For Love of Freedom (Stone Brothers Book 3)

by Samantha Westlake

  "Now?" She glanced past the awkwardly gathered male strippers. "With all these guys?"

  "And what's that supposed to mean?" Tony asked, apparently eavesdropping on us. He had a bit of an Italian accent, one that grew stronger as he spoke up. "We're good guys! And maybe this guy might get a little confrontational, and she wants someone big, with muscles, give him a good talking to!" The other strippers behind him nodded in agreement.

  Holy shit, was my best friend about to get into an argument with a bunch of male strippers over how my baby daddy would respond to the news that he'd gotten me knocked up? "I think I need to do it alone," I said hastily, before Ellen's too-quick tongue could run ahead of her brain.

  Everyone glanced uncertainly at me, but at least no one raised a verbal challenge. "Here, we'll show you the back way out," Tony offered graciously, after a minute. "That way you won't need to go through the crowd out front." He waved to a couple other shirtless, buff men. "Marco, Kyle, you two better get out front and sign some autographs for them before the intermission ends."

  I followed Tony in the other direction, through a veritable maze of hallways, with Ellen close behind me. We'd already taken several turns when I realized that I'd left the pregnancy test in the bathroom behind me. I nearly turned around to go back for it, but decided against it. What did it matter? I felt another hysterical giggle rising up, like a bubble of gas in a swamp. I had plenty of urine, and this baby wasn't going anywhere. I could pee on a million sticks, and it wouldn't change the situation.

  I'm pregnant. It still sounds fake, made-up.

  Tony opened a door, and we found ourselves back in the main lobby, albeit off to one side and away from the main crowd. "Here," the male stripper said, holding a small bundle of paper squares out to Ellen and me.

  She took them. "What are these?"

  He shrugged. "Coupons, for a discounted show next time. Since this one didn't really work out. And my personal number's on the back of one of them, too."

  Ellen's eyebrows climbed. "Your personal number? Why?"

  Tony's mouth dropped open, but he didn't seem to have a response. "If you need anything, that's all. Uh, good luck with all that," he finally managed, gesturing towards my general stomach area. He ducked back through the doorway before we could pepper him with any more questions.

  I tried to put on a smile, despite feeling like the sky was falling, my world crumbling apart around me. "I think he was flirting with you," I said.

  "Me? No, he was hitting on you!" Ellen retorted.

  I shook my head. "Nope. I'm the pregnant girl, now. Single and knocked up, haven't even told the father of my child about it yet."

  "Don't be like that," she said, her face softening. "Seb isn't going to desert you. Not when it's something as important as this."

  I wished that I could believe her. I wished that I couldn't imagine Seb panicking, leaving me, never showing his face again.

  I wished that I had some idea of what to do next, now that my whole life had just been knocked off its tracks.

  I didn't have any other options, any answers. I pulled my phone out of my purse, scrolled to Seb's number. Holding my breath, I dialed.

  Part of me hoped that he might not pick up, that I could just leave him a voicemail message, tell him to call me back, delay the inevitable. It was only slightly after noon; maybe he was still asleep. But the phone only rang three times before I heard the click of a connection, his voice at the other end.

  "Tori? What's going on, where have you been? I haven't heard from you for days, now!"

  "Hi Seb," I answered softly, dropping down onto a bench in the Vegas venue lobby. "I need to tell you something."

  Chapter Four

  SEBASTIAN

  *

  Five minutes later, I stumbled back through the restaurant, back to my chair. I dropped down heavily into the seat, staring blankly down at the plate of food in front of me, that had arrived while I'd been away.

  I heard Linda say something, but my ears couldn't catch the words. It all just sounded like buzzing, background noise. I looked blankly down at my food, wondering where it had come from. Had I ordered? Did I ask for this? Whatever it was, it certainly didn't look very appetizing to me right now.

  "Seb?" Callie called out again. Finally, I managed to raise my head up, saw the rest of them looking at me curiously. "You okay, buddy?"

  No. No, no no no, I was most definitely not okay. "Great, great. Everything's great. Just great."

  They didn't believe me. Hell, I don't think I would have believed myself, given that wooden tone. I sounded like a robot, like Teddy!

  Speaking of which, he was the next one to speak up. "Really?" asked the middle Stone brother, frowning at me. "Because you seem to be saying the same word, over and over again. Even I can recognize that as weird. What did Tori say?"

  "Oh, not much," my mouth replied blithely, as I picked up a fork from beside my plate and frowned at it. I felt like someone had popped the latch on the top of my head and stuffed the interior full of cotton balls. "She's not going to be coming out and drinking and partying with me any longer, I suppose." Understatement of the fucking year.

  Linda, Richard's wife, was the next one to speak up. "That's too bad. Why not?"

  A part of me wanted to scold her for prying, but the next line from my mouth was just too dryly humorous to pass up. "Because you can't drink when you're pregnant," I heard the words come from my lips, with my voice. Still, it felt like someone else had spoken them. "Or party. Or smoke. So I guess that's done, then."

  Bam. Fucking bombshell, right on our family lunch. And they all complain that I never have any news.

  I didn't need to look around to know that they were all gaping at me, their jaws hanging open. Yeah. Enjoy the shock, before the "I told you so's" start coming out. Sebastian Stone, party boy and royal screw-up of the otherwise successful Stone family, has managed to knock up some party girl and get her pregnant with his bastard seed. Enjoy your self-righteousness, you pricks.

  This thought cut me all the more deeply because, despite the anger welling up inside me, I knew that my brothers weren't the type to shun or shame me for something like this. No, they'd do their best to be kind and understanding, treating me like I was made of glass and about to shatter at any second.

  In a way, that made things even worse.

  Once again, Callie was the first to recover, to find her voice after that minute of shocked silence. "Pregnant?" she repeated, as if maybe I'd just misspoke, said the wrong fucking word. "Is it..."

  She didn't finish the sentence, but I knew what she was angling at. "Yep. She says it's definitely mine." I parroted the words back from the phone call, like I was a recording machine playing back a message. "So that's happening." I stabbed a piece of the food with the fork still in my hands, although I didn't lift it to my mouth. I couldn't even think of eating, swallowing something right now.

  For another minute, everything was silent. The rest of the table sat there, staring at me like I'd just told them all that I had cancer, that I had six months to live. Essentially, I'd kind of delivered a death sentence on my whole lifestyle, so maybe that comparison was more apt than I first assumed.

  Finally, Richard broke the silence. I wasn't sure quite how my oldest brother would react to this news. I half expected him to be sorry for me, offer pity, and the other part of me guessed that he'd act all self-righteous and tell me that this was something I deserved, my karmic fate after all the partying and fun I had, instead of buckling down and devoting my life to shitty work like my other brother.

  He didn't show either of those emotions. Instead, he threw back his head and started laughing.

  We all stared at him, of course. What was wrong with him? Had he finally snapped, gone 'round the bend, the shock of my revelation finally cracking his sanity, already degraded from marrying his psychiatrist?

  "Don't you all see?" he managed to get out, once the laughter finally subsided. "All this time, Sebastian's been mocking us
for taking on responsibility, throwing his freedom in our faces. Now, who's going to be the least free of us all?"

  He was mocking me! And, even worse, it seemed contagious. One by one, the others also lost control, slipped into laughter of their own. Linda, the prim and proper psychiatrist, tried to hold out, but even she finally fell apart, laughing with the others.

  "It's true," she forced out, looking at me as if this made things better. "Sebastian, I'm sorry, but it does seem pretty ironic."

  This was my life. A walking, talking example of irony.

  For a minute, I felt hot anger bubbling up inside me and getting ready to erupt. I just revealed that I was royally fucked, that my life was pretty much over, and they were laughing at me? How dare they-

  But I pushed that anger aside, pushed it back down, like I always did when something made me angry. Erupting and shouting wasn't going to accomplish anything. I needed to contain it, just put on a smile, be wry and sarcastic. Don't let anything affect me, touch me. Keep up the walls.

  So instead, I twisted my lips into my best approximation of a grin. It probably wasn't perfect, but it was enough to fool the rest of my family. "I guess I'm going to need to think about what's next in my life," I said, fighting against the tightness in my voice. "But come on, this is definitely worse than anyone else! Richard's married, Teddy's got a girl who loves him. And what do I get?"

  "A baby, soon enough!" Callie got out, laughing like it was all a huge joke, all just for her to enjoy.

  "Yeah, yeah, laugh it up," I said. Still playing the impish fool, still compressing the hot little flow of anger that still bubbled and seethed inside of me, I put my head down on the table next to my plate. "This is awful."

  The others chattered on after a minute or so, going on to other topics. Of course, this wasn't life-breaking news to any of them. Just a little tidbit to give them a chuckle before they put it out of their heads, went about their own lives. Callie and Teddy were staring into each other's eyes, looking all love-struck and dopey, while Linda and Richard just sat there, side by side, totally playing up the part of the couple that seemed to have been married for a million years already. How disgustingly responsible.

  None of them understood. I didn't truly hate my family, as much as I mocked them, but I never felt like they understood how I felt. They never really grasped my problems when I tried to explain my issues. To them, I just seemed to be stuck in an earlier stage, and they insisted that, sooner or later, I'd grow out of it.

  A baby. Tori was pregnant. We'd slept together, plenty of times, but she'd always been on birth control. How could this have happened? What went wrong?

  For a second, righteous anger bubbled up inside of me, pushing ahead my fear and uncertainty about the future. I'd figure out what manufacturing defect led to my girl getting pregnant, and I'd sue them into oblivion for this! I didn't need the money, of course, but making sure that I got my retribution for doing this...

  I broke off that thought abruptly. No, that wasn't what I needed to do. It was just a distraction, something to keep me from thinking about my own situation.

  She was pregnant. She said it with such certainty, I couldn't even bring myself to question her. Tori was a smart girl, despite her hard-partying appearance. She'd have taken a second test, made sure of this before she called me.

  Could it belong to someone else? A faint hope, but probably unrealistic. We weren't really exclusive. We weren't really anything. No labels. Just friends who hung out, went to the same parties, flirted, and sometimes went home together.

  Still, Tori never struck me as the kind of girl who slept around. She flirted, danced with anyone who showed interest, but I'd never seen her progress beyond that public stage.

  I knew that I needed to contact her, set up a meeting. That was the right thing to do, the responsible thing to do. I could practically hear Richard's disembodied voice speaking inside my head, telling me that I needed to start thinking like a parent.

  Ugh. Fuck that. I didn't need to listen to his smug, smarmy voice in my head telling me what to do.

  I pushed back my seat from the table, standing up. The others glanced over at the scraping of my chair against the floor.

  "Not sticking around to eat?" Linda asked. To her credit, she did look a little more concerned than the others. Maybe she wasn't laughing at me in her head, like the rest of them surely were doing.

  I shook my head. "I need to go talk to her. I have to go."

  As I turned away, I already saw Callie leaning in towards Teddy, smiling as she probably made some cutting remark about me. Linda, however, still looked dismayed.

  "Sebastian, we're here to help you!" she called after me.

  Yeah, bullshit. I didn't bother to respond, sweeping out of the restaurant. I looked around for my car for a minute, then remembered that I'd walked here, trying to drive off the hangover from the night before. What a dumb idea.

  Still, right now, I'd give anything to go back an hour, back to a point where my aching head was my only real concern.

  I headed down the street. I reached into my pocket, pulled out my phone, opened up Tori's profile. Richard's voice inside my head insisted that I needed to call her, do the responsible thing. It was the last thing I wanted to do right now.

  Still, the longer I put it off, the worse it would be. Like taking an especially nasty shot of some disgusting liquor combination, I told myself. Do it quick, get it over with and behind you.

  I dialed her number, held the phone up to my ear and listened to it ring. "Hey, Tori, it's me," I said, when she picked up. "Look, we should probably meet, shouldn't we? Talk about this, face to face?"

  She sounded a little hesitant, at first, but agreed with me. "I'm back at my apartment," she said. "I don't need to be anywhere today. Canceled my plans."

  Not surprising, considering that her plans probably involved drinking and pregaming for tonight. I vaguely remembered her mentioning that today was something special, but the details escaped me. Oh well. Drinking, partying, smoking – couldn't do that with a baby. For a moment, my sympathy shifted off myself and over to Tori, before the black clouds multiplied to cover us both.

  "Right." I dimly remembered Tori's apartment. I didn't know the address, but I'd dropped her off there before, knew its general location from when the Uber rides we'd shared. I might have been somewhat distracted in the back of the luxury car by how she had her hand shoved down my pants, my mouth buried in between her tits, but I vaguely remembered the neighborhood. I could probably find her apartment, once I saw some familiar landmarks. "I'll be right there."

  Pregnant. I'd gotten a girl fucking pregnant.

  Last night, I'd been on top of the world. Now, I felt like the world had flipped the tables on me, pulled the rug out from under my fucking feet.

  Not even caring what the strangers passing me on the sidewalk thought, I threw back my head and let out a wordless groan, voicing all my frustration in a single roar.

  I was supposed to be Sebastian Stone, life's golden boy, the guy who had everything. Everything went my way, or I figured out how to make it work to my advantage.

  Until now.

  How had this happened to me?

  Chapter Five

  TORI

  *

  It was nearly forty minutes later when I finally heard a knock at my apartment door. I sat up from the couch, my phone slipping out of my lap and landing on the floor. Had I dozed off for a few minutes?

  I'd expected Seb to show up right away at my apartment, given the gravity of the news that I shared with him over the phone. But either he'd been dallying somewhere else, or he'd gotten lost and hadn't been able to find my apartment.

  "Finally," the man himself gasped when I opened the door for him. "Why the hell doesn't your building have an elevator?"

  Lost, then. I stepped back to let him inside, all six feet and two inches of pretty, disheveled, dark-haired playboy. Even panting and out of breath, Sebastian Stone still radiated out an almost palpable
aura of wealth, prestige, and dominance. His thick, almost black hair glinted from the expensive shampoo and conditioner that he used, and his dark eyes flashed and glinted even in the rather dim light of my apartment. His black shirt and tight jeans looked as if they'd been hand-sewn especially for his figure – which, given his expensive tastes, wouldn't especially surprise me. The shirt's tight, short sleeves showed off the bulges of his biceps, and I saw his thick forearms flex as he tensed his fingers, perhaps trying to release some of the tension from his mental state.

  "Seb, you know that I don't have an elevator," I said, as I let him into my apartment. "You've been here before, remember?"

  I saw his brow furrow. "Really? When?"

  I pointed over at my couch. "Well, for one thing, we had sex right on that sofa."

  He looked at it blankly, no light of recognition in his eyes. "Really? How fucked up was I?"

  He'd been pretty fucked up, to be honest. Now that I considered it, while he'd made a fair number of visits to my apartment, he'd never visited while sober. Not before today, at least. "You definitely weren't sober, I'll say that."

  For a second, one corner of his mouth lifted, and he gave me that characteristic smirk that I always pictured on his face in my imagination. "Still rocked your world, huh?"

  "Up until you fell asleep on top of me, dick still inside of me, and I had to dump you on the floor and throw a blanket over you."

  He just laughed. Sebastian Stone had the biggest ego of any man I'd ever met, and no jab would deflate that sense of self-assurance. "Well, this place is still a shithole. I can't remember the last time I had to climb so many stairs."

  "Probably good for you," I said, eliciting another short laugh.

  He walked past me, looking around at the interior of my apartment. "Is this it?" he asked, turning around. He stuck his head into the kitchen area, frowned, pulled it back out. "You really live here?"

  "Not all of us have a billion dollars in the bank," I countered.

  "Only nine hundred million and change, now. Partying isn't cheap, you know." He didn't seem bothered by the lack of a third comma in his net worth. "I thought you went to college for business, though? Doesn't that pay well?"