by Eve Black
Shrugging, she opened her eyes and noticed the taxi was pulling up to the office building. She sighed, paid the driver, and got out. Straightening her shoulders, she marched back to work, doing her best to forget about David and the way he’d turned her inside out.
Chapter 9
After a night spent fucking his own hand while imagining Diana Bluth’s mouth around his cock, David attended his first meeting of the day. Outside his office window, the sun shone bright, the promise of wet heat making heat waves on the roofs of neighboring buildings.
“Attended Rutgers but dropped out her sophomore year. Was on track to earn her bachelor’s in business administration. She lives at home with her mother, Elizabeth Bluth, a retired school teacher who still works as a teacher’s aide, and her younger sister, Deirdre, who is attending Rutgers, is in her third year, and is working toward her degree in finance.”
David listened to his director of R&D recite the information he’d had him gather on Diana Bluth. Alexei Darastraza, a big Russian brute, was a brilliant tech-path, a man who could speak to computers and get them to do whatever he wanted. He was also David’s most trusted partner in the Brexcel Corp empire. When he’d asked Alexei to do some digging into Diana, David knew he wouldn’t ask questions about her. Yet.
“She’s been working for Ayers for three years, and has earned three pay raises in that time. There is no indication of relationships, and her social media is Spartan at best.”
Alexei continued with his report as David rubbed a finger along the rim of his tumbler, the amber liquid inside catching the light from the floor-to-ceiling windows as they cast their sunshine along the wall and over the plush leather couch on which he was sitting.
“Finances?” David asked, his gaze caught on the view out his 40th floor windows. His offices were on the top floor of the Brexcel Corp building, which he owned. It was the international headquarters of Brexcel, but he spent less and less time there, simply because he hadn’t wanted to. His business was built on international dealings, and so he went where the business needed him. Now that he’d just returned from his Asian tour, he felt…tired.
For the first time in his life, he didn’t want to hop in his private jet and take off somewhere else. He wanted to be there, in New York. He felt settled in, as though his feet were heavy and unwilling to move. After the breakup, he’d sold the flat he’d lived in with Rinna and bought a new one, though he hadn’t spent more than a few nights in it. It was barely furnished, and his belongings were still in storage waiting for him to settle in enough to have them delivered and unpacked. He knew he should, that it would be a good idea to have a place to lay his head while in New York, but he couldn’t help the sense that something didn’t feel right about it all. The flat was the penthouse, of course, it was beautiful, over 6,000 sq. ft., and had top of the line everything. It was the perfect dwelling for a billionaire. But it wasn’t home. Not that he knew what that would feel like. He could blame his parents for being nomadic hippies, but he would also have to blame himself for allowing his schedule to be so erratic. He was never in one place long enough to set down roots…until he let Rinna into his life.
Fuck.
Perhaps he was being maudlin, missing his life in New York—but really, what was there to miss? Glittering parties filled with empty pleasantries? Charity balls where people would rather get attention than give money? Expensive dates with women who only wanted the celebrity that came with being photographed on his arm? Dissatisfying one-night stands with women who were seeking empty intimacy as much as he was?
Shit! What was wrong with him? When had those things ceased to be enough for him? Probably around the same time he broke things off with Rinna. He was thirty-five years old, he’d made his fortune twenty times over, he owned all that he could possibly dream of, and he’d never had an intimate relationship, beside Rinna, last longer than a few weeks.
Why the hell does that matter? Why, indeed? If his relationship with Rinna taught him anything it was that women could seduce to the point of making a man bring down his walls. He allowed her into his life, into his world, and she dropped an atom bomb, destroying all that he had hoped to have with her. And he hadn’t even loved her…not really. She’d woven her web around him, snaring him. And he let her, because he wanted—even just a sliver—of what his parents had. Companionship, fidelity, two children, a 40th anniversary party…
But that wasn’t going to happen. With anyone. It was pointless to want something as unnecessary and complicated as a relationship, especially when he could have any woman he wanted, whenever he wanted. And he’d be the one sending them on their way once it was all over.
But not Diana…
Fuck.
“I don’t have access to her bank account balance, but I do know she has no outstanding debt, her house is still under mortgage under her mother’s name, and she has a monthly subscription to Netflix,” Alexei answered.
No debt. That was a first. He had yet to meet a woman who didn’t have at least one credit card. Diana was…new. Interesting. Unexpected. So, she wasn’t in need of money to get her out of debt, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t greedy. Most women were. There had to be an angle he wasn’t seeing yet.
But he would.
“Does Ayers know about your connection with Miss Bluth?” Alexei asked, yanking David from his loaded thoughts. Apparently, Alexei had guessed David’s connection to Diana—which wasn’t a surprise. The man had a nose like a shark, scenting blood in the water from fifty miles away. Diana Bluth was an interesting development in his friend’s life.
“Does Ayers know you’re looking into his employee?” he reiterated, his black gaze scouring David’s expression for any hint of his true intentions.
He’d find nothing.
Does Ayers know…he’d asked. Does Ayers know that David fucked his paralegal and spent the last two weeks fantasizing about her big, bountiful breasts, her tight, hot cunny, and her cries of pleasure? That he’d jerked off at least twice a day to memories of her lush body, her delicious pussy, and her welcoming slit?
“No, he does not,” he answered, placing his still full tumbler on the table beside the couch. While he usually liked his twenty-year-old Scotch, he had no thirst for it at present, and not because it wasn’t even 10AM yet. Brits drank liquor whenever the hell they wanted. He needed a clear head so he could make decisive decisions about how he should deal with the Diana Bluth issue.
She wasn’t an issue until you returned and she rejected you, right there in the street.
He continued as if his thoughts hadn’t kicked him in the balls. “I want to keep this between you and I. The last thing I need is to get Rick involved in this.”
Alexei leaned back in his seat, his fingers steepled in his lap. That was his way—he would make that face, place his hands like that, when he was slowly unwrapping the truth about something.
Hell! David didn’t need Alexei thinking there was more to it than there really was; he was curious about Diana Bluth, and he’d helped him uncover information on her.
Simple. There wasn’t more to it than that.
So why was David itching to ask Alexei her address or when she usually took a lunch break.
It was none of his business, even if he wanted Diana Bluth to be his business.
Sitting up, he leaned forward, planting his elbows on his thighs, meeting Alexei’s gaze with as much of an apathetic face as he could muster.
“I am just protecting myself,” David remarked, annoyed by the arch of Alexei’s eyebrows and the pinch of his lips. Alexei was a fucking moral compass, wrapped in an Armani suit. God damn… David didn’t need his perceptive and too curious gaze upon him just then. He needed someone who would get the job done without being so damn judgy.
Though…Alexei was right to question his motives, because he questioned them himself…in his weakest moments. He couldn’t be weak, not with his fortune, his empire, and his own self on the line.
No. Diana Bluth was working
an angle, she had seen him in Ayers’s offices, and then she met him at the Incantata…she was looking to make some money, and David was the pay day.
Over his dead body.
She wouldn’t win—whatever her game.
He hadn’t lost yet a challenge yet.
“What?” Diana asked, surely having misheard the nurse on the other end of the line. She’d clearly been day drinking. “What did you say?” Diana was in the office, her door closed, her lunch only partially consumed. She’d answered the call because she was curious about the results, since she hadn’t been able to shake the icky feeling for the last ten days.
It was like food poisoning, only without the fevers, desire to die, or vomiting. She thanked God for the latter.
The nurse, Debbie, was silent for a moment, no doubt weighing whether or not she should call Diana an ambulance after her shriek of a response, but then she’d repeated the words that rocked Diana right out of this world.
“I know it’s taken a while to get the results—there was a backup at the lab. The blood tests show moderate levels of hCG, the pregnancy hormone. Congratulations, Miss Bluth. You’re pregnant.”
Diana couldn’t remember what she’d muttered after that, and she didn’t remember pushing END on her cell, but she did remember sitting at her desk, her body numb, her eyes wide open and unblinking, and her heart racing the Preakness in her chest.
Pregnant?
She wanted to ask how it was possible, but her mother had given her the birds and the bees speech when she was fourteen. She knew where babies came from but…how could that happen to her? She’d only had sex with one person, and he’d been religious about condoms—all three times.
Swallowing, she slumped down into the chair, cradling her face in his hands. Over the last three years, she’d complained about only having one window in her office, it faced the street, allowing in enough light to see by during the day, but not having a view into the corridor outside her office. Now, she was glad no one could see inside her space—the space where she was about to fall to pieces.
Pregnant. Not a virus as the doctor had said.
“How did this happen?” You fucked a virile male, and condoms aren’t 100 percent, there are stories online of women getting pregnant even while on birth control. And she’d never been on birth control, there’d been no need. She’d been a virgin, and the night she’d followed David to his room had been her first sexual encounter ever. She thought she was safe, and she assumed David thought he was safe.
But it wasn’t safe. She was pregnant. With David Brenner’s baby.
She lowered her head to her desk, the cold press of it against her forehead doing nothing to clear the fog from her brain.
She had to tell him.
“God,” she groaned, pushing the bile back, refusing to be sick anywhere near her work documents. The last thing she needed was having to explain the vomit on the Clifton depositions.
“Hey, lady, you ready for lunch?” Margie asked as she practically threw Diana’s office door open. Diana lifted her head to glare at Margie. Today, her exuberance was annoying. Catching sight of Diana’s face, she paused, her gaze taking in Diana’s trembling lip and no doubt the rim of moisture gathering just at the tips of her eyelids. She stepped into Diana’s office, turned, and then closed the door behind her. Diana heard her click the lock and then she turned back to her.
“Di, honey…” She sat on the corner of Diana’s desk and took Diana’s face in her hands. They were warm, and she pressed her cheeks into them. “Oh God, what’s wrong? Did something happen to Betty? Deirdre?”
Diana shook her head, the words refusing to form on her tongue. If there was anyone in the world in that moment she wanted to tell, it was Margie, but how did she tell her? She hadn’t even told her about that night at the Incantata—she’d kept that bit of shocking gossip to herself. Why? Well, because she simply didn’t want to share that night with anyone. It was her night, a night she wanted to hold precious, close to her chest, where no one could pick it apart.
Except you…
“Di,” Margie murmured, “please tell me what’s got you so upset.”
Diana closed her eyes, held her breath for a moment, then let it out—along with the words she was still trying to process in her own head. “I’m pregnant.”
The hands on her face turned to ice and Margie’s body stiffened to the point Diana thought she’d petrified.
The silence in the office was only broken by the pounding of blood in her ears. Finally, she let out a ragged breath.
“Pregnant?”
Diana nodded, the tears that had been building began to spill over. “Yes.”
“I guess that means you finally punched your V card,” she said, sarcasm and a bit of “atta girl” in her voice.
Diana offered her a small smile, knowing she was trying to lighten the oppressive mood in the room.
“Oh yeah, definitely,” Diana answered, that time her smile was a little bigger, and a little lopsided. She couldn’t help but think about how well her V card had been punched—three times.
“And the father?” she asked, and Diana wasn’t surprised. Of course she’d want to know—not only was he the man she’d finally lost her virginity to, he was also the man who fathered her baby.
God, she really had turned into a contemporary romance cliché.
“He doesn’t know,” Diana replied, not ready to reveal anything just yet. She still needed time to wrap her head around it all. She had decisions to make, she had to tell her mother, she had to consider her options—What options!? You know you’re keeping that baby!
And there it was…the truth. Even though the baby was a surprise of epic proportions, there was no way she wouldn’t keep it. It was hers, a living thing that needed her protection, her love, and she would give him or her all that she could.
She was a mother. She shuddered, the thought making her heart race, the hollow just beneath her heart filling with something she couldn’t name, a warmth that lit a fire in her soul.
Margie dropped her hands and sat back, examining Diana’s tear-streaked face with an expression of patient understanding.
“Who is he, Diana?”
“David Brenner,” Diana blurted, the rush of relief followed immediately by tension. What would her friend think?
Margie’s response wasn’t what Diana expected. Rather than a gasp shock or disgust, Margie simply nodded. “Will you tell him?”
Would she tell David Brenner that the one night they’d been together, despite their use of protection, he’d impregnated her? It would probably result in a catastrophic humiliation, but it was the right thing to do, right? He was the father, though, she knew he’d probably deny it.
“Yes, but…I don’t think he’ll believe me,” she replied, the words leaving her mouth on a heavy sigh. She dropped her shoulders, leaning back in her chair. Her hand dropped to her belly, which was naturally rounded already. She traced a line between her belly button and to just beneath her breasts. That whole area would be as round as a basketball in a few months.
“Why wouldn’t he believe you? He was there. He partook in the making,” Margie retorted, her dark eyebrows arching.
“We used protection. He put on a condom each time, Margie,” she answered, and Margie rolled her eyes.
“Everyone knows those aren’t a hundred percent, and I know you don’t use birth control because you were determined to die swathed in purity and innocence.”
Diana snickered, the moment of levity welcome.
“Seriously, Di. I doubt this was a case of immaculate conception, so there is no other explanation than he has super sperm, the condoms couldn’t hold off the barrage, and your uterus welcomed the invaders with cups of hot cocoa and trays of fresh-baked cookies.”
Okay, Diana pictured that and laughed out loud at that one.
“God, Margie, I know there’s no other explanation, but that isn’t the problem. The problem is that I didn’t tell him I was a virgin—th
ere wasn’t even blood on the sheets afterward, and he is going to naturally assume that I had sex with someone else before him, and they were the ones that got me pregnant. The man is as arrogant and egotistical as they come. There’s no way he’s going to admit to being fallible.”
Ugh. David Brenner would take one look at her, sneer at her announcement, and then slap her with a restraining order—because, obviously, she was insane.
But she’d do it anyway. She’d only known about the baby for ten minutes, but she was already determined that he or she would have the chance at a normal life. And that meant pushing her pride aside and attempting to offer David a chance to be a father.
“I know you’re probably having second thoughts about telling him, but…legally speaking, it’ll save you a lot of trouble down the line. If he were to discover you’d had his baby and hadn’t told him, he could force a custody suit on you—”
“But didn’t he just win a suit against Rinna Masterson?” Diana didn’t know why she was arguing with Margie, since they were on the same side.
Margie snorted. “Rinna Masterson is a piece of work. The only reason she had her own ass handed to her was because she lied about being pregnant to milk David for money. It’s all over the news. I’m sure they even know about it on the International Space Station. Rinna Masterson is an intergalactic laughingstock. You actually have a little David Brenner growing in your womb, which can easily be proven with a lab test and an ultrasound.”
For some reason, Margie’s words hit Diana like a lopsided punch.
“Come on, I’m hungry, and now I apparently have another mouth to feed,” Diana quipped, the truth of her own words poorly masked behind humor. She grabbed her purse, unlocked and opened the door, and led a strangely silent Margie to the bank of elevators. “Margie…” she began, desperate to get Margie’s mind off of her predicament (the last thing she needed was Margie getting her fingers all up in her problems). “Just give me time to think about this, okay? I just learned about it not more than ten minutes ago. I need time to process this before I try to get anyone else to process it, too. I’ll tell him when I am ready, but I will tell him.”
