinched teeth, then she hopped into a waiting cab and was gone before he could stop her.
*
“We haven’t found a suitable replacement, that’s why Nina is still working in the office,” Finn said, after he’d put Atticus in his crib and he stood next to the bed where Charlotte was curled into a ball. “She’ll be gone tomorrow, my love, we’ve been swamped and then I missed several days when I was taking care of you.”
“Oh, so this is all my fault? That sleazy little whore is putting on a floorshow for you because your poor wife was in a wreck and lost your baby? Fuck that, and fuck it all, I’m going away tomorrow. I need some time to myself, my father can take the baby to New Orleans for a week.”
He was taking off his suit and his incredible muscles gleamed in the light from the hallway. Charlotte had to turn away from the worried look on the handsome face she loved so much, or she would never be able to leave. She did need some time to herself, she needed to try and understand why things happened the way they did. Was it really just fate, or some haphazard cosmic joke? Why else would she be in love with this man rather than the other, and why was he happy to raise another man’s child when she’d just lost his? He was better than she was, that was all there was to it, Finn was the better person and she suddenly felt unworthy of his love.
