by Sierra Rose
Ryan strode off toward the pool and Harvey pulled out his phone to call their mother. He heard a ringtone just behind him as the front door opened. Two security men carried her Louis Vuitton luggage and trunk in her wake. The icy blond coif was the same as when he was a child. The fur coat was overkill in the Arizona heat, and she dropped it for a servant to catch and hang up.
“Harvey, darling, what is this mess you’ve got yourself into now? I heard it from your brother. Appalling you wouldn’t call your own mother to announce your engagement.”
“It was a spur of the moment thing, Mother. Ryan showed up out of the blue, and now you’re here as well. The pair of you will have to decamp to a hotel. There are several nice ones in the city. Find yourself a spa, or a casino for Ryan. Take him and go.”
“To think I gave you life, Harvey Carlson. This is absurd. You’re never to speak to your mother in this manner and to think you’d turn us out on the street!”
“Hardly the street. Take her luggage back outside. And then fetch Ryan’s and put it out as well. I’m not accommodating the two of you. I have—”
“A girlfriend. Some tawdry little servant girl, I understand. How common of you, Harvey. You can’t be serious about her.”
“It’s none of your concern.”
“It’s why you don’t want me here. You’re afraid I’ll judge her.”
“Yes. And I don’t want to put her through that.”
“Well, then date a respectable girl, and you’ll never have to fear anything from me ever again.”
Harvey sighed in frustration.
“Why can’t you stop screwing the help?” his mother asked. “At least before, they were nothing but play things. But now…you’ve actually fallen for one?”
“Yes.”
Chapter 18
Bella stood on the stairs listening to the woman who was Harvey’s mother refer to her as tawdry, a servant. She sighed. It was to be expected that a wealthy woman wouldn’t be thrilled her son was dating the maid. Still, she would’ve thought the lady would have better manners than to say so. Bella went and got dressed for dinner, blaming the sun and the hot air balloon for her aching head. She never caught colds or the flu, but she might be picking up a bug now. She felt wretched.
So when Bella was on her way to the dining room, and Ryan offered his arm, she took it out of misery rather than friendliness, “How do you like the compound?” he asked.
“It’s lovely.”
“I admit my brother has a nice home, but he seems to cling to his old ways. When Harvey used to come home from college…well…he was always messing around with the maids. Got one of them pregnant back in the day. She was fired, of course, and I believe Father smoothed it over, gave her a ridiculous amount of money to get rid of the baby and run away into the sunset.” He shrugged. “Seems that old habits die hard. My brother always did like the servant class.”
“Maybe because they’re down to earth and not stuck up, spoiled brats.”
He disengaged his arm, gave her a sketch of a mocking bow and left her in the hall, gaping after him. Harvey had always liked the servants, had a history of screwing the maids and even impregnated and abandoned one. That certainly hit a little too close to home. Her hands were shaking and her throat felt tight. It must be this damned virus she’d picked up. Or else she’d developed allergies or something out west.
***
The beautiful dining table was set with candles and she settled herself in her chair, hands in her lap politely. Ryan was already seated when his mother came in on Harvey’s arm, “Mother, I’d like you to meet Bella James. Bella, this is my mother, Sylvia Carlson.”
“Charmed, I’m sure,” Sylvia said icily, giving her a once over and a sniff of disdain, “So, I can’t wait to hear more about your fascinating background. So down to Earth! Do tell me where else you’ve cleaned floors.”
Bella’s cheeks were flaming and she couldn’t think how to answer. Harvey stepped in, “Honey, you’ll have to excuse my mother. She’s always been rude. Because she has money, most people put up with her anyway. Same with my brother here.”
“Never wonder why we three haven’t been in the same room together since Copenhagen six years ago,” Sylvia said gaily, “and never without plenty of good alcohol.” She drained her wine glass and waved it at the servants imperiously for a refill.
“That’s right, Copenhagen was it?” Ryan said, “what a time that was. Weren’t you with that redhead? What was her name? I can never remember the names of all your girls, Harvey.”
“No idea what you’re talking about,” Harvey grumbled, patting Bella’s hand reassuringly. She looked at him with appealing eyes, hoping he’d tell her this was some elaborate joke. He shook his head, “It’s one dinner. We’ll get through it,” he whispered. She straightened her shoulders. If he could rescue her from Marnie and Jade, she could at least be by his side while his horrible family was in town. It was only fair.
Bella endured more pretentious rich people reminiscences (remember that time we were all in Lisbon at Christmas!) and sipped her water in silence. She gave Harvey a wavering smile, trying to be encouraging. At last the fish course was served. There before her sat a beautifully presented avocado stuffed with a heap of pinkish shrimp. She felt droplets of sweat form on her neck and face, and she retched, gagging and heaving right there at the table. Shutting her eyes, it seemed she couldn’t block out the vision and smell of that atrocious shrimp and avocado monstrosity.
“Are you okay?” Harvey asked as servants cleaned up and she leapt to her feet, tears in her eyes.
“I’m fine. I’m sorry. I just have—a stomach bug. Forgive me.” Bella dashed out of the dining room. Ill and crying humiliated tears, she overheard Sylvia’s comment as she departed.
“That tramp had better not be pregnant.”
“Of course not, Mother,” Harvey said. He didn’t come after her. She lay in the bathtub crying, wondering if it were really a stomach bug that made her so queasy, so lightheaded and emotional. Or if Sylvia could be right after all.
Later that night, as she lay in bed, worrying and desolate, her stomach churning, Harvey came to her room.
“Are you feeling better?” he whispered.
For the first time since they’d been together, Bella pretended to sleep. She didn’t want to face him with her suspicions that she might be pregnant, with her miserable confession that she’d heard what his mother said about her, or that what Ryan told her about his brother knocking up the maid was coming true again. She vowed if she was pregnant, no amount of money would make her get an abortion. He left silently, and she didn’t tell him any of it.
Chapter 19
The next morning, Bella was up early and drove into town to the nearest drugstore. Knowing that she was recognized by the media everywhere, she’d taken the precaution to dress in a baggy hoodie and sweatpants, sunglasses and a ball cap. She piled magazines and Dramamine into her basket, lip balm and hand lotion and shampoo, to cover the three-pack box of home pregnancy tests she was really there to buy. She checked out, keeping her eyes on the card scanner and punching in the correct numbers, never looking up at the cashier. She used to hate people like that when she worked at the convenience store—they were such snobs, too good to say hi to the cashier, but now she thought maybe they just had something to hide.
Bella dreaded going back to the compound, and she considered calling Greta to see if she could go to her apartment to take the pregnancy tests, but then there would be a way for Harvey to find out. It had to be nothing. A false alarm. The only other time she’d peed on a stick, she’d been nineteen and it had been negative. There was no reason for people in his life to know that she was paranoid and thought she might be pregnant just because of his mom’s rude comment. It had to be a stomach bug. After all, she still felt queasy this morning and she hadn’t even eaten anything. The smell of coffee made her want to gag when she walked into the mansion by the back door. Up to her room, she locked the bathroom door a
nd peed on the sticks, lining them up on the marble countertop ominously.
She looked at the magazines she’d bought randomly—flipping through them only to discover they were those horrid home-cooking magazines full of casserole pictures. Dumping them in the trash, she refused to let herself look at the tests until the timer on her phone pinged.
When she finally glanced at them, cautiously, carefully, out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed six little blue lines—two on each screen glaring at her accusingly. Pregnant. Pregnant. Pregnant.
Bella laid a hand protectively over her belly and dropped her head to cry. This poor baby. Unexpected and impossible. There was no way that Harvey, aka Mr. Not Ready to Settle Down, would be interested in playing house with her when baby makes three. She was appalled that this had happened, that she’d been carried away and careless and ready to throw it all away on Harvey Carlson. Now she was going to be a mother. She had to do better for her baby than these careless, impulsive decisions she’d been making. She had to use her better judgment and choose wisely for her child. After all, she was all that this baby had. Bella wrapped the pregnancy tests in yards of toilet paper and buried them in the trash can.
She shut the drapes, turned off the lamp and climbed into bed. Spooling up in the covers, she cried and cried. When Harvey came in to see her that evening, she told him she was still sick from the stomach bug and to give her apologies to his mother.
“It’s fine. You just take care of yourself. If you feel better later, come and join us.” Harvey had kissed her cheek and left her there in the dark with instructions to ring for the servants if she needed club soda or crackers.
If only it were that simple, she thought ruefully. If only club soda would fix her troubles—his mean snob of a mother and his smarmy brother with the annoying revelations about Harvey’s past, and Harvey’s stubborn resolve not to settle down this young. If only she could rewind the past twenty-four hours and move forward with excitement about this pregnancy, being thrilled to tell Harvey about it because she wouldn’t know that she wasn’t the first maid he’d knocked up. She could be happily oblivious then instead of filled with dread.
She might as well try to make peace with his family now. They were downstairs ready to see her, and she could at least throw on a dress and say hello, pleading the stomach bug to excuse her absence from dinner. If they saw how she loved Harvey and that she wasn’t after his money, maybe they’d tone down the ugliness. Maybe they’d prove to be decent people, people who might be happy for them when the time came for the baby to arrive. She tried to envision Sylvia turning up with a huge stuffed bear and a box of fancy baby clothes at the hospital, but it was too much a stretch of her imagination. Still, she put on a sundress and sandals and went to join them.
She hovered outside the door of the dining room where they were probably enjoying dessert. Her stomach churned now at the thought of Fabrice’s fantastic creations. Wincing, she paused to compose herself and heard—as she strained to eavesdrop—the voices of those within the room.
“I understand your protest, son, all I am saying is that you had better not have impregnated the staff again. Think of the headache of the courts—we’d have to go through all that red tape to secure the infant before its white trash mother had a chance to corrupt it. No Carlson would be raised in a trailer park in Kentucky.”
“Arkansas, Mother, and that’s hardly an option. I told you, she isn’t my fiancée. I hired her to pose as one.”
“So she’s hired help. And nothing more.”
“Initially. But…”
“You couldn’t keep your dick in your pants.”
“I couldn’t stop thinking about her. She’s amazing, and if you got to know her, you’d love her.”
“So bottom line. You’re sleeping with her. So she could be pregnant.”
“She’s not. Besides, I could pay her off easily in that extremity. A million dollars and she’d sign away anything I asked. She’s completely under my influence, I assure you.”
“Are you so confident in your charms, Harvey?” she heard Ryan say.
“She’s besotted with me. It’s not a problem anyhow because she isn’t pregnant. It’s all a scam to get the board of Bellingford back under my control. She’s a woman I hired, nothing more. However, if she were, I could easily secure any hypothetical child. There’s no reason for such a furor over nothing, Mother,” he said, sounding exasperated.
Bella’s hands flew to her belly protectively. Tears coursed down her cheeks. She shook her head, darted quietly back up the stairs and started shoving what she needed into the duffel bag she’d brought from Arkansas. In went all her own things, and a few of the ones Greta had helped her choose, plus her new makeup, and the diamond bracelet he’d gotten her at a charity auction. The laptop he’d given her for her coursework. She looked with regret at the cutting edge technology smartwatch and phone he’d given her. Both could have GPS trackers in them, so she left them behind.
She wrote a letter to Harvey, just in case he cared enough to read it.
Dear Mr. Carlson,
While I appreciate your generosity in engaging me to pretend to be your fiancée, I find that I can’t continue. The dishonesty is too much for me, and I know there is nothing real between us. Seeing your family made me realize that I don’t fit in here and no one, not even the press, could possibly believe we were serious about one another. I’m sure you’ll have no trouble finding someone else to fill my shoes. I left them all in the closet for your next girl.
I wish you all the best in business and in life.
You may consider this my formal letter of resignation, effective immediately.
Your former employee,
Bella
She left the note on the newly made bed. There was really no point telling him in person. He didn’t care anything about her. She was nothing but an amusement while he had to pass the time as a supposedly engaged man. That conversation she’d overheard destroyed her illusions completely. Gone was the romantic hope that he could love her back, that they could end up together. The only thing left was to run before he could take away the one thing that mattered to her anymore. Her baby.
There was no question in Bella’s mind that she had to leave and quickly. If she stayed, he would find out she was pregnant sooner or later and then there would be a legal injunction or something to keep her from leaving. She’d be trapped until she gave birth, and then he’d take the baby. That family had tons of money to pay all the lawyers in the world to prove her unfit for motherhood. She had no resources, no lawyer, not even a family or a degree to show her competence. Who would she call to bear witness? Her gambling drunken dad? Or her mom who left when she was little? She had no steady job, no way to support a child. A judge would be crazy to give her a baby when it could have a more stable and prosperous life with its rich daddy and his family.
There was no way she was giving up this child. She loved her baby already. She had loved Harvey with all her heart and he didn’t want that love, so she’d transfer all that to his child. The baby they’d created together. She would love him/her enough to make up for all her bad choices, all the disadvantages of being born to ‘white trash’ as Sylvia had called her. She’d finish her degree and get a good job and take care of that child. They would have a good life together. Already Bella imagined herself rocking the baby to sleep, singing a lullaby softly. Tears dripped down her face as she imagined taking the baby to the library, checking out a book of Mother Goose rhymes to read to him.
Her tuition was paid up for her last year of classes. She just had to finish them and with a baby to take care of and a full-time job, which would be necessary—it would take a while. Unless she could sell the diamond bracelet for enough to give her a few months off with the baby and to work on her college classes. She could work through her pregnancy, save money that way, share rent with her sister, Madison. It would all work out. She just had to calm down and think rationally.
Correction, she had to
get out of here, then take time to think. She picked up the keys to the Corvette.
She hesitated over the car. She had no right to take it—it belonged to Harvey’s fiancée, which she clearly was NOT. Still, it was the fastest way out of town. She crept out the kitchen entrance, tossed her bag in the car and drove off. She sold the car in Phoenix, back to the dealer where it came from, and cashed the money order at the nearest bank. Next, she uploaded all her coursework to online storage, wiped the hard drive and pawned the laptop. She loved it, but it could be tracked just as easily as a phone or tablet.
Sitting in the airport, she bought a bottle of water and drank it, remember she’d read somewhere that pregnant women needed to drink plenty of water. She was going to start making healthier choices and this was the first step. Leaving Arizona behind and all the memories that went with it. She was on a plane to Tulsa within the hour. Thank God she’d never told Harvey she had a little sister, or that she had any connection to Oklahoma at all. If he came looking for her, he’d have nothing to go on at all.
It had only been a scam. That’s what he had told Sylvia. So Bella knew she meant nothing to him. There was no way he’d come after her or try to pursue her in any way. Her scorched earth method of leaving town was for nothing. It was sheer paranoia. He wanted no part of her. And as long as he didn’t know about the baby, he never would. How awful it would be, she thought, if he found out and then pretended to love her and want to be with her just long enough for her to give birth. Then he’d swoop in like a villain in an old movie and steal the baby away. He could go to Europe or Thailand or someplace she could never find them, especially with no money to pay detectives or high-powered lawyers. She was at a total disadvantage, getting involved with someone so wealthy and powerful.
Harvey Carlson didn’t love her. She kept telling herself that as she sat on the plane, eyes shut tightly. How different this was from their private flight to Mexico, those days on the yacht, the nights at his mansion, all of it was so far from here. This was what girls like her got for reaching too high. Pregnant and alone. But he’d never want to raise a baby with her, with an employee! Their ‘scam’ was supposed to secure him an excellent evaluation by the board, not result in diapers, late night feedings and a lifetime of love and worry. If she thought for even a moment that he’d hear her out, that he had been lying to his mother, she’d tell him the truth. But she couldn’t risk losing her child just for the tiny, tiny chance that Harvey had been serious about a life together.
