My Surprise Secret Baby (Romance Box Set)

by Lexi Wilson

  I wanted to laugh, but I didn’t know how Quinn would take it. So instead, I answered, “You bet. No problems; we’ve always gotten along.” Silently I added, You’ve got no idea how the two of us got along a couple of months ago.

  “Good, then,” said Quinn. “So, the day you go on your first trip for the campaign, Bama will meet you at the airport and you’ll go together. You can relax on the plane, and you’ll be good to go when you arrive.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Good to go.” My stomach felt like an elevator car with the cables suddenly cut, falling down the shaft.

  “Great,” Quinn went on. “So when it’s all set up, we’ll get you all the info you’ll need for the trip, and you’ll be ready.”

  “You bet,” I agreed. Finishing the call, I put my phone back on my night table and fell back onto the bed.

  Groaning, and not in a good way, I rubbed my eyes and finally ended up lying there, flattened out. Doing photo shoots and public appearances with Bama, I thought. Having to look like we’re having a good time together when we’re both remembering the ‘good time’ we had before. And being a woman, she won’t want to go on like it didn’t happen. She’ll remind me of it. This will become a thing. I don’t want it to be a thing. But, it will be because that’s how women are, damn it.

  I sighed. If I didn’t love pussy so much, my life would be so much simpler.

  Not worth living, but simpler.

  _______________

  A week after signing the contract, it was time to get the show on the road, so to speak. Except for the publicity and how well it would pay, I hadn’t been looking forward to this when Quinn first brought it up to me. Now, I was looking forward to it even less. But this was the day and here it was.

  I got my car into the space at the airport parking lot that I’d reserved for the duration of the trip. I got myself to the gate and onto the plane – First Class, of course.

  Once I got on board, it occurred to me that Bama and I would probably be booked in seats next to each other. Great, I’ll have to be sitting next to her for the whole flight, and she’ll probably want to bring it up before we even get where we’re going, I realized.

  But then...maybe not. She might bring it up, or refer to it somehow, but she might not want to talk about it on board a plane full of people. I didn’t know if that was better or worse. Because if she wanted to wait until we got where we were going to make it a thing, that would mean it would be hanging over us, unspoken, for the whole flight. Waiting to bring it up could actually be more painful than having it out, right up front. Either way, I could be looking at one hell of an uncomfortable trip.

  Shutting my eyes, I tried to relax as much as I could before Bama showed up, since relaxing once we got in the air might not happen. I stayed sitting there with my eyes shut, until I heard a voice I knew.

  “Barrett?”

  I opened my eyes again and there she was, not sitting down, but standing in the aisle. I tried to sound more casual than I felt. “Hey, Bama,” I said. “You sitting here?”

  She gestured forward and said, “No, I’m a few rows up. I just thought I’d come by and say hi... You know, since we’re going to be working together and all.”

  “Oh,” I said. This was unexpected. “They didn’t book us sitting together?”

  “Well, actually, they did,” she said. “But, I had it changed.”

  That was unexpected, too. “You did?”

  “I did,” she said. “I thought if we sat together, we’d get to talking the whole flight, and maybe we could both do with a little alone time while we’re in the air, you know, to get ready, psych ourselves up...like how you psych up before a game.”

  “Uh...right,” I reacted. “Psych up. That’s...um...not a bad idea. I’m glad you thought of it.” But in the back of my mind, I knew – and I knew that she knew – that the “thing” was there. It would be hovering over us for the whole flight, whether we sat together or not. Had she thought of the same thing that I had, not wanting to get into it during the trip, but saving it for later?

  Bama didn’t give me time to wonder about it. She gave me a little wave and said, “Well, have a good flight. I’ll talk to you when we get there.”

  “Right,” I said, searching her eyes for any sign of the subject that was on my mind, which I knew just had to be on hers. There was no way she wasn’t thinking about it.

  As she went to the seat that she’d had herself switched to, I knew the change of flight arrangements was just putting off the inevitable. There was a talk that had to happen sometime during this trip, that was going to happen. No way could we avoid it. Trying to steer clear of it would be like the Titanic trying to steer clear of the iceberg.

  And wasn’t that just the most cheerful thing to be thinking with the plane getting ready to take off?

  _______________

  Not seeing Bama or talking to her after we got in the air was a relief. What I wanted most once we landed was to go on not seeing her or talking to her until we were shooting something or making an appearance. If we were in public, I was sure whatever was said between us would be said with less drama. I’d had my fill lately of drama with women that I’d screwed. Enough was enough.

  That was the first thing on my mind when I hustled myself off the plane in Denver, Colorado and out to the gate where Vera, Quinn’s assistant whom he’d sent ahead of us, would be waiting. Sure enough, in the waiting area at the gate, there she was, with her dark hair and her big smile. Vera waved me over to her.

  “Good flight?”

  “Pretty good,” I replied, trying to look casual while looking around and behind me for You Know Who.

  “Good,” said Vera. “Everything’s set up for the public appearance you and Bama are scheduled to make tomorrow evening. Bama says she’s very excited. I hope you are, too.”

  “Yeah,” I said, rubbing at my neck. “Excited.”

  “This is her first time doing one of these,” Vera reminded me, “so you’ll have to help her remember to smile and look good for the camera.”

  “Right,” I said. “She’ll be okay. She’s used to cameras.” Then, with a quick change of the subject, “Can I just get my bags and get to my hotel now?”

  “We’ve got a driver getting your bags, and Bama’s.” Vera glanced off in one direction and pointed. “Oh, look. There they are.” She waved where she was pointing, and I looked in that direction – and son of a gun, there they were, all right: a driver who’d been authorized to get my bags and get them to the car and, waving back, Bama, walking right beside him.

  Oh, great, I thought, putting a smile on my face before my expression had a chance to show what I was thinking. Politely, I waved to Bama as she and the driver came closer.

  “All bags accounted for?” Vera asked the driver.

  “Hers and his,” the driver answered.

  “Good,” she said. “Next stop, the hotel.”

  A shock went through me. Vera, Bama, and the driver started walking, until I put my hand on Vera’s shoulder and she looked at me.

  I asked, “The hotel? The same hotel?”

  Curious, having no way of knowing why I was asking, Vera replied, “Sure, the same hotel. Why would Quinn put you in different hotels? Since you’re going to the same places, you’ll be staying at the same place.”

  Bama didn’t say anything to me along the way to the car but, “Nice flight?”

  “Yeah, nice flight,” I answered. “You?”

  “Mm-hmm,” said Bama, and nothing else.

  Naturally she wouldn’t bring up anything about that within earshot of Vera, who was sure to take it right back to Quinn. But, I knew the countdown was on. The fuse was lit. Maybe not now, but the bomb was going off...sometime.

  Chapter 9

  Bama

  Sometimes all the pampering in the world will not take a girl’s mind off her troubles.

  I was in the hotel spa, wrapped up in the most deliciously soft robe I’d ever worn, my freshly-washed hair in a towe
l. I was sitting up with my feet soaking for a pedicure while the manicure/pedicure technician worked on the nails of my left hand. Being the commercial spokeswoman for PowerShot meant not only good money, but access to good amenities in the places I was being put up. My cares at this moment should have been somewhere up in the clouds I’d flown through to get here.

  But instead, my head was filled with the fact that it wasn’t just me staying here. My bags were upstairs in a beautiful hotel room, but I was still carrying one other piece of luggage with me. And, that little carry on wasn’t mine alone. What I hadn’t checked on and off when I boarded the plane belonged partly to the guy in another room on the same floor as mine.

  I’d never had a night to compare with last night. The room was gorgeous, but I was only half enjoying it. So many times, I’d thought to call Barrett, or go to his room, and tell him the news. I’d told myself it would be the best thing to tell him now before our public appearances and whatever photo shoots we had to do got started.

  But, I chickened out because I was afraid that if I got it out in the open with him now, it would affect our performance. No matter how natural and upbeat we tried to seem for the cameras, I was afraid that some tension or some emotional vibes between us would get through and the cameras would catch it. Then what would happen?

  I kept going over it while relaxing on the super-comfortable king-size bed in my room, and watching the TV and picking at the dinner that I had room service bring up.

  At the same time, I kept looking at the door to my room with a start, whenever some noise on the TV or out in the hall made me think there was a knock. I kept expecting Barrett to come knocking, that I’d go to the door and fling it open and he’d be there. But then, why would he do that, I wondered?

  Well, since he didn’t know anything about the baby, he’d do it just to be friendly, just to say hi and chat for a bit, see if I was nervous about the appearance we were making tomorrow. After all, Barrett was more accustomed to being in the public spotlight than I was. The only time the public ever saw me, mostly was at halftime during games, and I never really got a close up, even though I was the one leading the other girls. I thought at least he might come over to my room to see how I was doing, maybe offer a little bit of encouragement.

  But, not Barrett. Not the whole night. I understood why. He was being consistent, after all. I knew how he was. After he did it to a woman, Barrett always made it a clear break with her. No looking back, no regrets. He’d wanted it to be that way with Glenda, though she’d tried to have it otherwise. Why would he want it to be any different with me?

  It occurred to me that this must be really awkward for him – the two of us having to work together in close quarters after we were at even closer quarters the night before the Super Bowl. Barrett must have wished this campaign had paired him up with any other pretty woman in the world but me.

  Well, that was just too bad, wasn’t it? I thought. Both our names were on the contract. We were both going through with it. Barrett and I would just simply have to act like grown-ups and deal with each other.

  And at some point, we’d both have to deal with what was growing inside me, which we’d made together with our spontaneous, careless hook-up. If we didn’t talk about it during this trip, we’d have to talk about it soon.

  During the whole week leading up to the trip, I’d been mentally preparing myself to tell him. I’d been trying to find the words for it, and nothing I came up with seemed right. How do you tell the hottest quarterback in the NFL who’s fertilized half of Texas that of all the women for his seed to take root in, it had to be you?

  That led me to the awful question of how he would react. To be sure, a guy like Barrett, whose two careers were pro football and fucking around, would not take the news well. What if he denied that it was his? I asked myself. Guys like him were known to do that. What if he accused me of getting pregnant with some other guy and trying to pass it off as his because he was so rich? Would I end up having to take a paternity test--or even having to demand one?

  A Maury Povich-like scenario started to play in my head, but I knew that Barrett’s lawyers and the owners of the team would do everything to keep it out of the press. In fact, his lawyers and the team owners themselves might accuse me of trying to pass off the baby as Barrett’s.

  All these possibilities kept swirling around in my head along with everything else. And with every passing moment, I was actually glad that my phone and my door stayed quiet – at least for the night.

  Our mutual no-show had continued through this morning. As of when I checked myself into the hotel spa for some pampering, Barrett and I still hadn’t seen each other. And afterwards, when I ate lunch and then proceeded to the hotel boutique to pick out some new dresses and shoes, and charge them to the PowerShot campaign account, there was still no sign of him.

  Leaving the boutique with my new outfits all boxed and bagged, I made for the elevators to press for the floor where my room was. I was getting to be of a mind just to go to his room and knock on his door as he hadn’t done mine. As much as I’d been dreading playing this scene with Barrett, waiting to drop the shoe was getting to be unbearable. I didn’t know how long I could go on this way.

  All right, I decided. I wouldn’t go to Barrett’s room with my arms all laden with boxes and bags. That would just be ridiculous. Instead, I would go to my room first and empty my arms, maybe get the dresses and shoes into the closet. Then, perhaps, I would screw up my courage and go looking for Barrett.

  I had just set my boxes down on the bed when a knock on my door made me jump and gasp. Trying to calm myself with a hand to my flip-flopping heart, I spun around and faced the door as if I were a stalked woman in one of those silly Movies of the Week where the lead is being pursued by some kind of psycho.

  My hands reflexively knotted into fists. Well, here comes a moment of truth if there ever was one…

  There was another knock at the door, sounding very insistent. I expected there were going to be a lot of things insisted in the next few minutes. But, the next thing I heard pulled the reins on my nerves and told my galloping heart.

  “Bama? Are you there?” called Vera’s voice.With a huge exhale, I went and opened the door.

  Vera, wearing a smile as usual – I think Quinn hired her for her smile – said, “Hey, have you been shopping? Did you pick out your items like we talked about?”

  “I did,” I said, stepping aside to let her in and then shutting the door. “They’re over there on the bed.”

  Vera stood by while I opened my boxes, and she took the boxes away as I spread out the three dresses across the bed and set the shoes pair by pair beside the bed. I must have been unconsciously thinking about the flag of Texas, our great Lone Star State, while I was shopping because the three gowns and matching shoes that I’d chosen were of a subtle red leaning towards a burgundy color, a tasteful-looking off-white, and a vibrant but not gaudy blue.

  Vera was smiling and nodding, very approvingly. “Nice. Good picks. You have a good color sense. Somebody else would have gone for the same colors, but really blazing. These are eye-catching, but not in your face. I like that. Unlike some cheerleaders, you know what subtle is.”

  “Oh, good,” I said, feeling relieved that I’d done something right. I didn’t really know how to shop except for my own taste. Vera had told me to go for items that I thought would look good on me, but even so, I wasn’t sure which way to go. I’d never dressed myself for the public or for the camera before; the Dallas Rangers Cheerleader uniform was not my design.

  Frankly, I was surprised this had been all left up to me and they hadn’t attached some professional fashion coordinator, or Vera herself, to pick out exactly the right things. Did the PowerShot people really think that much of me? Or had Quinn told them I could be trusted with this? I wondered. Either way, I was grateful to know I’d done a good job without any coaching or guidance.

  When Vera asked me which dress I was planning to wear for my first p
ublic event with Barrett, I picked the red one, and she approved again. I’m not sure why I chose that one exactly, except that on some level I thought it was the most attention-getting of the three gowns, and I knew that at some point I was going to need to get Barrett’s attention. All these things on some level were intertwined.

  “Now that’s settled,” said Vera, “I’ll just leave you to change for tonight.”

  “Okay,” I said, and saw Vera to the door. Part of the event where all eyes would be on Barrett and me tonight was a dinner. I decided no matter how good the meal was, I’d better eat lightly. I couldn’t eat too much when I was as keyed up as this. Even though I was now “eating for two,” as they say, I knew myself and still thought I ought to be careful.

  Unlike most pregnant women, I hadn’t been troubled with much nausea or morning sickness – which I knew from reading up about it online was not confined to the morning and could strike at any time of day. But even so, I thought the best thing would be to err on the side of caution.

  Vera left me to prepare and told me not to be nervous; she knew I’d be great. There was something more than two hours in which I had to change and be ready to go. That didn’t really leave a lot of time. But, the other thing on my mind was whether there would be enough time to see Barrett before we were “on.” I kept coming back to the fact that if I told him now and faced his reaction, whatever it might be, it might throw us both off during the evening. If people around us sensed something was wrong, it could start the whole PowerShot campaign on the wrong note.

  Look at you, I thought. You’re pregnant. You’re facing oncoming single motherhood, and you’re worried about advertising and publicity?

  I knew I was right about the order of my priorities just now, but the fact was also that this campaign and what I would earn from it would be critical to providing for my child at the beginning of its life.

  The pronoun “it” reminded me that I didn’t even know yet who this was inside me: Barrett’s son or Barrett’s daughter.