“You could have had an abortion without saying a word. Why didn’t you?”
“That wouldn’t have been fair to you. You and I made a child together, and my belief is that you should be involved in the decision making process. There wasn’t any reason for me to keep you out.”
“Okay.” He studied her, and all Melody could do was hope he didn’t hate her for the choices she’d made. Leo had probably had to deal with other people coming to him with a child they said was his. It seemed likely he didn’t believe her. “You weren’t using contraception?”
“I’ve been on the pill since I was fourteen. This is the first time it’s decided not to work, and I am sorry you’re the person involved. I’d always hoped I’d have a child with someone I loved. However this has happened, so we need to decide what the next step is going to be, especially as I would want you to be involved with the child if we did choose to keep it.”
“How do I know it’s mine?”
“I’m willing to do a paternity test as soon as we can.” Melody bit her lip. “I know why you would want to, and it’s something I don’t have a problem with. I can tell you you’re the first person I’ve had sex with since I broke up with my ex three years ago.”
“That’s a long time to go without sex.”
“Without good sex, yes, but I was fed up of ending up with people who only cared about their own pleasure. Sex is terrible when all they want to do is cum.” Melody shrugged. “In the end I decided I was far happier single and taking care of my own needs. If I happen to get lucky enough to find someone who does give as well as take then I might choose to change things.” She kept her eyes on her hot chocolate, because she didn’t want to look at him. Leo was the first person who’d cared about her enjoyment and there was no chance of that ever happening. “For now what we need to focus on is the possible child in this. I can still have an abortion. I don’t have anything against it, so if you feel that would be the better option then I don’t mind.”
“Do you have any idea what you want to do?”
Melody shook her head. “I haven’t let myself think about it too much. A baby right now isn’t exactly what I wanted, but…” She sighed. “I don’t know what I want right now, Leo.”
***
Give it time. Melody stared at herself in the mirror as she replayed the words Leo had said to her over and over again. He wanted her to give it time. He wanted them to go on a proper date, get to know each other, and then make a decision as to what they wanted to do about the baby. Yet, when she’d finally looked at him, she was almost certain she could tell exactly what he wanted from the look in his eyes, and she really wasn’t certain that was what she wanted. Sighing, she pulled a brush through her hair. He wanted to keep the baby. He didn’t even seem to care all that much about the paternity test. For some reason he was willing to believe what she’d told him without knowing her. Why would he be that stupid?
She nibbled her bottom lip. Working out what her next step was going to be wasn’t exactly easy. Leo Cipriani, of all people, wanted to take her out on a date, and he hadn’t been willing to take no for an answer. It didn’t make sense. Why would he be so interested in her? There was nothing special about her. She was just another paralegal, working for a law firm, with no interest in becoming a lawyer. From what she saw they didn’t do anything all that interesting. She was far more fascinated by case history and she was happy to spend her time focusing on that rather than anything else. It did mean she was financially independent. Living with housemates to bring down the price of the place they lived didn’t change that. At the same time she thought it was likely she was going to have to find somewhere else to live if she did choose to keep the baby and she didn’t know for certain she could afford that alone.
Leo had said, if she choose to keep the baby, she wasn’t going to be alone, but she wasn’t willing to accept his words at face value. What she needed to do was look into her options and find out if it was possible for her to live alone, especially as her salary would decrease if she couldn’t work as much as she had done before. Melody shook her head. Her decision, had she been alone, would have been to have an abortion. With Leo involved everything was different. Maybe she shouldn’t have told him. Maybe things would have been much easier if she’d simply kept the pregnancy hidden from him and made her own choice. She glanced down at her still flat stomach. Soon enough it would be a bump and at that point her life would change. She had to be ready for that, if she was right about Leo, but it wasn’t going to be simple. Nothing was going to be simple. Sighing, she looked over at her pills, mentally berating them for failing her right when she needed them to work.
***
“At least he seems willing to accept he was a part of this.” Elizabeth shrugged. “That’s more than a lot of men do.”
“True.” Melody sighed. “I just… if I hadn’t told him I could have had an abortion. Now, with the way he looked at me, I’m not certain that’s an option any more. I think he wants this baby.” She shook her head. “I don’t know if keeping it is the right choice for me.”
“If he’s willing to be involved he has to pay child support.”
“Yeah, he does, but that doesn’t mean he definitely will. I want to believe he will. I don’t know him, though, and not knowing him… I can’t trust him to keep his word. He can say whatever he wants. Those words need to become actions and if they don’t then I’m going to find myself in a very difficult position.”
“Right now you don’t know for sure what is going to happen. Yes, he did seem to want the baby when you talked, but he’ll have time to talk to friends and family in the next few days, so there is a chance he might have his mind changed. If that happens you won’t need to be worrying about anything. He’ll come to you and ask for an abortion.”
“Maybe. I almost hope that is what happens next, but I have a feeling it won’t. Leo… he asked me out on a date, Beth. He wants the two of us to get to know each other. When he said that… I don’t know. I could be reading too much into things. It’s entirely possible I am. At the same time the happiness in his eyes was unexpected. I think he wants to try to be a family.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“When I don’t know him it could be. I spent hours reading about his exploits and don’t know if that’s the sort of person I want to spend the rest of my life with.”
“Reading about him doesn’t mean you know him. Considering how he’s reacted to the news of you having an unexpected baby it’s entirely possible those reports were wrong. What you need to do is try to see past what you read to the man he really is, because you have a chance to do that.”
“How easy will it be, though?”
“That’s the difficult question.” Elizabeth took Melody’s hand. “All you can do is wait and see what happens on this date. If things work out you might have a chance of spending the rest of your life with him, which isn’t going to be a bad thing.”
“I hope he knows he won’t be able to stop me from working.”
“You can explain that to him.”
“Will he listen? Will he expect me to become someone I’m not?” Melody studied Elizabeth. “I’d like things to work out, but at the same time I can’t help thinking it’s all going to go very wrong.”
***
The number wasn’t one she knew, but Melody answered the phone anyway. “Hello?”
“Stay away from Leo.”
“Who are you?”
“Someone who knows what a gold digging slut you are.” The voice belonged to a woman. Mentally Melody went through all the reports she’d read in the hope she could work out who it was. “The best thing you can do for him is abort the baby you’re trying to pretend is his and move far away. I don’t know why, exactly, but he’s obsessed with you. I’m guessing you must be good in bed.”
“I’m sure you care a lot about Leo, and that’s why you called, but this really isn’t the way to go about getting me out of his life. The baby is his and I’m w
illing to have a paternity test to prove it. I work, and I don’t plan on quitting for any reason, especially not Leo. I don’t know why he’s obsessed either, although I have to admit it’s worrying, and I need to ask you if you think he might do something silly if I were to tell him I wasn’t interested in having a relationship with him.”
“Now that’s…” The woman laughed. “I don’t know how anyone could be so calm in this sort of situation.”
“I’m a paralegal. I deal with annoyed people all the time. Being calm is one of the reasons I’m so good at my job.” Melody brushed a hand through her hair. A sister, maybe, or an ex, although she couldn’t understand why an ex would know about her pregnancy. It could, of course, be a good female friend. That was always possible. “Maybe the two of us could meet up and have a conversation face to face.”
“No. What I want is for you to walk away, Melody, because that’s what you should have done already. Why would you believe Leo? You think he wants to be the father of your baby? You think he’s thought about having a child with someone like you?”
“Please tell me you aren’t discriminating against me due to my race.” Someone knocked on the door, and she went to answer it, only to find Leo on the doorstep. Melody knew she must have made a face at him. “I think it’s up to Leo to make his own decisions.”
He shook his head, and gestured for Melody to give him the phone. When she did he laughed. “Ebony, I told you this had nothing to do with you, and I really wish you hadn’t been stupid enough to ring the mother of my child in order to try to convince her to have an abortion. Due to the choices you’ve made there’s no reason for me to keep supporting you. After this month I won’t be paying the rent on your salon any longer, and, before you blame Melody, this has nothing to do with her. It has everything to do with you and your terrible decisions. Had you not done this our financial relationship wouldn’t have changed.”
***
“I’m sorry about my sister.”
“You have nothing to apologise for.” Melody looked at Leo. “Did you know she was going to ring me?”
He shook his head. “If I had done I would’ve stopped her. The last thing I wanted was for someone else to get in the middle of the relationship we’re building, but Ebony, for some reason, has got it into her head that you’re trying to screw me out of money by pretending to be pregnant.” He sighed. “Unfortunately she can be a little racist, and she believes it’s far more likely for someone coloured to do something like that. When I told her about you that was the first thing she thought of. She was worried about losing the money I put into her salon, so she made some really bad decisions. I told her if she did do something stupid I wouldn’t have an issue with cutting her off. It’s not as though she shouldn’t be at the point where she’s making enough to be able to cover what I paid for.”
“She’s going to be angry with me.”
“No matter what she says or does I promise I will do everything I can to protect you. This is, at least partly, my fault.”
“Yeah, it is.” Melody found herself smiling. “It’s partly my fault too.”
Leo took Melody’s hand. “I know what you think about me, and I’m certain my sister’s actions haven’t done anything to make things better for me, but I do want the two of us to see where things might be able to go. I want to be a father to the child, if you do decide to keep it.”
“Be honest with me. Do you want me to keep the baby?”
For a long time Leo was silent. It wasn’t a surprise, because he couldn’t have been expecting the question, and Melody did her best to be patient. After what felt like hours he nodded. “Yeah, I do. I know we haven’t spent any time together since you told me you were pregnant, but this is what I want, and you… unlike some of the women I’ve spent time with I know you aren’t after me for my money. You didn’t know who I was.”
Melody shrugged. “I’ve never paid much attention to ‘celebrities’. You wouldn’t have been on my radar.”
“What was?”
“Work, mostly.” She glanced down at her stomach. “I’m going to keep working, but I don’t know how that’s going to fit around having a baby, so I’m going to have to talk to my boss.” Leo opened his mouth. “I hope you’re not planning on saying what I think you are. There is no chance of me leaving my work. You could have all the money in the world and I’d still keep working because it’s something I enjoy doing. I’m not going to give up because of a baby, that we might not even be having.”
***
Finding the right words wasn’t easy. Melody sat opposite her boss, knowing she hadn’t been there anywhere near long enough to ask for favours, but she didn’t have any other option. “I wanted to talk to you about what’s been happening in my personal life, because it’s going to affect my professional life.”
“You’re pregnant.” He smiled at her. “We all know it, but we were waiting for your announcement.”
“That doesn’t bother you?”
“Of course not. I know you, Melody, and I have no reason to think you’re going to walk about because of a baby. You enjoy your work too much. That’s why I hired you in the first place. I take it you want to find a way to stay at work while you have your child.”
Nodding, Melody tried not to make it obvious how relieved she was. “At the moment I don’t know for certain I’m going to keep the child. The father is…” She sighed. “We didn’t know each other well before I got pregnant, so we’re working out if we are going to be able to co-parent, and if we can’t then I think it’s far more likely I will bring an end to the pregnancy.”
“All you need to do is let me know when you make the decision. It will be easy enough to switch you to part time after you’ve had your maternity leave.” Their eyes met. “While you’re pregnant I want you to tell me if you’re having any problems. The last thing I want is for you to feel uncomfortable, because I know pregnancy isn’t simple. My wife… she ended up being on bed rest for far longer than we expected when she was pregnant and it was horrible for both of us. She was furious at being stuck in bed, because all she wanted was to work. Being stuck in bed was something she hated.”
“I hope that doesn’t happen to me.”
“If it does I’m sure we can work out some way of keeping you involved. I’m going to start looking into teleworking, to give you a bit more freedom. There are other young women here I think would appreciate knowing that don’t need to worry about their jobs if they were to get pregnant. I want to be the best boss I can be when it comes to this sort of thing.”
Smiling, Melody stood. “You already are. When I walked in here the last thing I thought was that you’d understand what it was like for me to be pregnant, but you do.” Their eyes met. “If I’d gone in to tell my last boss the same thing I wouldn’t have kept my job. He would have found a way to get rid of me, the way he did with other pregnant women.” She nibbled her lip. “I did think he might have fired me originally because I was female and this was what he was worried about. I just didn’t think it was worth it to fight him. I’d rather be somewhere I’m wanted.”
***
Hands pushed Melody down the stairs. She tumbled down them, doing her best to protect her stomach, but it was far more difficult than she expected it to be. It wasn’t as though she’d ever fallen down stairs before. When she reached the bottom her entire body felt brushed. The person who pushed her seemed to run past her, and then she was surrounded by people. One was calling 911. Slowly, carefully, she rolled onto her back, wanting to tell whoever it was it wasn’t necessary for them to call an ambulance. As she did she realised she was in far more pain that she’d assumed. Biting hard on her lip, because she knew it would be a mistake to stop them, she didn’t say anything. Her baby was the reason she needed to go to hospital. She needed to find out if they’d survived the tumble. Maybe it was more likely they would as she was only a couple of months into her pregnancy.
“How are you doing?”
“I’m okay, mostly.
” Melody managed to smile at the woman. “I do hurt.”
“After going down all those stairs I’m not surprised. Is there anything we should tell the paramedics.”
“I’m pregnant.”
“I’ll make sure they know.” The woman glanced down at Melody’s legs. “I don’t think there’s too much of a problem right now, but I’m guessing they’ll keep you in overnight to make sure you aren’t going to miscarry.”
“Who was it?”
“Someone I never thought would do something like that - Ebony Cipriani. I’ve known her ever since she opened her salon and she’s always seemed like such a lovely girl.”
Melody sighed. “I guess that makes sense.” She moved her legs a little, in an attempt to make herself more comfortable, but it didn’t work too well. “The father is Leo Cipriani and Ebony seems to think I’m nothing more than a gold digger.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “I’m not. I didn’t even know who Leo was.”
“Do you want me to call him, to let him know what happened?”
“No, don’t. I don’t want him to know Ebony would be willing to do something like this. It’s his sister.”
“He’s going to find out eventually. Ebony was seen. She is going to be questioned by the police. It’s obvious to me what she was trying to do, so it will be obvious to them too. Wouldn’t it be better for him to hear what happened from you?”
A tear trickled down her cheek. “I guess.” She shook her head. “This isn’t what I wanted.”
“Of course it wasn’t. I believe you when you say you didn’t know who he was. There’s no reason for you to lie to me.”
“Ebony called me a gold digger. She thought I was lying about it being Leo’s baby, so I could get money from him, but I don’t want his money. I didn’t even think he had any money when I first met him. He was just a good looking man and I made a mistake by falling into bed with him.”
The Alpha Billionaire's Unexpected Baby: A Billionaire BWWM Pregnancy Romance Page 103
