by Tina Folsom
His mother slammed her fist on the table, making the cutlery and plates rattle. “You’ve ruined our reputation! For God’s sake! How could you do this to us? The people! They’ll point at us because our son hired a hooker and brought her into our house!”
Paul jumped from his chair with such force that it toppled over behind him. “If you hadn’t insisted on forcing eligible women on me I wouldn’t have had to hire Holly! But no, you kept on insisting that I go out with some prissy rich girl of your choosing! It’s your own damn fault!”
His mother gasped.
“Don’t talk to your mother like that!” His father tossed his napkin onto the table.
Paul glared at his father. “Well, maybe if you had talked to her like that just once, then I wouldn’t have to!”
“Paul, I’m warning you!” His father jumped up.
“Brad is right. You can’t treat your mother like that!” Quentin suddenly interrupted.
Paul whipped his head in his direction. “Don’t get involved in this.”
“I am involved already! By bringing a hooker here, you’ve also ruined my reputation!” Quentin claimed. “Nobody is going to do any business with me now.”
Paul leaned over the table and addressed Quentin. “You selfish bastard! Why don’t you clean up your own house first, huh? You’re a self-centered prick who has no respect for my sister. Why she stays married to you is a mystery to me. If I were Olivia, I would have tossed you out on your ass years ago! You don’t deserve her!”
Quentin’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped. “My marriage is none of your fucking business!”
“Then my relationship with Holly is none of yours! So butt out!”
“Relationship?” Paul’s mother echoed, having jumped up too. “But you said you hired her. You mean you didn’t know she’s a hooker? She tricked you?”
Paul gritted his teeth. “Holly would never trick me!” Even as he professed it, he knew it wasn’t entirely true. Holly had kept the pregnancy from him and not told him whether he was the father. “She quit the escort business months ago. What she did in her past is her business, not yours.”
“They all heard what she is! She quit? Who cares that she quit? The scandal is going to crush us!” His mother pointed out toward the pool area as if the guests were still assembled there. Then she shot a pleading look to Paul’s father. “Do something, Brad!”
“What do you want me to do, Nora? Paul got us into this.” His father tossed an annoyed look in Paul’s direction. “You disappointed me, son! I never expected you to sink so low as to hire a hooker—”
“Damn it!” Paul snapped, rage boiling over now. “Would you all stop calling her a hooker! Holly is the woman who carries my child!”
The words were out before he could stop himself. And for some reason saying it strengthened his belief that it was true, that the child Holly was carrying was his. There could be no other reason for her earlier hesitation when he’d asked her how many weeks along she was in her pregnancy.
“She’s pregnant?” his mother croaked, and dropped back onto her chair. “Oh God, no!” She clasped her husband’s arm. “Oh Brad!”
“You have to pay her off, now, immediately,” his father demanded.
His mother glared at Paul. “How could you be so stupid? You have to get her to have an abortion. I can’t have a grandchild by that h—”
“Don’t say it, Mother, or I’ll walk out of here and you’ll never see me again!”
“You’d choose your family over her, over that . . . that woman?” she choked out. “All I tried all these years was to make sure you found a good woman. All I wanted for you was a respectable wife. How could you do this? How could you get involved with such filth?”
Before Paul could respond, a heavy fist slammed on the table, but it was neither his father nor Quentin who’d demanded silence by such means. It was Mirabelle.
Surprised, Paul stared at his great-aunt, but she was glaring at Paul’s mother, not at him.
“Oh, get off your high horse, Nora! Like you were that much better!”
His mother gasped and her eyes widened in shock.
“Maybe it’s time for your children to find out about your past!” Mirabelle continued, undeterred. “You know I was the only one of Brad’s family who was always on your side, but what you’re doing now is not right, Nora.”
“You wouldn’t!” his mother shouted, but Mirabelle couldn’t be stopped. Then her eyes shot to Paul and Olivia. “Don’t listen to her!”
Mirabelle huffed indignantly. “Or shall I call you Nolene? Wasn’t that the name you used when you were stripping at the Gold Club in Boston—when Brad picked you up?”
“No! Liar!” Paul’s mother choked out, her eyes wide in horror. “Brad, tell them she’s wrong!”
His father looked indecisive.
Paul exchanged a look with his sister, who looked as stunned as he. Then he stared at his mother. Pure horror was etched in her face.
“Oh, yes, the woman who’s now judging everybody else was down in the dumps herself. Apparently she doesn’t like to be reminded of that time, does she?” Mirabelle blew out a breath. “And if I recall correctly, for a few extra bucks she would give her customers more than just a lap dance.”
“Brad?” Pleadingly his mother looked at his father.
He put his hand on her forearm. “I’m sorry, honey, you know I can’t . . . ”
Wet with tears, his mother’s eyes found Paul’s. “All I did was try to save you from what your father had to endure when he married me. I only wanted to make sure you ended up with a decent woman. One who was above reproach. Somebody better than—”
“No, Nora!” his father interrupted.
Sobbing, she stormed from the room. In that moment, for the first time, Paul wanted to hug her and comfort her. Because for the first time his mother had shown her human side, the vulnerability that she’d been hiding all this time. He understood so much now. She’d tried to find a woman for him to save him from making the mistake she believed his father had made.
“Mother,” he murmured as he watched her disappear down the hallway. Slowly, he turned to his father, who’d slumped in his chair and dropped his head into his hands. “So you fell in love with a stripper.”
His father nodded without looking up. “She was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen. I wanted her more than I wanted anything else.” He looked up and their gazes met. “I can’t live without her.”
For a moment, Paul let his father’s words sink into him. Could he live without Holly? The two months that they’d been apart had been hell for him. Not a day had passed that he hadn’t longed for her. And the last week they’d spent together had been like paradise.
“Didn’t your family stop you?” Paul addressed his father.
He smiled. “They tried. But love always finds a way.” His father glanced at Olivia, then back at Paul. “We eloped, and by the time we got back, Nora was already pregnant with you, Paul. So your grandparents gave up fighting us. But they always looked down on her. That’s why she became the way she is. She tried so hard to be what they wanted her to be. But your mother became bitter, because they always judged her by what she’d done in her past.”
He glanced at Mirabelle. “You were the only one who supported us, but even after my parents’ deaths, Nora couldn’t get over the fact that there was still one other person who knew about her past. I think that’s why there was always tension between you two. Please don’t blame her for it, Mirabelle. She’s a good person, but the decisions she made when she was young haunt her to this day.”
Then Paul’s father looked at Paul and Olivia. “Please don’t judge your mother. She loves you both.”
Paul reached across the table and squeezed his father’s hand. “We have to judge people by their future. Otherwise, they can never become what they’re meant to be.”
Slowly, his father nodded. “Go, Paul, and do what you need to do. You know in your heart what’s right.”<
br />
Paul smiled. Yes, he knew.
29
“Are you sure about it?” Sabrina asked.
Holly nodded. “You saw what happened. I can’t stay here. I have to go home.” She looked at Daniel, who leaned against the armrest of the sofa in the living room of his parents’ home. “Could you please go over to Paul’s house and get my suitcase? I don’t think anybody wants to see me over there.”
Daniel nodded, his face serious. “Of course I’ll do that. Do you want me to give Paul a message while I’m there?”
Holly bowed her head. She had embarrassed Paul and his family. “I’m sure he doesn’t want to hear from me.”
“Okay. I’ll be back shortly.” He pivoted and left the room.
“Oh, Holly. Don’t you think you should talk to Paul and tell him the truth?” Sabrina asked. “Don’t you think he deserves to know that it’s his child?”
Holly met her friend’s gaze. “What would that serve? There is no future for us, no matter what happened before last night.”
After Holly had run to the Sinclairs’ house, because she hadn’t had anywhere else to go after her former client had exposed her, she had told Sabrina everything that had happened between her and Paul.
“But he seems to care about you. Why don’t you give him a chance and let him decide for himself, before you conclude that he doesn’t want to talk to you?”
The doorbell rang, and Holly sighed. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Sabrina, but sometimes you’re a little naive. I was an escort for several years. I knew what I was doing, and I did it anyway. I have no excuses for my behavior other than that I couldn’t find a job I was good at. But I was good at entertaining men. And now I’m paying for it. Because a man like Paul could never love somebody like me. No matter how much I love him and how much I will love his baby, I have to be realistic. We have no future.”
“How much do you love me, Holly?”
Holly whirled and shot up from the sofa.
In the door to the living room stood Paul, Holly’s suitcase next to him. Daniel was right behind him.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, though she knew already. He was here to deliver her things so that she wouldn’t set foot in his parents’ house again.
“I asked first. How much do you love me, Holly?”
“We’d better leave you guys alone,” Sabrina said, and walked to the door.
“Don’t!” Holly begged, but her friend shook her head, and she and Daniel left. Holly’s gaze drifted back to Paul, who still hadn’t moved from his spot near the door. “You weren’t supposed to hear that.”
“Just like I wasn’t supposed to hear that the baby is mine?”
Holly trembled. “I’m not giving it up. And I’m not asking for child support.”
His lips twisted. “Oh, I wasn’t going to offer to pay child support.”
Oddly disappointed about his callous words, she pointed to the suitcase. “Thank you for bringing my things. So now that everything is settled, you can leave.”
“Nothing is settled between us.”
Her breath caught in her lungs. “I’ve got nothing left to say to you.”
Paul took several steps toward her and instinctively she shrank back. “You haven’t answered my question yet.”
“What do you want, Paul? To humiliate me further? Don’t you think I feel humiliated enough? Now you want me to confess that I’m in love with you so you can trample on it? I won’t do that!”
“I have no intention of humiliating the mother of my child. On the contrary.” He moved closer, backing her into a corner. He sighed. “Don’t you realize what’s been happening between us the last few days?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” She couldn’t allow herself to become weak now and be reminded of the intimacies they’d shared.
Paul lifted his hand and brushed his knuckles over her cheek. “We’ve gotten close. Closer than I think either of us expected.”
“It was just sex,” she insisted, though she knew it was a lie.
“Oh it was sex, fabulous sex. But that wasn’t all. I told you that I liked you, but I’m afraid that’s not really the truth.”
Holly dropped her lids, avoiding his gaze. Why had she believed him before?
“The truth is that I’m in love with you.”
Her gaze shot to his, and she saw warmth and affection shining back at her. “No, you’re not. It’s not possible.”
“Why not?” Paul asked softly.
“I’m . . . I’m not the kind of woman a man like you should—”
He pressed a finger to her lips, stopping her from finishing her sentence. “Love doesn’t care about those things.”
“It’ll never work. To start a relationship just because I got pregnant by you is wrong. Don’t you remember what happened to your sister?”
Paul shook his head. “What’s going on between Olivia and Quentin is different.”
Holly threw her head back. “How is it different? They stayed together because she got pregnant. And now they’re fighting all the time.”
“I admit, things haven’t worked out for them, but we aren’t them.” He cupped her shoulders. “Why can’t you accept that I love you?”
“Because you can’t love somebody with a past like mine.” He would always resent her for it.
“I can, because I won’t judge you by your past. I’ll judge you by your future. Our future.”
Tears welled up in her eyes. “Your parents will hate you for it, and then you’ll start resenting me. Please don’t do this. Just let me go. I promise you I’ll never bother you again. I’ll never ask for money for the child.”
“This isn’t about money, Holly. It’s never been about that. Don’t you understand? When I hired you, subconsciously I did it because I wanted you. Even back then. Even when I thought you were still an escort. Even when I had no idea that you’d quit or that you were pregnant by me. It’s always been about you. Something happened that night. You showed me what my life could be like. What love could be like with the right woman. You are that woman. And I’m not going to give up just because some jerk exposed you in front of my parents and their friends. I don’t care what anybody thinks. The only two people who matter here are you and I.”
Holly wanted to believe his words, to simply give in, but she was scared. “Your parents will tear us apart. Maybe not immediately, but it will happen. They’ll always look down on me. And one day you’ll see it their way and regret your decision.”
To her surprise, Paul smiled. “Can I tell you something about my parents?”
Holly gave him a curious look.
“My father met a young, beautiful stripper and fell in love with her. His parents were against the match and tried everything to get him to leave her. They even threatened to disinherit him. But my father loved her more than anything. He still does.”
She sighed. Fate was cruel sometimes.
“And she still loves him. They have two children: my sister and me.”
Holly gasped at the unexpected news. “Your mother was a stripper?”
“My grandparents weren’t kind to her, and her entire life she’s tried to make up for it and please them. Without success. But you know what? Despite everything, despite how my father’s parents treated her, they could never tear them apart, because they belong together. My parents will accept you once they’re over the initial shock, because they remember how much the way my grandparents treated them hurt. They won’t repeat those mistakes.”
Could this really be true? “Are you sure?”
Paul smiled. “My father told me to follow my heart. And my heart wants you.”
“Oh, Paul,” she murmured, feeling tears run down her cheeks.
“So tell me, how much do you love me?”
Holly slung her arms around his neck. “Too much.”
“I can live with that.”
Then his mouth was on hers, and he kissed her. He held her to his body and his heartbeat reverber
ated in her chest.
30
Despite having driven for over three hours to get back to New York, Paul didn’t feel the least bit exhausted. On the contrary, he’d never felt better. And the reason was right here, in his arms, in his bedroom.
He listened to the shower being turned off and waited impatiently. He could have gone and showered with Holly, but there was something he’d had to prepare, something special. Every second’s delay was killing him, but he knew he couldn’t rush this.
When the door to his ensuite bathroom finally opened, Holly stepped out, wrapped only in a towel that reached from the top of her breasts to barely the apex of her thighs.
Paul propped himself up on his elbow and watched her approach. Her golden hair was wet at the tips, and her skin glistened invitingly.
“You made me wait,” he complained softly. “You know what that means?”
She approached with catlike grace. “What does it mean?”
“It means you’ll have to appease me.”
“How?”
“I think a little striptease would do the trick,” he suggested, and motioned to the towel.
Holly took a few steps closer, then stopped only a yard away from the bed. “But haven’t you already seen everything there is to see?”
“Have you never watched a movie more than once? A movie you really, really like?”
“I see,” she murmured. She pulled at the end of the towel she’d tucked in the top and slid the fabric down a few inches, just enough so he could see the swells of her breasts and her pretty cleavage, but not far enough to see her nipples.
“You’re a tease.” Paul grabbed the bed sheet that covered his lower half and pulled it aside, revealing his naked body. “Maybe I should tease you too.” He glanced down to his groin, where his cock was already rising. Then he wrapped his hand around the hard flesh and tugged on it, giving it a firm stroke.
His eyes locked with Holly’s. “Now show me a little more,” he demanded, and dropped his gaze to where she held onto the towel.
Her hands loosened the towel further, sliding it down until her nipples popped free. They stood erect like brave little soldiers. He couldn’t help but lick his lips and give his cock another firm stroke.
