ROMANCE: BAD BOY ROMANCE: Basketball Daddy (BWWM Alpha Male Billionaire Pregnancy Romance) (African American Unexpected Pregnant Contemporary Romance)

by Ava Walsh

  Myles tapped his nose.

  "Really? You can smell people's periods?" Jackie wrinkled her own nose, a little disgusted and unnerved by that news. How much could he tell about her just from taking a quick sniff when she was in the area? Maybe she should start wearing perfume. Lots of perfume.

  "Just use them."

  Jackie picked up the box, her head spinning. "It doesn't mean anything. I skip my periods all the time. Actually, I don't think I've had one in five months. I don't keep track. They're too erratic. The doctor said it's because of stress and my weight."

  She knew she was babbling and sucked her lips between her teeth. She couldn't be pregnant. Could she?

  Myles put his hands on her shoulders, guiding her towards the women's bathroom. "Humor me."

  "But we used a condom," Jackie whispered, digging in her heels.

  "They're not always effective."

  "I'm not pregnant!" the words came out a little too loudly.

  Myles's mouth thinned and he stared at her. She glared back at him, her grip tight on the pregnancy tests. Her boss didn't say anything. He didn't have to. With her hands shaking and her mouth dry, Jackie went into the bathroom. She stared down at the pregnancy test in her hand. She thought she might throw up.

  But I haven't had any morning sickness. If I'm pregnant I should be throwing up every morning, shouldn't I?

  Jackie closed her eyes. Well, there was the only way to find out for sure.

  ***

  After the test came back positive, Jackie did throw up. Maybe it was her mind telling her that it was about time her body started showing symptoms. Maybe it was the sudden downpour of stress on her. Pregnant. She was pregnant. What the hell was she going to do now?

  Myles knocked on the door, but Jackie didn't want to face him. She was pregnant with his child. What would he think? Would he be happy? Would he fire her and pretend that he never knew her? Would he want her to move in with his mother and sister until the baby was born, and then make her pretend she never had a baby in the first place as it was raised by somebody else?

  Well, that wasn't going to happen. Jackie splashed her face with water, settling her wild mind on that. Whatever else might happen, she wasn't giving this baby up. Being a mother wasn't in her immediate plans, the thought of having a child that relied on her was a terrifying thought, but somehow that was the only thing that she could decide on at the moment.

  This baby was hers and it would always be hers.

  Myles's hair was teased to its ends and his eyes were wide with worry when she stepped out of the bathroom. She must have looked like she was about to collapse, because he quickly grabbed her arm and lead her to his office.

  Jackie took a deep breath and nodded.

  The werewolf released a pent-up breath. He hunched in his chair, burying his face in his hands. Jackie watched him, surprised by how young and vulnerable he suddenly seemed. She had always seen Myles as a strong, fierce man. He never let anybody bully him, never showed a moment's weakness. And yet he looked like his world was collapsing around him.

  Jackie rubbed her eyes. "What now?"

  "Go home," Myles said. He straightened and put a hand on her knee. Jackie liked the comforting warmth it provided, but his words had her heart speeding. "This is a shock and you should rest. I will handle things. Just… get yourself some rest. We can talk tomorrow."

  Jackie nodded numbly. Was he firing her? She couldn't tell, but at the moment she didn't care. She was too focused on what else he said. He would handle things? Did that mean that he was going to arrange for her to terminate the pregnancy?

  The question swirled in her mind while Myles gathered her things and gave them to her.

  Did he expect her to want an abortion, or was that what he wanted? He wouldn't want a child born from a one-night stand running around being a threat to his future children's claims to the position of Alpha. And he said himself that it would take a special woman to be his mate. Jackie certainly wasn't anything special.

  As soon as she was home she grabbed her phone and called her sister.

  "Hello?"

  Jackie blurted out everything. Penny listened, not interrupting. By the time she was finished, Jackie was sobbing.

  "What am I going to do?" she asked desperately. "I won't get an abortion, I just won't. But if I lose this job I don't have anything to fall back on. I'll end up with nothing. I don't know what to do. Tell me what to do!"

  "First off, have yourself a good cry," Penny said, in her no-nonsense tone that reminded Jackie of their mother. "Then when you're done with that take a nice, long bubble bath. Consider everything, Jackie. An unexpected pregnancy is difficult enough in the best of circumstances, and you've got one that'll be half-werewolf. You need to consider that side of things as well. How will you deal with the shifting? Will you want it to have contact with the paternal family?"

  "I don't know!" Jackie yanked at her hair, her eyes rolling with panic. "I don't know what I want!"

  "You've got time to figure things out. Write down whatever comes to your mind. Questions and answers both. Don't worry about making sense." Penny paused. "You're going to have to decide what to do with Myles."

  Jackie was silent, rolling Penny's advice around her mind. What should she tell Myles? Well, what he wanted was clear. He would 'handle things'. What would he do when she refused? Would she get any sort of child support from him? Would she even want her child exposed to a man who thought she should have aborted it?

  "Jackie?"

  "Thanks." She felt very, very tired all of a sudden, but dragged herself to her computer. "I think I know what I need to do now."

  "You can come live with me if you need to, Jack. Just know that I'm here for you."

  "Thanks, sis. I'll have myself a cry and a bath and get back to you, okay?"

  "Love you."

  "Love you, too." Jackie hung up, then faced her computer. She opened the word processor, and with trembling hands and a fresh wave of tears she began to type her resignation.

  Chapter Six

  The next day Jackie woke to somebody pounding on her door. She cracked her eyes open, the salt from the tears she had cried herself to sleep with making her lashes stick together. For a moment she was disoriented, not sure exactly where or who she was. Then the events of the previous day came flooding back to her, and she dragged herself out of bed and threw on some clothes.

  It was Myles at the door. He pushed into her apartment the moment she opened the door, despite her cry of protest, and began to pace the small space, shaking his head. His stubble had grown from the previous night and his hair was sticking up at all angles, like he'd been repeatedly running his hands through it and tugging at it.

  "What is the meaning of this?"

  Jackie shut the door, rubbing one of her scratchy, dried-out eyes. "What do you mean?"

  "I mean this!" Myles yanked a sheet of paper out of his pocket and waved it around in the air.

  "You mean my resignation?" Jackie was surprised at how cool and even her voice was. She had already made that decision, after all. Myles could rant and rave all he wanted, but she wasn't going to go back to work for him. Not when his reaction to her pregnancy was to make her abort.

  Myles dropped the paper. "I refuse to accept this. You signed a contract. You can't just quit!"

  Jackie folded her arms and glared at him. "I thought that was what you would want. Considering I won't do what you want."

  The werewolf stopped his pacing. His brows knit and he stared at her. "What?"

  "I am not getting an abortion," she snapped, fists clenching. "I might seem like a weak little girl to you, but I fight for what's important to me and I always knew I'd never do that. Other women have their choice, and that’s fine, but this is mine! I won't do it, and I don't care how much you threaten me or if you fire me—you can't fire me because I already resigned."

  "Jackie—"

  "Don't try to change my mind. I am going to have this baby. And you don't have to have any
thing to do with either of us again. I won't even ask for child support. I'll take care of this baby on my own. I'll find a way to do it!" Jackie could feel her face getting hotter as anger swirled through her. All her imagined conversations with him over the issue pressed against her brain until she couldn’t think straight. "I am not going to have an abortion, and there's nothing you can do to make me!"

  "Make you?" Myles's jaw hung opened. His gray eyes were round, and his skin had paled a few shades. "Jackie, that is the last thing I want you to do."

  Her arms fell to her side as surprise rippled through her. She had been so certain that was what he wanted, and yet what he said sounded so true. She bit her lip.

  "But yesterday you said you would handle things. I thought that meant—"

  "I meant the things in my appointment book." Myles's shoulders slumped. "Why would you think that I'd want that? Why would I try to force you to get an abortion? What kind of person do you think I am?"

  Jackie's shoulders hunched. "I guess I don't really know you at all. I was panicked and I latched onto the only thing I could think of to fight against. I'm sorry."

  Myles stepped forward, brushing her messy hair behind her ear. "I'm sorry, too. I guess sending you away yesterday wasn't the best course of action. But I really only wanted you to rest and have time to wrap your head around it before we talked about what to do."

  "That's not the kind of thing that I do." Jackie managed a smile, though she felt embarrassed by her accusations and more than a little emotionally raw. "I need to figure things out right away, or I freak out over the smallest details and blow them up out of proportion."

  Myles laughed. "Noted."

  "So where do we go from here?"

  "That is a good question. Mind if I have a seat?"

  Jackie shook her head, and the two of them sat on the small couch. Myles seemed far too big for it and he perched uneasily on the edge, not looking at her. The air conditioning kicked in, filling the silence with a comfortable hum. It was a relief, giving Jackie time to think.

  Now that she didn't have anything to fight, her lip started to tremble, but she clenched it between her teeth, determined not to cry again. What did she have to cry about? Myles wasn't going to make her do anything she didn't want to do. But she felt the tears coming anyway.

  "You don't know how happy I was yesterday. I felt like a heel, being so happy when you were obviously in a state of shock." Myles attempted to smooth his hair down. "But when you said you were pregnant, I was happy. Happier than I have been in a long, long time. After you went home I thought you might want an abortion, and it destroyed me."

  Jackie reached for his hand. "I don't."

  "I know." He flashed a nervous smile at her. "Now. But yesterday I thought it might be a possibility. I decided that I would support you, no matter what you chose."

  Jackie's eyes filled with tears. "Really?"

  "Of course. I still will support you. Not just financially, either. Look, Jackie. I want to be a part of this baby's life. This isn't how I imagined getting my first child, and I know it's hard on you, but we can make it work. I know we can."

  A great weight lifted off Jackie's shoulders and she found herself smiling. "I want that, too. A baby deserves to know both parents. Plus, since it's going to be half-werewolf, it needs somebody who understands and can explain that side of things. I have werewolf ancestry, but the whole shifting thing, and especially when it comes to society and the social aspects… I don't think I'm qualified."

  Myles nodded.

  "But I am going to raise him or her," Jackie quickly added. "I'm not going to give it up. And I'll take it for visits to your pack, but I'm living in the city."

  "We can decide exactly how that will work later." Myles put a hand on her knee. "In the meantime… I would very much like it if we could start filling out the applications to be mated. Married, if you'd prefer to use that term."

  Jackie's jaw dropped. That was the last thing she had expected to hear when he showed up at her door! They hadn't even known each other for four months, and he was talking marriage? Till death do us part? He couldn't love her yet. He just couldn't. Was he hoping that they would fall in love after they were mated for life? Or was this just because he wanted to show a unified front towards the members of his pack or something like that?

  Whatever his reason, one thing was clear. He wouldn't be asking if she wasn't pregnant. She shook her head. "No.

  Myles winced. He ran a hand through his hair. "At least come back to work. I want us to be friends if nothing else. There is nothing worse for a child than to love parents who don't even like each other. Besides, you're going to need to get a new apartment and stuff."

  Jackie cast a glance around her tiny apartment. It was comfortable enough for one person, but there was nowhere for a playpen or crib or anything else a baby would need. And she had just started building up her savings again.

  "I hope you know that I will be buying everything the baby needs, from cribs to booties," Myles continued. "When I said I am going to support you in this, I mean it. I don't want you or our child to want for anything."

  Part of her thought she ought to argue. Refuse, be independent. But babies were expensive, and she needed the support right now. Jackie nodded gratefully. "I'll come back to work. But this isn't going to stay a secret, and so soon after the whole Kathy scandal—"

  "I'll inform the PR department so they can handle it. You'll probably have your face on the tabloids for a while, but as long as we show a unified front I don't think things will get too bad."

  Myles smiled at her, all the confidence returning to his expression. Jackie felt her tensions ease. Yes, it was going to be just fine. She smiled back.

  "Good. Now, I'm going to go and shower, and we need to get to work. You're already half an hour late for your first appointment today."

  Chapter Seven

  The media storm was terrible. Paparazzi seemed to sit on every street corner, and Jackie wouldn't even open the curtains in her apartment for fear that they'd somehow manage to scale the wall and take pictures of her in her underwear to plaster all over the internet and supermarket tabloids.

  Work continued more or less normally, although Myles kept giving her bottled water and insisting that she needed to stay hydrated, which was sweet in an annoying sort of way. A distinctive baby bump developed, although Jackie actually lost weight. The doctor said it was nothing to be concerned about, though, so she bought plus-sized maternity wear with glee.

  One day, two months in, Jackie had had enough of the flashing lights that blinded her every time she left her apartment building or the office. She marched into Myles's office and put her hands on her hips.

  "You have to do something about the paparazzi. They're getting on my last nerve, and if you don't get rid of them then I'm moving to Alaska."

  Myles closed the file he had been reading and stood, stretching out his lower back. "They are getting rather annoying, aren't they?"

  Jackie glared at him. He sounded more amused than annoyed, which really rubbed her the wrong away. "More like annoying the hell out of me."

  "I have been asked to go out to California to attend a conference on worldwide Shifter issues," Myles said, nodding his head. "I wasn't going to go, but I think I'll take up the invitation. Changing location will trip them up for a little while at least. How soon can you pack?"

  California? Jackie's eyes lit up. "When do we leave? I'll be ready to go when you are. I'll call your apartment building and have somebody pack for you—"

  "Never mind," Myles interrupted, shaking his head. "We'll go directly to the airport. That will give them too much notice. I'll buy anything we need once we're over there."

  Jackie balked at that idea. It was difficult enough to find clothing that fit her and looked good when she could have it tailored. A whole new wardrobe worn off the rack wasn't her idea of a good time. It wouldn't fit her right and she would end up looking cheap, not like the professional she was. But even as s
he opened her mouth to protest, Myles put his hands on her shoulders and spun her around.

  "No arguing. We're running away."

  ***

  Within hours she was in Myles's private plane, sipping on freshly pressed orange juice while staring out at a patchwork of clouds and land. It was an amazing sight, and she marveled at the beauty of the world. They were so high that even the mountains they flew overlooked like anthills.

  "No paparazzi up here," Myles said, pouring himself a small glass of scotch. "Feel better?"

  Jackie nodded. "It's beautiful."

  "I agree. There is no better sight than being above the clouds and looking down at the world. Well, almost no better sight." He smiled at her, causing her to immediately go scarlet.

  Jackie gulped down a mouthful of juice, careful not to spill on herself. It occurred to her that, over the past five months since they slept together, he hadn't given her that subtle smile, the one where his lip quirked at one end while his brow rose almost suggestively. He also hadn't teased her or made her blush. She had been too caught up in everything that had happened between them to notice these deficiencies before.

  "You do that on purpose," she accused, setting her glass down.

  Myles adopted an innocent expression. "Do what, exactly?"

  "You know very well what. You make me blush and get me all flustered. Why?"

  The smile faded from his face. "Will you answer a question of mine first?"

  Jackie scowled. "It's a simple enough question. Why should I give into blackmail to get an answer?"

  "Please?"

  It was the first time she had heard him say please, and Jackie nodded before she could catch herself. Ah, hell. Well, if it was a question she didn't want to answer, she just wouldn't answer it. She folded her hands on her lap and waited for Myles to ask his question. He drained his scotch first. Jackie's brow furrowed. Really, what could be that bad?

  "When I asked if we could start filling in the applications to become mates, why did you say no?"

  What? Jackie brushed her knees, getting rid of invisible crumbs, as her face grew even hotter. "Why bring that up again after two months?"