Sleeping With The Truth_An Office Love Baby Daddy Romance

by Kelli Walker

  “I’ll see you soon,” Kenneth said.

  “I take it you already know what room we’re in?” I asked.

  He chuckled and the sound spread a sort of happiness through my veins.

  “I’ll see you soon,” I said.

  Then I hung up the phone and got up off the floor.

  I walked over to my mother and took her hand within mine. I sat down on the edge of her bed and wiped the hair from her face. I grabbed the morphine drip controller and pressed it until it turned red, then I bent down and kissed her forehead. Watched as she began to rouse from her nap. Watched as her tired eyes slowly opened to greet the world around her.

  I couldn’t wait to see Kenneth.

  I couldn't wait to put this behind us.

  And I couldn’t wait to tell my mother that Dad was innocent.

  Kenneth

  I walked around the corner into the hospital room and stood in the doorway. My eyes fell to the woman in the bed and it made me grin. Tiffany and her mother looked exactly alike. Same determined jawline. Same thick hair. Same rounded features. Even their smiles were the same.

  “Hello, Kenneth,” Tiffany said.

  I pushed off the doorway and stepped into the room before I took a seat beside Tiffany’s mother.

  “Mom, this is-”

  “I know who this is,” the woman said. “Kenneth Weber.”

  “The one and only,” I said.

  “I’m Maria Graves.”

  “It’s very nice to meet you,” I said as I took her hand within mine.

  I watched her wince in pain as she tried to shake my hand.

  “I hear you’re being stubborn about having the surgery,” I said.

  “I’ll be fine with some pills.”

  “That you don’t enjoy taking.”

  “How do you know that?” Maria asked.

  “Your daughter talks a lot about you. She’s very proud of you,” I said.

  “Uh huh. Sounds like it,” she said as she looked over at Tiffany.

  “So, I’ll make this as painless as possible,” I said. “I’m paying for your surgery.”

  “What?” Maria asked.

  “And your hospital stay,” I said.

  “What?” Tiffany asked.

  “And anything you’ll need for your recuperation.”

  “No you won’t,” Tiffany said. “Kenneth, that isn’t-”

  But I held up my hand, silencing Tiffany as her eyes grew wide. Maria’s eyebrows hiked up on her forehead before shocked laughter fell from her lips. Her head bounced between her daughter’s face and mine, then she squeezed my hand and turned her attention to me.

  “Any man who can silence my stubborn daughter is worth his weight in salt,” she said.

  “I’m going to be footing this bill, so you’re under no obligation to save your daughter from any perceived threat you think there is with regard to this surgery. You’ll be in the best care, you’ll wake up in the best room, and you’ll have the best recuperation my money can afford. So it’s time you schedule that surgery of yours.”

  I watched as Maria’s eyes filled with tears.

  “Why are you doing this?” she asked.

  My eyes whipped up to Tiffany’s and I saw so many emotions rolling across her face. Fear. Shock. Elation. Confusion. So many things being experienced at once in anticipation for the answer to the question her mother just asked me.

  “Because you’ve been through enough,” I said as my eyes fell to Maria. “And I want you to know that I understand that.”

  I heard small footfalls make their way quickly towards me as my gaze panned up. I saw Tiffany briefly in my vision before I felt her lips crash to mine. Before I felt her chest pressing against me. Before I felt her hands fall to mine. Her tongue slid along my lips and I gladly gave her entrance, my hands turning upwards to capture hers. I pulled her into my lap and she fell into me, her body curling into my strength. She slid her arms around my neck as my hands fell to her hips, and for a moment nothing else around us existed. Not the beeping of the heart monitor or the whirring of the oxygen machine or the rhythmic rolling of gurneys going by the open door.

  There was only Tiffany, my body, and her lips against mine.

  “Get another room, you two,” Maria said jokingly.

  Tiffany giggled against my lips as my forehead connected with hers. I had missed her laugh. It was the sweetest sound to my ears. I wrapped my arms around her and stood from the chair, helping Tiffany back to her feet. Her face tilted up towards mine to keep my eyes in view as my arm tightened around her waist. My free hand cupped her cheek, smoothing over the softness of her skin. Taking in the woman I had missed so much.

  “Have you told her?” I asked.

  “Told me what?” Maria asked.

  “I haven’t yet, no,” Tiffany said.

  “Told me what?” Maria asked again.

  “Then why don’t you talk with your mother while I go down to the billing department. Inform them of the change. I’ll come back with some dinner not produced by the hospital cafeteria, and we can all talk about what’s next,” I said.

  Tiffany stood on her toes and captured my lips again, her body eager to be against mine. I wrapped her up in my arms and pulled her close to me. So close I could feel her heart beating against my own. She felt like I remembered. A soft place to land with enough strength to lead an army into battle. My tongue danced against hers, sending jolts of electricity straight to my groin. I broke our connection before my desire ran away with my body. There was still a lot to be done, and I could hear Maria’s anxious voice growing.

  “For heaven’s sake, what is it you need to tell me?” she asked.

  Tiffany smiled before she stepped away from my body. Already, I missed her. But something told me that things would be all right. At least for now. I watched her sit down beside her mother and take her hand, a smile growing upon Tiffany’s cheeks. Then her eyes came back up to mine and I saw only one thing in them. One thing that settled a peace within my gut I hadn’t felt in almost four solid weeks.

  Hope.

  There was hope in Tiffany’s stare.

  I made my leave from the room so the two of them could take. I figured they wanted the conversation to be private, and that was fine. It gave me time to talk to the hospital about who to charge for Maria’s care and it gave me time to get something delivered to the hospital for all of us to eat. It also gave me time to place a call to Ryan. To ask him about what are next moves really were so I could relay the information to Tiffany and her mother. They had been in the dark for far too long, and I wasn’t going to keep them there any longer.

  They had been through enough.

  And it was time this chapter of their lives came to a close.

  Tiffany

  I sat there with my stomach in knots. My head hurt. I was exhausted. But it was finally happening. After finally convincing my mother that surgery was the way to go, she was being prepped for her time in the operating room. And to make things all the more sweet, I got to bide my time watching Roman Edwards get arrested on national television.

  “Authorities say that Mr. Edwards could have harassed as many as twenty women during his time at Instatech. And if a jury finds him guilty on all seven counts of sexual harassment and bribery he’s currently facing, Mr. Edwards could face as much as thirty years in prison.”

  I sat there, my hand slid into the palm of Kenneth’s hand. I sank into the chair in the waiting room and watched my father’s picture pop up on television. In big, bold, red letters, the word ‘innocent’ splashed over his face.

  I was so overwhelmed with emotion that I broke down in the middle of the waiting room.

  Joy filled my heart. After all this time of knowing, it had finally been proven. My father was posthumously declared innocent of everything he had been accused of and Roman Edwards was going away for a long time. Because I knew a jury would convict him. They had to. The police found him holed up in some private estate in the mountains of Colorado.
Biding his time until he figured the coast was clear. But the coast would never be clear. Not for men like Roman.

  And watching the news replay footage of his arrest was the sweetest gift I could’ve been given.

  I brought Kenneth’s hand to my lips and kissed it. I looked over at him with watery eyes and he slipped his arm around me. I leaned into him over the arms of our chairs, trying to feel as much of him as possible. My stomach was turning over on itself. My headache was worsening. All of the emotions I’d kept cooped up for so long were bubbling to the surface and my body was finally processing them.

  “Thank you so much,” I said breathlessly.

  “Maria Graves?”

  I stood up at the call of my mother’s name and went striding over to the doctor. Kenneth placed his hand on the small of my back, massaging his fingertips into my skin. The room was tilting. My emotions were raging out of control.

  “Is she all right? How’s the surgery going?” I asked.

  “Your mother’s fine. The surgery went well. But she’ll be in a medically-induced coma for the next forty eight hours,” the doctor said.

  Dread filled my stomach.

  “Why?” I asked. “Did something happen? That isn’t standard procedure.”

  “It’s precautionary on our part. Your mother has suffered through a lot of pain the past few days, and we’re not sure if the medication we have will keep her out of it. With the tolerance she obviously had built up to her morphine drip, we feel better about keeping her under until she’s past the worst of it. Which is usually the first two days,” the doctor said.

  “Oh. Okay. So, what all did you have-?”

  I teetered on my feet and I felt Kenneth slip his arm around my waist. Something wasn’t right. I felt the coffee I drank a little while earlier creep up the back of my throat. My vision blurred. My stomach felt as if it was jumping up and down. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe through my nose, but none of my tactics worked.

  “Tiffany. Talk to me. What’s wrong?” Kenneth asked.

  “I need a hospital bed!” the doctor exclaimed.

  And as I opened my mouth to tell him ‘no’, I vomited on his shoes.

  I doubled over, my body ejecting all of its contents. I shook. I began to sweat. I felt my legs grow weak. Kenneth wrapped his arms around me to keep me from falling and suddenly I was on my back. Lights rhythmically passed in my vision as my fingers laced through someone’s.

  “Everything’s going to be all right, Tiffany. Just hang on.”

  But the second I tried to say Kenneth’s name, I threw up on myself.

  I was rolled into a room before they began cleaning me up. Everything became a blur. The people. The sounds. The voices. And my body was suddenly overcome with exhaustion. This wasn’t what relief felt like. Relief was supposed to feel good. Relaxing. I felt like death. I felt a prick in my arm and I whimpered, my head fell over to look at what was happening. The doctor was drawing some blood while someone else rattled off questions.

  I didn’t have the energy to answer them.

  All I wanted to do was sleep.

  When I opened my eyes, Kenneth was sitting on the edge of my bed. His hand smoothed over my forehead and I found the energy to smile at him. He bent over and kissed my forehead before his thumb traced my cheek, and I moved closer to him to try and steal some of his warmth.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked with a whisper.

  I furrowed my brow as a shadow hung over my body.

  “Miss Graves. You gave us quite a scare,” the doctor said.

  “Huh?” I asked. “Why didn’t I tell you what, Kenneth?”

  “You mean you don’t know?” the doctor asked.

  “Know what?”

  Kenneth looked over at the doctor before I felt him take my hand. My eyes filled with tears as I looked back over at him. He brought my hand to his lips to kiss and that miniscule gesture brought tears to my eyes.

  Wait, why was I crying over something like that.

  “Miss Graves, you’re pregnant.”

  The blood drained from my face. My body went limp against the hospital bed. My eyes grew wide as I started running through everything I’d been experiencing. The exhaustion. The random episodes of nausea. The aversion to foods. All things I attributed to stress. All things I’d shoved off to the side because I figured I was simply worried about my mother.

  I calculated the days since my last period before my eyes focused back onto Kenneth’s face.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said with a whisper. “Oh my gosh, Kenneth. I-I-I… I didn’t-.”

  His lips crashed against mine as his hand slid up my arm. He cupped my cheek, his tongue dancing along the horizon of my lips. Tears slipped down my cheeks. Tears I no longer had control over. I felt my entire body shaking as his strong body pressed deeper into mine.

  Pregnant?

  I was pregnant?

  “I’m sorry,” I said into his lips. “I’m so sorr-.”

  But Kenneth pressed his lips further into mine. Found my tongue with his. Silenced my apologies with the desperation behind his kiss. My hands slid into his hair, my sorrow giving way to want for him.

  Our foreheads fell together and our lips disconnected before the doctor continued talking.

  “By the looks of your blood tests and your hormonal levels, you’re somewhere between four and five weeks along. We’ll need to get you started on prenatal vitamins as soon as possible, and I’ll have someone get in here to walk you through your altered diet during your pregnancy.”

  “My what?” I asked breathlessly.

  “There are certain foods that are unsafe for growing fetuses. Someone will be in here to talk with you about it soon enough. In the meantime, do you want an ultrasound?”

  My eyes fluttered open and I caught Kenneth’s stare. His eyes danced between mine as his hand slid around to cup the back of my neck. I knew exactly how far along I was. Four weeks and two days. Because there could have only been one encounter with one man that put me in this position.

  “What do you say?” Kenneth asked. “Would you like to see our child?”

  “Our… child?” I asked with a whisper.

  “Don’t tell me you think it’s someone else’s child. I might get a little jealous,” he said coyly.

  “I don’t know. Paige and I have been pretty hot and heavy lately.”

  “My kind of party.”

  I smiled and shook my head before my eyes whipped over to the doctor.

  “Sure,” I said. “I think we’d both like an ultrasound.”

  Kenneth held my hand the entire way through it. He stood there while they spread around the gel, manipulated the screen, and turned up the volume. A rhythmic pulsing sensation filled the room before a small sac popped up onto the screen. A small little bean, no bigger than my thumbprint, was rolling around on it. I felt him squeeze my hand. My body filled with shock. There it was. My little child.

  Our little child.

  I looked up at Kenneth and saw so many things rushing behind his eyes. Determination. Elation. Shock. Fear. I watched all of those silent thoughts of his scream over his face, reducing the powerful man into nothing but a worried pile of unanswered questions. I knew how he felt. I had no idea what we were going to do. All of the plans I had for my life started falling like dominos into a pattern I never would’ve dreamed for my life.

  So, in an effort to comfort him, I did the only thing I could think to do in the moment.

  I brought the back of his hand to my lips to kiss.

  Kenneth

  I brought Tiffany straight to my place after the hospital released her. We had a three-month supply of prenatal vitamins and strict guidelines on what she could and could not eat. My mind was spinning with all that had happened. Pregnant.

  Tiffany was pregnant with my child.

  I let her into my penthouse apartment and she did was most did. Her mouth gaped open as her body gravitated towards the view. The back wall of my entire home was lined
with tinted windows that darkened and lightened as the sun rose and dipped in the sky. It overlooked Miami’s beaches and had a superb shot of the sunset at night.

  But my eyes weren’t on the view.

  My eyes were on Tiffany.

  The mother of my child.

  I couldn't believe it. I was going to be a father. I was terrified. I had no idea if this was something I could do. Something I could be. And yet, I wanted it. More than I’d ever wanted anything in my life. I watched the sunlight frame Tiffany’s body as she stood there with her hand pressed against the glass. Gaping at the view like a child staring in through the window at a candy shop. I set our stuff on my couch and walked up behind her, then threaded my arms around her waist. My hands fell to her stomach, cupping her lower abdomen as I tried to imagine what she would look like swollen with my child.

  Ripe with life growing inside of her.

  “I still can’t believe it,” Tiffany said. “I thought it was stress.”

  “In your defense, anyone would’ve with all we’ve been through these past few weeks,” I said.

  “I swear to you, Kenneth. I didn’t know.”

  “I believe you,” I said as I kissed her neck. “I do.”

  “Is someone cooking?”

  Tiffany sniffed the air before she turned around in my arms.

  “Someone is,” I said.

  “Who else is here?” she asked.

  “I have a chef. I sent him a message during the ride here to see if he was available to come by and make us some lunch.”

  “Of course you have a chef,” she said with a snicker. “What’s he making?”

  “I told him anything liquid because of your nausea, so probably a nice broth soup.”

  I took Tiffany’s hands and guided her to the couch, cradling her close to me. We sat down together and I rested my foot against the corner of the coffee table as her cheek pressed into my chest. I stroked her hair. Untangled her knots. Allowed her a moment of weakness so she could sink into something that was sure to hold her up. I wanted her to know I would be there for her. To support her in any way she needed. Tiffany and our child had jumped to the top of my daily priority list, and anything she needed would be hers.