Текст книги "ARROGANT PLAYBOY"

Автор книги: Winter Renshaw

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 43 страниц)

Chapter Thirty-Five

BECKHAM

“Here you go.” Odessa places a white plastic sack on my desk Monday morning.

Examining the kit, I read the fine print on the back as she stands before me, fidgeting.

“If you go online, you can pay a fee and upgrade to a rush order,” she says. “Just a quick swab of both your mouths, mail it off, pay the fee, and you should have your answer in less than two weeks.”

“Thank you.” I put the box back in the sack and slip my hands in my pockets, eyes dragging the length of her and catching a small twitch in her fingers. “What’s all this?”

“Pardon?”

“You’re shaking.” I hope to God she’s not being all jittery because we fucked last night and she decided all of a sudden to develop fucking feelings for me.

“I ran into Annelise last night,” she says. “For the third time in three weeks.”

My brows furrow. The name isn’t ringing a bell. “Annelise?”

“Yes.” She puts force into the word, as if that would help me to remember. “Annelise. Your Annelise.”

I chuckle. “I don’t have an Annelise.”

Odessa glances to the left, scratching the corner of her mouth. “She sure knows you. She knows where you work. Where you live. She knew my name two weeks ago. Said you’d told her about me.”

My brows rise. “I haven’t told anyone about you.”

Besides Xavier, but I’m not telling her that. She’ll think I like her or some shit.

I sink down in my chair, resting my chin in my hand. The lack of sleep lately hasn’t done much for my short-term memory. I mentioned Odessa to Xavier a couple weeks ago, but he doesn’t know any Annelieses that I’m aware of. Pretty sure the girl he went home with that night was named Hayley or Heather or Harper.

“She came in here my first day, brought you lunch but you’d left,” she says.

“She came in here?” I lean forward.

“Okay, now you’re freaking me out.” Odessa slumps into a guest chair. “She came in here looking for you. And then I bumped into her the next week when I went out to get coffee. She cried when I told her she needed to get over you.”

“Whoa, whoa.” I lift my hand. “I have no clue who you’re fucking talking about. Some woman walked in here, bringing me lunch, and then you talked to her about me and she cried?”

This is some Eva-level shit.

“Yeah,” she says, eyes wide. “And I ran into her last night, at the pharmacy. She saw me buying the kit.”

My hands rake the sides of my head, nails digging into my scalp.

“What does she look like?” I ask, my heart thundering as my suspicion grows.

Odessa winces, glancing up at the ceiling. “She’s pretty. Short blonde hair. Platinum. Big blue eyes. Lots of makeup. Well-dressed. The second time I saw her, she was wearing this diamond lotus pendant on her collar.”

“Mother fucker.”

“What?” Odessa’s hand flies to her chest. “Who is she, Beck?”

“Her name isn’t Annelise.” My teeth grind, and I swallow the ball in my throat. “It’s Sophie Glass, my ex-fiancé.”

“This woman is obsessed with you.” Her hands tremble in her lap. “She called you a monster. Followed me around the pharmacy. I thought maybe she was some one-night stand who took things too far. You’d mentioned you’d had stalkers before.”

“Yeah.” I huff.

“She said she knew the baby wasn’t yours.”

My lips rub together, and I grab the stress ball next to my monitor, clenching it in my fist until it’s reduced to nothing. A minute later, I stand.

“Where are you going?” She grips the arms of her chair, pushing herself up.

I don’t answer. Anger fills my head, preventing me from speaking even if I wanted to. It’s one thing to follow me around. It’s another thing to stalk my female employees.

But it’s something else altogether for Sophie to bring my fucking daughter into this.

***

“You have a lot of goddamn nerve.”

Sophie stands outside her apartment, which happens to be the penthouse suite of her father’s Lotus Hotel in the Meatpacking District.

“Beckham.” Her finger trails along her collarbone as she paints a slow smile on her red lips. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

I push past her, slamming the door. Seething. My neck clenches and my body’s on fire. My blood hasn’t boiled this hot since the night I walked in on Sophie with that washed up actor.

“It’s good to see you again.” She saunters to her mini bar, pulling out a crystal tumbler and a bottle of Scotch. “May I offer you a drink? You look like you could use one. Then again, I always enjoyed seeing you all worked up. Mm. Such a turn on.”

I throttle my breathing. I need to think clearly because the message I have for her today needs to be crystal fucking clear.

Sophie Glass was the first woman who ever broke my heart, at least by standard definition. I hate that she wears that title. It should’ve gone to someone more worthy. Someone with actual blood in her veins and not money, vodka, and self-serving intentions.

“Baby’s cute,” she says, handing me a drink. I don’t accept it. She shrugs and puts it aside. “No need to be rude, Beckham.”

She sashays to her sofa, slinking down and picking up a martini glass from the coaster. It’s a little early for a drink but Sophie Glass has never paid attention to things that matter like time and responsibilities and self-discipline.

“I still have our engagement announcement,” she muses. “Framed too. Daddy never did get over losing the son he always wanted. God forbid he leaves his empire in my hands someday.”

Losing Howard Glass as a future father-in-law was quite the blow, but I’ll be damned if I tell her that.

“I always wondered what our baby would’ve looked like.” Her manicured nail traces the outline of a sequin-striped pillow better suited for the bedroom of a thirteen year old girl. “I feel like it would’ve been a boy. Mother’s intuition I guess.”

“Don’t fucking go there, Sophie.” My shoulders pull tight, fists flexing and clenching.

“I’m sorry, I just can’t picture you as a family man,” she laughs. “Now would that be kismet? Or karma?”

I’d never hit a woman, but it doesn’t stop me from conjuring up an image in my head of my fingers wrapped around Sophie’s porcelain throat, smashing her up against the wall.

“You fucking bitch.”

“I hold you responsible.” She points at me, her smile swapping out for a glare. “You should know that.”

“Still delusional after all these years.”

Her lips twist back into a smirk. “Not delusional. We just remember things differently.”

“No, Sophie. You remember things the way you want to. That way you don’t have to take responsibility for the horrendous choices you made.”

“When you tell your fiancé you think you might be pregnant, and he freaks out and goes on a rampage about how he never wanted children and how he’s not capable of being a father, what’s a girl to do?” Her eyes glass but it’s only temporary. “I didn’t want to lose you, Beckham. I did what I had to do.”

“You don’t go out and get a fucking abortion, Sophie.” The throbbing in my head is only outdone by the painful tensing of my jaw.

She uncrosses her legs, drawing them up on the sofa and reaching for her martini glass.

“You stormed out that night. I didn’t hear from you for a week. I had to fix the problem.” Her words are lined in defense, but her argument is thin. “You came back to me after that, did you not?”

“Like a fucking moron, yes.” My voice is a low growl. “Don’t think a day goes by when I don’t regret it.”

She rolls her eyes. “Men act like they have it so hard. You think it was easy for me to walk into a clinic, a scarf wrapped around my face, and lie on a table and get our baby sucked out of me?”

My stomach balls. “I never asked you to get an abortion, Sophie.”

“You didn’t have to. You made it clear you didn’t want to be a father. I granted your little wish because I fucking loved you. How many women would do that for you, Beckham?”

The searing pain in my chest intensifies when I think of never knowing my innocent child.

“I was scared, Sophie. I needed space. I needed to process everything.”

“You were weak,” she spits her words. “That’s one of the reasons I wanted you. You were weak and I could break you over and over. Mold you into whatever I needed. You were lost when I found you. A tragically handsome, broken soul. Couldn’t let that go to waste. I showed you what it felt like to be desired, and I made you into everything you ever wanted to be.”

It’s true. She showed me desire like I’d never felt before. All along it was desire, not love. It was hard to tell the difference when I’d never felt anything that’d rendered me so powerless.

Sophie knew how to bring me to my knees, offering me the world on a silver platter. She held my heart in her teeth for years, breaking me time and again until I finally snapped.

“I didn’t come here to rehash the past with you.” My arms cross. “Came to tell you to stay the fuck away from me, my family, and Odessa.”

She cocks her head, resting it on her hand and sinking back into her overstuffed sofa. “That’s cute. You’re all protective. Never thought I’d see the day.”

“Tell me, Beckham. I get why you’re protective of the baby, but why the girl?” She takes a swill of her drink. “You afraid I’ll tell her the truth about you? About your past and that sick-as-fuck cult you were raised in and how you were used in those rituals where the church elders would fuck you in the ass?”

Her head tosses back. She’s pure fucking evil in a pale pink twin set.

My face pinches, my chest heaving. I charge at her and see a hint of terror in her blue eyes for the first time.

“You stay away from me and my family. You don’t speak of us. You don’t follow us. You don’t so much as fucking think of us. We don’t exist to you. You’re dead to us.” My face is inches from hers. It’s all I can do not to strangle the psychotic bitch. “If I hear you’re bothering Odessa, if I see you anywhere, I swear to God, Sophie, I’ll go straight to your father and tell him the real reason we ended it.”

Her face pales. She’s frozen.

“You and I both know the substance abuse clause your father put in your trust is ironclad. He’ll disown you and disinherit you if he knows you so much as tried a single fucking illegal drug.” I don’t need to remind her. She’s well aware.

She swallows, and I storm out before I do anything stupid. Sophie fucking Glass is not worth it. My priorities have shifted. My concerns lie elsewhere. I don’t want to fight dirty, but when it comes to protecting the only thing that matters to me, I’ll do what I have to and not think twice.

Chapter Thirty-Six

ODESSA

I find an empty park bench in Central Park and finish my pretzel-and-coffee lunch, composing my thoughts before I call my parents. It’s time to tell them about Jeremiah: that it’s officially over.

For good.

My fingers shake as I dial my father’s cell phone. He deserves to hear everything from me now, not secondhand through Mom.

“Hey, baby cakes!” His voice is a whistle, breathless.

“Hey, Dad.” I can’t help but smile when I hear his voice, though it disappears when I remember I’m seconds away from breaking the poor man’s heart.

“Good to hear from you,” he says. “I was getting worried. Everything okay?”

“Yes,” I say. “I’m doing well. Really happy.”

“I saw Jeremiah’s TV show the other day. You didn’t tell us the season started two weeks ago,” he says. “Trying to play catch up with the reruns. It’s a good show. Your mom made his southern fried chicken last night for dinner.”

“Daddy, you’re not supposed to be eating that kind of stuff.”

“Everybody’s going to die someday, right?”

I hate when he downplays his health. Cracking jokes isn’t going to make his chronic illnesses disappear.

“Your mother told me you and Jeremiah were going through a bit of a cooling off period,” he says. Leave it to my mother to put a delicate spin on some heavy news. Two years ago when my brother and his wife were having marital issues, my father damn near had a heart attack when he heard they’d legally separated. “Everything okay?”

I rake my hand along my leg and reposition myself. Attempting to find comfort on a wooden park bench is pretty much impossible.

“I’m sorry,” I begin. “I know you liked him a lot, but I don’t want to marry him anymore. We ended things. For good.”

My face pinches as I wait for his reaction, fingers crossed that this news doesn’t land him in the hospital.

“You still there?” I ask. The raspy breathing on the other end tells me he is, but I need him to say something. Anything.

“Back in high school,” he says. “I dated this girl. Marian Tisdale. She was incredible. Smile like you wouldn’t believe. Captain of the cheerleading squad. Hottest girl in school. We went off to college together, and I thought I was going to spend my life with this girl. I loved her more than anything.”

I press the phone hard against my ear. My father never speaks of life before my mom, and we all assumed that he didn’t exist until she came into his life.

“Just before the wedding,” he says. “She got cold feet. Said she couldn’t marry me because there were too many other options out there and what if she made the wrong choice? I was the only guy she’d ever loved.”

His tone is laced in melancholy, and my heart breaks for the younger version of my father.

“I’m so sorry.”

“I think my father took it harder than anyone,” he says. “Told me I’d never meet anyone as perfect for me as Marian Tisdale. And for years, I believed him.”

I know how that feels.

“And then one day, I’m working at my father’s deli and he announces that he hired some Bloom girl to pick up some hours on the second shift. A daughter of his buddy’s from the next town over.”

My heart warms.

“In walks your mother.” I can hear the smile in his hoarse words. “Never looked back after that.”

“Aw,” I sigh. “I knew you met at grandpa’s deli, but I’d never heard about Marian.”

“That’s because Marian is irrelevant,” he says. “Life didn’t matter until your mother. She’s my best friend. The girl who stuck by my side despite the fact that I didn’t deserve her. Still don’t deserve her. But thirty-five years later, she’s not going anywhere. You need someone who’ll stick with you when life gets hard. Really hard. Because it will. It always does.”

I nod, knowing he can’t see me. My words are lodged somewhere in my throat.

“Look. I liked Jeremiah. Emphasis on liked. If things got hard and Jeremiah bailed on you, he doesn’t deserve you,” Dad says. “And I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I knew you were only staying with him because you wanted to make me happy.”

I clutch at my heart, desperately wishing we’d have had this talk weeks ago.

“Thanks, Dad.” A lungful of fresh air reinvigorates me. “I’ve got to get back to work. I’ll see you and Mom in a couple weeks, okay? I’m flying back for Mother’s Day.”

“All right, baby cakes. Love you.”

***

“You’re back.” I linger in Beckham’s office doorway. His cheeks are sunken, his eyes darker than before. He stormed off earlier without saying a word. “You talk to Sophie?”

“Yep.” He glares at the computer screen, punching his keyboard.

“Get everything sorted out?” I shouldn’t pry, but then again, the woman was stalking me, so I have a right to ask.

“She’ll leave you alone from now on.”

That’s all I get?

“What’d she say?” I step into his office. His eyes snap toward me, crawling up me from head to toe as if I’m not welcome in here.

“The details are none of your concern, Odessa.”

“No, it is. She was following me.”

“And I told you she wouldn’t be a problem any longer. What part of that did you not understand?” He slams his keyboard tray back into his desk, slowly rising.

“What the hell is your problem?” My arms lock against my chest, and my hip cocks sideways. “Is any of this about last night?”

It has to be. Nothing else makes sense. Maybe he still loves Sophie and he hates himself for screwing me last night? I’m grasping at straws here but I need to understand what changed.

“Why would any of this be about last night?” A single eyebrow lifts.

My jaw slacks, the words sputtering in my mind. “Maybe you still have feelings for her?”

“Absolutely fucking not.”

“Maybe you’re upset that I’m a bigger part of your life than you ever wanted me to be. Maybe you don’t know how to deal with that emotionally, so you shut down.”

He charges around the desk, coming closer until we’re face to face. He doesn’t intimidate me, and I refuse to back down.

“Thanks for the psychoanalysis, but it won’t be necessary.” His calm tone is delivered with controlled force.

“You don’t have to be so hard all the time,” I say. “You’re nothing but edges. If you’d soften up once in a while…”

“Not everyone lives in a little glass bubble where the sun always shines and life never gets real.” He huffs, his stormy eyes grazing my lips. “Must be fucking nice to always have shit figured out, Odessa. But I’m working on mine, so how about you worry about your own for once?”

“Why are you doing this?”

I search his eyes for a hint of anything that might tell me this friendship, whatever we have, is salvageable because I know what I saw back in Utah. He’s a good person. He has a good heart. This man seething in front of me is about to snap, and he needs someone there to pick up the pieces when he does.

“Push me away all you want,” I say. “But I’m not going anywhere.”

“Is that a threat or a promise?”

“Both.”

“You’re a damn fool,” he growls.

“Likewise.” I stand tall. “You need me. You need me and you hate the hell out of that fact. You’d be a fool to let me walk away, but lucky for you, I’m not going to.”

“I’m not capable of giving you the things you need.” His words offer an angry apology.

“It’s not about me, Beckham. It’s not about what I need.” Our eyes lock. I’m never letting go. At least not until he hears me out. “You told me once everyone’s in it for themselves. But you were wrong because if that were the case, I’d have walked away from you a long time ago. You’re right. You’re not what I need. But you need me. And I’m going to be there for you because that’s what friends do.”

He says nothing, his chest rising and falling.

“And like it or not, we’re friends.” I press my pointer finger into his heart. “Deny it all you want, but–”

A flash in his eyes precedes the grip he takes around my wrist, yanking me against his rigid body before I have a chance to protest.

“We passed friends a long time ago, don’t you think?”

I’m locked against him, his hands twisted in my hair and his lips silencing mine with a crushing kiss. My tongue dances with his. I’m caught between wanting to breathe and wanting to exist purely in this moment.

His hands fall to my waist, and he spins me around, stepping toward me until I fall back onto his desk. Leaning forward, he clears the space behind me, shoving his stapler aside. A cup of pens scatters on the floor, but his focus is on me. Beckham’s fingers work the button of my pants followed by the zipper, and within seconds my pants are tossed aside and my panties are ripped in two.

His mouth smashes mine, and he takes my bottom lip between his teeth as my hands work his belt. The heat in my body soars each time my fingers graze across the hardness beneath his layers.

The second he’s free and sheathed, he hoists my thighs around his hips, plowing his swollen cock into me like the whole fucking free world depends on it.

Beckham’s painfully delicious thrusts build a warm friction. With my fingers tangled in his dark hair, tugging and pulling, I widen my legs and welcome every generous inch of him.

Every plunge.

Every push.

Every prod.

But sex with Beckham is the perfect guilty pleasure. Carnal and uncomplicated. Exactly the way it should be.

His hand gropes my breast over my blouse, and I spot the longing in his eyes to be naked, touching all of me. He needs that closeness he so stubbornly tries to deny himself.

My ankles dig into his tight ass, pushing him deeper inside me as his thrusts quicken. The build-up washes over me as my nails claw his back. Warm spurts fill me, and his face tenses and relaxes as he unloads everything he has into me.

When it’s over, we don’t speak about it. We don’t need to. It is what it is.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

BECKHAM

I’m not sure what we are.

All I know is my cock and Odessa’s pussy are addicted to each other and have been for the last month, ever since she marched into my office and refused to leave the day I met up with Sophie.

She doesn’t ask for labels. We don’t hold hands or talk about the future. I don’t make promises and she doesn’t expect them.

I’ve never been so content with an arrangement before, but I’d be lying if the thought of her meeting another asshole and running off with him didn’t cause my heart to drop into my stomach.

Odessa reminds me not to think about the things I can’t control.

She’s right.

Shit. She’s right about almost everything.

It’s the sexiest, most infuriating feature about that woman.

My attempt to take her advice to heart is the reason I’m hunched over my sink on this Saturday morning in May, staring at an envelope from the Accusure DNA Corporation.

The truth is in there.

Separated by a thick white envelope is the answer to my future, to Sadie’s future.

I want her to be mine more than I ever thought I would.

I never wanted to be a father, but I want to be Sadie’s father.

The thing came weeks ago. I’ve done nothing but stare at it, hoping one of these days I can summon the strength to see what’s inside.

Odessa barges in the bathroom, rifling through my drawers for her strawberry red toothbrush. The one she constantly accuses me of hiding and the one I constantly accuse her of misplacing.

“What’s that?” She stops yanking on drawers when she spots the white envelope. “You didn’t tell me that came in the mail. Oh, my God. Are you going to open it?”

She sweeps her dark, fiery hair from her face and ties it on top of her head, leaning against the vanity.

“Don’t know.” I swipe the envelope and trace my finger along the seam.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Her green eyes flash wild. “I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t you want to know?”

“Got a call from Dr. Brentwood yesterday.” I stare ahead at my tired expression. I swear to God I’ve aged ten years in the last two months.

She folds her arms, studying me, waiting in patient silence.

“Apparently Eva has been out of the hospital for a couple weeks now. She made some indication during treatment that she wishes to relinquish her parental rights to Sadie.”

Odessa pops up, her hands covering her smiling lips. “That’s a good thing, right?”

My mouth hardens. “She told Dr. Brentwood that she was fired from the fertility clinic for tampering with medical records.”

“So what does that mean then? Sadie has to be yours.”

“The timeline doesn’t add up.” I fight the choking sensation in my throat as heat creeps up to my ears. “The pregnancy, the due date. Sadie had to have been conceived after she was fired.”

She closes the space between us, her hand resting on my tensed forearm. Odessa hesitates for a moment before pressing her cheek against my arm. She’s a fool for thinking she can comfort me.

“If Eva doesn’t want Sadie.” Constriction in my chest makes it hard to breathe. “And she’s not mine biologically…”

“Don’t say it.” Odessa pulls away, dragging her fingers over my lips.

I have to say it. This is reality. This is real life. Running from the hard truth isn’t an option.

“I don’t know if the court will let me adopt her. I’m just some random asshole Sadie’s mother once fucked.”

“You’re so much more than that, Beck. You’re Sadie’s father. Biologically or not. You’re the only father she’s known. The only person who came to her rescue when she needed someone the most.”

“You make it sound poetic,” I huff.

“It’s a beautiful thing, the bond you two have.”

I shake my head. “How the hell am I going to prove to a family court judge that a two month old is bonded to me? It’s not like she can walk in there and ramble on about our late night feedings.”

Her lips twist into a bittersweet smile. I hope to God she doesn’t cry. Her strength is what keeps me upright most days.

“What if they say she’d be better off with a mom and a dad?” Every worst possible outcome floods my mind all at once.

Odessa’s gaze falls to the floor and then back at me. “I know I’m not her mother, but I’d be honored to be that mother figure in her life. You know, if you’re so convinced the judge is going to go that route. You have me. She has me.”

“That’s a big commitment.”

“I know.”

“You’d do that for her?”

She exhales, her hand lifting to her chest. “Of course, Beck.”