Admit You Need Me: A Secret Pregnancy Romance (Irresistible Billionaires Book 4)

by Ajme Williams

  I had been ready to be cordial and treat her with restrained consideration during this trip for as much as we had to see each other but now, I was pissed.

  4

  Maggie

  How. Fucking how was this happening?

  I stood there like I had just been cornered by a bear. Honestly, a bear would have been preferable to who had just walked in. He was more imposing than I remembered. He had been in the suit the night that we had gone home together but today, in jeans and a leather jacket, he still cut an impressive figure. In addition to that, it might’ve been the fact that in the few seconds that he had been in the room with me, he had gone from shocked, to mildly apologetic, to now angry.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  My heart was pounding in my chest and I did not want to show him how much he intimidated me. Putting our past aside, I didn’t appreciate the way that he was talking to me, no matter how irate he was. Why was he asking me why I was here anyway? He wasn’t scheduled to be here either.

  “I’m working. Missy asked me to be here early to stage some sets for you guys ahead of time.”

  “She sent you here alone?”

  “No, not originally. Plans changed at the last minute what she had to go to the hospital so I just caught a commercial flight instead of waiting for the rest of them. I got a rental car up here because I was here anyway, why wait to do it later. Weren’t you supposed to arrive tomorrow as well?”

  “Well, Missy’s little doctor’s appointment messed up everybody’s plans then. I was going to fly with Easton but he always wanted to be with Missy so I figured I would come up here and crash for the night.” Could he sound any more bitter? He and Toby were close, Missy told me they were best friends. Why wasn’t he more sympathetic? It wasn’t just a little doctor’s appointment either. What the hell was he going to say if the news came back and it was something serious?

  My mouth fell open and I quickly closed it. That had been my plan as well. Well, truthfully I was looking forward to going straight to the resort but after getting here and finding out that the reported ‘cabin in the woods’ was actually a very clean, cozy, and well-appointed ‘cottage in a forest’, I had thought about sparing myself the drive.

  Toby being here was a pretty strong deterrent though, no matter how nice this place was.

  What were the chances?

  I had fully played out the fantasy of waking up in the morning and standing on the verandah, watching the first snow of the winter come down as I sipped something warm. Toby was about as warm as a blizzard.

  Part of the reason why I agreed to come on this trip was that I was sure there were several options for me to be able to avoid Toby if I needed to. He was the furthest thing from my mind until he showed up.

  I took a second to think it over logically. The place had a number of bedrooms, I had checked. We could easily avoid each other as long as we weren’t using the kitchen or other common areas at the same time and since the cabin had two floors and was spacious, we could probably do it. He would however remain a constant presence that I wouldn’t be able to shake.

  On the other hand, he had shown up and I couldn’t pretend I was the owner of this place for a night anymore but that was okay. All he was doing was robbing me of the night at a cute mountain cabin, and instead forcing me to have a night at a luxury resort. It was literally impossible to lose. He didn’t seem that keen on staying so I’d see what he decided and choose the opposite.

  “Well, don’t let me get in your way.” I didn’t stick around to wait for his answer. I wanted to get away from him but I wasn’t lying when I said I had work to do.

  I still couldn’t believe that he was here. I really hated the way I randomly remembered our night together at the most inopportune moments. Of course, he could never find out about that. How embarrassing. I was thinking about him every other night, meanwhile, he was turning the prettiest women in the city into notches on his bedpost.

  He was a hookup. Some dick for the night because I was desperate. He had no right to matter that much to me. You know what? In the past five or so minutes that I had been thinking about him, I had literally lost five minutes thinking about him. He wasn’t worth it. One night over a month ago and that was that.

  I went back to the living room where I had been working. The cabin was completely furnished and clean when I showed up, but Missy had sent me with some extra accents and props, besides the wardrobe to have available for the shoot tomorrow. I figured they would want indoor and outdoor shots of the guys since the area was so nice, so I had been prepping the living area to look more like a set. When they moved it outside, they would likely use more natural elements.

  I kept working until I couldn’t ignore my hunger anymore. It was well past lunch when I planned to take a break. Toby had thrown me completely off. I went to the kitchen, wondering whether I’d be lucky or whether I would have to make a long drive to find food. I wasn’t thinking about having food on-site when I came up because originally, I had intended to head to the resort after this.

  The cabinets weren’t bare but they weren’t overflowing either. Bread, oatmeal, some milk, cheese, some stuff in cans, bottled water, deli meat, enough to throw together a sandwich at least. The meal wouldn’t be gourmet but it would get the job done. I was looking for a plate when I glanced out the window.

  Snow.

  Wait a minute, it was too early in the year for snow, that was what Missy had told me. I went up to the window to get a better look. Thick, heavy flakes fell from the sky at a shocking velocity. I ran to the front door and let myself out. Snow was blanketing the driveway and front lawn, making piles on both the cars.

  The wind howled loudly, and it looked like it was midnight, even though it was still the afternoon. I went back inside. It was a storm. Nothing in the weather report said anything about this. Winter was coming and snow tended to come earlier this high in the mountains but it was too early for that. I was confused. I had warm enough clothes but it was coming down so hard, this wasn’t normal.

  My phone rang as I stumbled back into the kitchen. I ran to the living room to find it.

  “Missy?”

  “Hi, is everything okay out there? I just heard the news,” she said. Sliding glass doors opened up to the verandah off the living room. I went and stood at the doors peering out at the storm brewing outside.

  “News?” I asked.

  “A storm. Blizzard. We just had our flight rerouted to Denver because it's expected to get really bad. You’re okay at the resort, right?” she asked. I wanted to laugh because I should have been.

  My eyes watched the snow outside. I wasn’t supposed to be here right now. It seemed like the best plan in the beginning, but then Toby showed up, and now this. Everything, even the damn weather was telling me this was a mistake and now there was nothing I could do about it. I walked back into the kitchen.

  “Uhm, how did you know there was a blizzard?” I asked foolishly.

  “It was just supposed to be rain but a storm that was expected further north dipped too low.” Ah, well that made sense. Rain I could have dealt with. Snow was something else.

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Oh? How’s the weather there?” she asked.

  “Oh, you know,” I said.

  “I wasn’t sure whether the resort was in the way of the storm but Vail is supposed to be affected. How bad is it?”

  “It’s bad.”

  Silence.

  “Maggie?”

  “Hm?”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m still at the cabin.”

  “How bad is the snow?”

  “It’s coming down hard, Missy.”

  “Do you think you can leave?” she asked. It might have been a possibility even an hour ago but now I had no idea. I drove a regular sedan up here, it would get eaten up in this storm. The roads were going to be completely obscured and they’d make the trip longer.

  “I don’t know.”

&nbs
p; “If you don’t leave, you could get stuck and it could take days to get to you.” I was so panicked that everything in my body felt still for some reason. I didn’t want to get stuck up here, of course not but the prospect was so bleak, it didn’t even seem like reality. Get stuck trying to get down the mountain or stay here and have to spend days trapped with Toby.

  How were both my options as terrible as each other? Getting stuck in a blizzard and risking hypothermia and death were of course the worse options but I didn’t want to spend any kind of prolonged time with Toby.

  The weather didn’t care though.

  “Got it,” I said, before ending the call. I cast one more look out the window then left the kitchen, sandwich discarded. I had to get out of here. I only had one bag which wouldn’t be hard to handle and I had a car.

  But Toby…

  I had two hundred pounds of one-night stand that might not be so cooperative. Couldn’t I just leave him out here? He didn’t have to come, right? This place had water, food, and electricity. There was a television for fuck’s sake, he would be fine for a few days if he was stuck out here alone. That was what he wanted, right? Solitude? Where was he anyway?

  I didn’t think he had left because I would have heard him. I looked around the cabin, starting on the lower floor, even trying the garage. Why not? I didn’t know what the hell he spent his time doing. There were a lot of rooms on the lower floor but he wasn’t in any of them. Heading upstairs, I checked each of the five bedrooms. He was in the last one, the master, sprawled asleep on the bed.

  He was a lot less intimidating when he was asleep. The thought of just deserting him and trying to get out of here as soon as possible came back but I couldn’t do that. Missy would probably be mad if she found out I had left her fiance’s coworker in a cabin on a mountain during a blizzard. I walked over, then hesitated. How did I do this?

  “Toby?” I said in a whisper-shout. “Toby!”

  Nothing. I walked over and shook him, then did it again harder. Instead of getting up, he grabbed my arm and pulled me in. I squealed, tumbling into the bed as he engulfed me in his arms.

  I didn’t move, partly because I couldn’t but also because I didn’t want to. He smelled faintly of cologne and leather. He was so warm and he felt so good. Like I needed help with my overactive fantasies about him. I wriggled and called his name again, there were more pressing things at the moment than the memories I was trying to repress.

  “Toby!”

  “Hmm,” he grunted. He opened his eyes and looked around. His arms released and he got up, moving me with him.

  “What is it?” he grumbled, rubbing his hands over his eyes.

  “Snow, outside. There’s a blizzard.”

  He scowled. “A what?”

  “Go and see,” I said, motioning to the window. He looked at me and then got up and went to the window.

  “What the fuck.”

  “It was just meant to be rain but it turned into a blizzard. Missy said their flight had to be rerouted and everything. If we don’t leave, we’re stuck.” His jaw worked as he thought.

  “You drove here, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Your sedan won’t make it in this storm but the car I drove might. We have to leave, now.”

  I nodded and got up. This was not the start of my first luxury vacation that I envisioned. Far from it.

  5

  Toby

  I go to sleep for a couple of hours and what happens? The goddamn apocalypse. I looked out the window at the damage. The trees were already covered in snow and looking down at the ground, it looked like the kind of cover you got in an entire night, not just a couple hours.

  My stuff was downstairs so I hurried down, getting my shoes on. Maggie followed, coming down the stairs behind me. What had she done since I went upstairs? Why the hell did I go upstairs? Why didn’t I get here, see that she was here, and immediately leave? If I had, we wouldn’t be in this situation. I hadn’t heard anything about bad weather on the way here. Depending on how long it had been snowing and the severity, I could probably make it down the mountain.

  Downstairs, I flung the front door open but stopped in my tracks. It was practically white-out outside. The wind was howling, and the snow was coming down like rocks from the sky. How long had I been asleep? It couldn’t have been more than two or three hours, and had the weather conditions change this much?

  I ran down the porch stairs to the car. There was a thick sheet of snow over it. I raked it off the windshield with my arms. I tried to do some calculations in my head. Vail was about forty-five minutes away. Forty-five minutes in this kind of weather, trying to navigate windy, narrow mountain roads. That was just a long and painful way to die in the worst-case scenario and this weather wasn’t going to give us any better most likely. I wanted to at least try. What was the alternative though? Getting stuck up here indefinitely with Maggie.

  It was like trying to figure out what I would rather do more, die here from a lack of supplies, or die trying to get down the mountain. Besides, it wasn't just me up here. The only thing that was worse than failing was not trying at all.

  I got the car open and tried to motion to Maggie to come up, but she couldn't see me from the porch, just a few yards away, the snowfall was that thick. I ran back up to the porch and we came back to the SUV together.

  She got in, wrestling our bags into the back seat. I started the engine. I had dealt with bad snowfall before, but never anything like this. I didn't tend to be nervous behind the wheel, even though I didn't drive that much being in New York. These were extraordinary circumstances and had nothing to do with how well I could drive. I could barely even see the end of the driveway that would lead us out onto the road.

  The windshield wipers squeaked back and forth loudly. Snow crunched under the wheels of the SUV.

  “Are you sure you can do it?”

  “Maggie, no offense but I don't need commentary right now,” I snapped. I’d apologize later for being so short with her. It just wasn’t the time. I wasn’t sure the car or I could make it down off the mountain. The snow falling on the windshield might as well have been hitting me in the face.

  It was freezing but I could feel sweat pouring down my neck and my back. I got the car to the end of the driveway and turned onto the road. Right then, the wheels hit some wet snow and the car ricocheted one hundred and eighty degrees. Maggie squealed, gripping the handle on the door.

  Nope, that was it. We were done. I started the engine up again and began crawling back up the driveway towards the cabin.

  “Wait, what are you doing?” Maggie asked.

  “Did you see the road coming up here on your drive? It’s hard enough to navigate under normal circumstances. I'm not going to try and do it blind. The snowfall is too heavy and it's coming down too hard. It's dangerous. I can barely see the road and the snow is only getting higher.”

  “If we wait, the way things are going it's probably only going to get worse.”

  That might have been true, but we weren't talking about navigating our way down the mountain successfully anymore, we were talking about general survival. Were we more likely to survive a night or two up here or were we more likely to survive trying to get down that road under these conditions? As if that wasn’t enough, my brand new challenge was convincing Maggie.

  “Look, we have a better chance of getting down in one piece if we wait for the worst of it to be over. A lot of it will probably melt off tomorrow and visibility will be a hundred times better.”

  “If you don't want to drive, just say it, I'll do it.” Jesus Christ, why was she turning this into an argument? Did she think I wanted to be up here? Initially, sure, before there was a fucking blizzard that meant we were going to be stuck. She was acting like this was my fault. No offense but she was dead last on the list of people I wanted to spend any amount of time with, especially out here with no escape.

  “Look, at this point, it wouldn't matter who is driving, me or you. We’d h
ave to move so slow that we would probably run out of gas before we got to where we needed to be. Would you rather be stuck somewhere out on that road, or here where we at least have food and heat?”

  She turned away from me and sighed.

  Damn, was that how it was? I didn’t want to be up here with her either, so I felt like a hypocrite seeing her reaction. I knew she didn’t like me but one night, at the most two nights, stuck up here with me and that was her reaction?

  Now, I knew we weren't friends, we were far from friends, but I didn't think she hated me. I didn’t hate her, I just hated the way she made me feel. I hated that it didn’t matter what I wanted to do with her since she only offered me one night. I hated that that was all I was getting of her while I had to watch her from a distance that I could so easily close.

  She sure hadn’t hated me that night. In the few hours that we had been here together, I had managed not to think too much about our night together. All this time that had passed between us since that night and I didn't know how she felt about it.

  I had an idea now at least. She would have rather died trying to get off this mountain than spend a couple of days in a fully furnished and comfortable cabin with me that was big enough for us to avoid each other anyway. I didn't know what was wrong with me.

  It shouldn’t have been a shock. She had told me that night that what we were doing was a one-night-only type of deal. She didn't want anything else from me, not another night, not a real date where I took her out to dinner, not even my phone number so we could stay in touch.

  I wasn't even sure that she knew what my last name was and it was strange that it made me feel so bad. It was all supposed to end that night but here we were. I felt kind of dumb. I had been completely hung up over her for days, weeks and she couldn’t have cared less. Seeing her again and being able to spend this time with her should have been something that I looked forward to, but she preferred hypothermia to a couple of nights in the same cabin as me.