Because I Love You

by Amy Brent

  Chuckling, I talked with employees in HR before heading back up to the top floor to get ready for the end of the day. Violet’s desk was already empty when I walked by to find Cheryl packing up as well.

  “That poor thing needs to take some time away from here,” Cheryl told me, slipping on the strap of her purse. “She’s so young, Cole. Twenty-two years old, and she’s about to have a nervous breakdown before either one of us.”

  “Did she say anything to you about what was going on with her stomach? I know she was sick all weekend and—”

  “How did you know that she was sick all weekend?” Cheryl asked.

  I clicked my jaw shut when I realized what I had let slip out. Cheryl gave me a long and penetrating look, but before she could put the pieces together, I rushed out, “She called me this morning to ask if it would be all right to be late for work. She told me that she had been sick all weekend.”

  “Right,” Cheryl said slowly. “Is there something that I need to know, Mr. Crayton?”

  “Nothing,” I replied smoothly. “Have a nice evening, Cheryl.”

  I didn’t give her the chance to reply. I hurried across the office floor to retreat into my own office. Packing everything up, I called down to the Italian restaurant I knew that Violet would enjoy. Dinner would be delivered by six. Perfect. I texted Violet the directions to my penthouse next.

  Use the service elevator. There are media that hangs around the building sometimes.

  Violet texted back quickly.

  Got it. I’ll see you in a few hours.

  I resisted the urge to tell her not to even bother putting on any underwear. She wasn’t going to be wearing them for very long, given the last time I had any sort of release was last Friday.

  Calm it down. She hasn’t been feeling well.

  I sucked in a deep breath to calm the swell of lust building in me. I stopped by a small floral stand five minutes away from my suite to purchase some flowers before finding a swarm of media people in front of the building doors. Sighing, I tucked the flowers beneath my blazer to hide them from view. That was the last thing I wanted to see in the papers.

  Cole Crayton buys a bouquet of flowers for a new woman?

  Then, Gloria would be calling out of curiosity on who the new mystery woman was. I ignored the questions tossed at my back as I entered through the lobby doors to take the elevator up to my suite.

  The entire place was spotless and clean as usual, thanks to my housemaids who knew to keep it clean for me. I wasn’t a messy person by any means, but I hated clutter and dust. They were always good about coming first thing in the morning to clean up, run errands, pick up my dry cleaning, and then disappear by the time I arrived home. They knew how much I valued my privacy, too.

  I took a cold shower to resist the urge of easing the ache in my groin. Not when I knew that Violet would be coming over to help me with the ache. She arrived shortly before six, dressed in a modest black skirt that hugged her hips tightly and a polka dot blouse that dipped low on her breasts. Her blonde hair fell about her shoulders in gentle curves while she smelt of vanilla and soap.

  “Hi, beautiful,” I said and pulled her in from the elevator.

  She responded eagerly to my kiss when I swept her up in my arms. She pulled back after a few minutes to take a deep breath.

  “I missed you this weekend,” she said, quietly. “I missed all day today, too.”

  I couldn’t place it, but there was something different about Violet that I couldn’t quite place. She looked jittery, even a bit pale again.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, rubbing her shoulders in concern. “Are you not feeling well again?”

  Violet shook her head as a smile spread across her face. “No, those pills help me feel better. You said we were going to dinner?”

  “Well, dinner will be here shortly. I ordered some Italian food for us at a place that I like. They have good garlic bread.”

  “Sounds wonderful,” Violet said, and she looked around the living room with wide eyes. “I never thought your penthouse was this big. You can’t tell how big it is from the ground.”

  “I own this entire floor,” I told her with a smile. “My ex-wife thought it was a waste of money, but it was just cheaper to buy the place than rent out during the week when I was in the city doing business.”

  “That makes sense. Any famous celebrities that live here, too?”

  I shrugged my shoulders indifferently. “Eh, I don’t know. I don’t really talk with my neighbors.”

  “You could have Brad Pitt living beneath you,” Violet said, her eyes twinkling with amusement. “How can you not know who your neighbors are?”

  “I make more money than most of them,” I said, laughing. “That’s why I have the very top floor to myself.”

  The food arrived twenty minutes later. We sat together in the small kitchen nook, eating spaghetti and garlic bread as we talked about anything that came to mind. It amazed me how easy it was to talk to Violet without looking at her as Alan Summer’s daughter. I was looking at her as Violet Summers, a young woman who had a life and mind of her own.

  It brought a smile to my face when Violet looked up at me with a bit of spaghetti sauce on the corner of her lips. Her eyes were bright with joy when she caught my stare.

  “I’ve been doing some thinking about what you told me,” I said, wiping away the sauce with the pad of my thumb. “About letting this relationship carry on without worry about what others think?”

  Violet lowered her fork to her plate. That same apprehensive look crossed her face again.

  “Right,” she said. “I have to tell you something first though, Cole, before you continue.” She looked down at her lap nervously. “There’s something that we need to talk about.”

  Those words felt like a punch to my face. Alarm bells started to ring in my head when Violet shifted nervously in her seat next to me. Those words never meant anything good, and I felt defenses soaring up to protect myself from whatever Violet was about to say.

  “What is it?” I asked cautiously. “Is it something bad?”

  Violet shrugged her shoulders. “It depends on how you look at it, I suppose. I’m not looking at it as a bad thing, so hopefully, you won’t look at it as a bad thing.”

  The pit of my stomach twisted into knots. I couldn’t stand that nervous look on Violet’s face. Something was off and had been all weekend. It wasn’t like her to be so nervous around me.

  “What’s going on, Violet?” I asked. “Does it have something to do with your doctor’s appointment this morning?”

  “Yes,” she said, nodding. “It does. I’m, well—” She swallowed thickly, and I could feel my heart beating wildly in my chest. “I’m pregnant, Cole.”

  I reared back in shock. My fork clattered to the plate, spilling sauce on the both of us. I could hear the pounding of my heart as I gazed at Violet in utter surprise. Tears were quickly filling her eyes.

  “What?” I whispered, lifting my arm from her shoulders. “What did you just say?”

  “I said that I’m pregnant, Cole. That’s why I’ve been sick all weekend. I just found out this morning when I went to the doctor to confirm it.”

  Panic surged through me, and I scooted out from the dining nook to pace in front of Violet. “I don’t understand, Violet. You said that you were on the pill. Did you miss a pill and not tell me?”

  “I was never on the pill,” Violet said quietly.

  That softly spoken admission sent me into a rage. I grabbed one of the plates from the table and tossed into the wall with a shout of fury. Violet drew back in her chair with wide eyes as she looked at the shattered pieces of plate on the ground.

  I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t want to believe it. Violet wouldn’t lie like that to me, not so recklessly.

  “I’m sorry, Cole,” she burst out, tears flowing down her cheeks. “I just wanted to be with you so much, and I thought at that time the risk would be worth it. I never thought you expected to carry o
n with me, so I didn’t even think of the pill again.”

  Fury rose through me again. It took all my strength to not pick up another plate from the table. I ran a trembling hand through my hair in aggravation as I stared down at her in disbelief. A baby. We were bringing a baby into this fucked up situation before we could even talk to anyone else about the relationship. Including Violet’s parents.

  “Why did you lie to me?” I asked, a headache beginning to pound in my head. “Damn it, Violet. How could you be so irresponsible about this?”

  “It’s not a bad thing,” Violet said. She started to rise from her chair, but I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to hear about how having a baby, a baby of all things, would be okay.

  “This is a bad thing,” I spat and turned to look away from Violet’s tear-stained face. “You lied to me, Violet. You trapped me into something that no one should be trapped in. Do you understand that?”

  “I wasn’t trying to trap you.”

  “And now you have to explain to your parents that you’re pregnant with my child. How do you think that is going to go down?”

  “Please, Cole. Don’t be like this.”

  I jerked away from her hands when she grabbed the back of my shirt.

  “Get out. Get out before I lose control.”

  “Cole—”

  “I said to get the fuck out of here, you lied to me, trapped me and that is all that I can think of at this time,” I shouted and turned to glare at her. “Get the fuck out, Violet.”

  Violet’s chin quivered before she let out a harsh sob. She pushed past me without sparing another glance or trying to reach out to me. Anger burned through me, but so did panic. A baby. A fucking innocent little baby being born into a messed-up situation.

  All because I wanted to know what Violet tasted like. All because I gave into that temptation without thinking of keeping the both of us safe and protected against this sort of thing. I grabbed hold of a bar stool in front of the breakfast bar.

  “Fuck!” I shouted, tossing it at the wall.

  Wood splintered everywhere. I stared down at the pieces with my chest heaving while I tried to control my emotions. Nothing would fix this now. I was royally fucked, and I had no other choice but to explain it to the people I trusted the most in the world—Alan and Gloria Summers.

  Chapter 20

  Violet

  The tears refused to stop, no matter how hard I told myself to stop crying or to be the bigger woman here. I was twenty-two years old. I was old enough to know when it was time to stop crying, but I couldn’t get over that cold and angry look on Cole’s face. I couldn’t get over that look of sheer desperation and panic, similar to an animal that was trapped in a cage with a pending death.

  That hurt the worst.

  I ignored my mother’s worried phone calls for the next day. I didn’t care if she showed up unannounced at this point. The nausea never stopped, along with the tears. Nor did my fingers as they texted Cole for the hundredth time this afternoon.

  I’m sorry, Cole. This was the last thing that I wanted to deal with too. This baby doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Please get that.

  I was overwhelmed again by a bout of nausea. Throwing my phone down on the couch, I ran into the bathroom to throw up the small breakfast I had managed to keep down for at least an hour. There was no way that I could walk into Crayton, Inc feeling this way, and not drawing any more attention to myself. It was going to be hard enough trying to face Cole after what happened in his penthouse suite.

  I returned to the living room to curl up on the couch to call Cheryl again for the second time.

  “Are you sure that you don’t need someone to take you to the doctor, honey?” Cheryl asked worriedly. “I’m worried about you staying hydrated with all this throwing up you’re telling me about. Are you sure you don’t want me to come by? I am on my way out. It’s honestly not a problem.”

  “I just want to get some sleep,” I said, rubbing my stomach with hot tears pouring down my face. “I’ll be okay. I just wanted to let you know that I’m going to stay home for an extra day. I texted Mr. Crayton, but—”

  “He wasn’t even in the office today,” Cheryl said. “I’m not sure what happened, but he called in to reschedule his meetings for the week. He hasn’t been in the best of moods.”

  My heart clenched. Because of me. I’m having his baby, and he’s freaking the hell out. I bit my lip to keep that from coming out, though. That was the last thing that I needed to come out.

  “Right. Well, I just wanted to let you know that I’m staying in today. I don’t know about tomorrow, either.”

  I didn’t know, period, if I was ever going to be able to go back to Crayton, Inc to face Cole and everyone else. There was no way in hell that I was going to give this baby up or end the pregnancy. I wanted nothing more than Cole’s arms around me right now, telling me that it was going to be okay.

  A baby was the last thing I had expected to happen, but a small part of me had wanted it. I wanted the whole enchilada when it came to Cole—a picture perfect family that loved one another. There was no doubt in my head that Cole loved me, but he was fighting it. He refused to look past the guilt of lying to my parents. He was too concerned about what others would think of him or what the tabloids would say about us.

  I didn’t care about any of that. I was carrying Cole Crayton’s baby, and that was all that mattered to me. Nothing else.

  “I’ll let him know if he comes in tomorrow,” Cheryl said kindly. “Take care of yourself, honey. Get some rest, and if you need anything, don’t hesitate to call me on my cell. I keep it on me at all times.”

  “Thank you, Cheryl. I’ll let you know if I need anything, but I’m sure that I’ll be okay.”

  I left my phone to charge before taking a hot shower, followed by a dreamless nap that stretched well into the evening hours. When I awoke, the evening sunlight was coming through my living room windows, and I had another missed call from my mom. Nothing from Cole.

  Tears filled my eyes again as I sank down on the couch with a watery sigh. Why did things have to be so complicated? I wasn’t a naïve young teenager in a relationship with an older man. I was an adult in a consenting relationship with a man that I loved, but everything now felt forbidden and empty after what Cole said.

  I tried to call Cole’s phone again, but it went straight to voicemail. Again.

  That’s how it was going to be. He didn’t want anything to do with me or the baby anymore. He wanted our relationship to stay casual, commitment free, but I never wanted that. I wanted Cole to myself. Falling in love with another man didn’t even seem remotely possible to me. Not now with Cole’s baby growing in my stomach with each passing day. Everything had changed with that positive pregnancy test.

  And I had no idea what I was going to do if Cole refused to talk to me.

  My phone buzzed again. I glanced down at the caller ID with a grimace when I saw that it was my mother calling. I had to answer it. I had to tell someone what happened, but it wasn’t going to be my mother. It could not be my mother. I had no doubts about her reaction to everything if I told her. ‘We raised you to be smarter, Violet. How could you be so fucking stupid when it came to this sort of thing?’

  Love and lust blinded me. That would be my answer to everything.

  “Hi, Mom,” I said, blankly. “I’m sorry I haven’t picked up your calls.”

  “Or returned them,” Gloria pointed out. “What’s going on with you, baby girl? I can hear that you’ve been crying.”

  I rolled my eyes at the understatement. “I just haven’t felt well. I’ve been sick to my stomach for the past few days, so I’ve been in my apartment sleeping as much as I possibly can.”

  Freaking out, too. I was doing plenty of that while trying to get a hold of Cole in between trips to the bathroom to puke up anything that I consumed.

  “Oh, honey. You should’ve told me you weren’t feeling good. I could’ve come to the city to take you to the docto
r.”

  “I’ll be fine, Mom. I’m going to the doctor in a couple of days if I don’t feel better anyway.”

  “Are you sure?” Gloria asked, concern thick in her voice. “We have a party this weekend. I don’t want you looking like death warmed over in front of everyone.”

  There it was again. My mother was obsessed with reputation and images. If anyone in the Hamptons found out the truth of what was going on between Cole and me, there would be an uproar of scandal and gossip with my mom spearheading all of it. She was not the one to keep secrets.