A Ruthless Proposition(22)

“I’m sorry, Cleo, that was unfair of me,” he mumbled. “I’m just angry and frustrated. I hate to see you in a situation like this, with the loser who got you pregnant having zero accountability.”

“It’s my choice, Luc.”

He nodded curtly, his jaw tight. He still looked angry and disappointed, and it killed her to have put that look on his face.

“So you’re having it but not sure if you’re keeping it?” he said after a long pause, during which he’d done nothing but stare at her intently and stroke his thumbs restlessly across the back of her hands.

“Yes.”

“When do you think you’ll know?”

“I’m not sure. I have no feelings about this baby one way or another. I just feel trapped and confused and scared and so stupid right now.” Her voice was thick with tears.

“Oh, Pattypan,” Luc sighed, and dragged her into his arms for a comforting hug. The childhood nickname—one he’d come up with because she hated her full name—brought tears to her eyes, and she sobbed into his chest, suddenly feeling years younger than her age. “We’ll figure this out. I promise you that.”

Cleo allowed herself to lean on him for a second longer, knowing that her big brother would always have her back. She had never loved or appreciated him more than in that moment.





CHAPTER SIX

Cal was still pointedly ignoring her when he returned to the flat, sans Greg, much later that night.

“Hey,” Cleo greeted tentatively, even though she found his wounded air annoying.

“Oh. Hey,” he replied, as if he’d only just noticed her sitting on the lone chair in the living room, an overstuffed monstrosity that she’d purchased at a thrift store.

“So . . . I’m pregnant,” she blurted, and he froze on his way to the bathroom. He turned to face her, his mouth gaping and his eyes just about popping out of his skull.

“Shut up. You’re shitting me, right?” He always got so American teen when he was surprised by something. It was equal parts endearing and exasperating. “Oh my God. No wonder you’ve been such a bitch lately.”

“Wow, thanks,” she said with a grin. She couldn’t help it; his irreverence and honesty always made her smile.

“Well, you have.” He forgot all about his need to go to the bathroom and sank down onto his sleeper couch opposite her chair. “Are you keeping it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you thinking about terminating the pregnancy?”

“I was thinking about it, but decided against it. It’s not a choice that sits well with me, not at this point in my life.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “So adoption is still in the cards?”

“Yes.”

“Have you considered telling the da . . . Ohmygod, is Dante Damaso the father?” His voice rose dramatically on the last syllable, and she winced.

“What do you think?”

“I think you should keep the kid and let baby daddy fork out loads to take care of you both,” he said, as if she were crazy to even consider any other option.

“Yeah. No. I’m not that mercenary.”

“Did you get pregnant deliberately?” Cal asked pointedly.

“Of course not. It was probably a stupid faulty condom.”

“And who, pray tell, took care of the condoms?”

“He did.”

“Then why are you stressing about this? You didn’t ask to get pregnant; this is as much his fault as it is yours—more his than yours, in fact. You trusted him to take care of your protection. I mean, you could have caught all kinds of nasty diseases because of that one dodgy condom.” Cal would be the one to think of gritty realities like that. But Cleo didn’t think she’d caught anything other than a bad case of pregnant from Dante—the man was too fastidious.

“The doctor tested for those today,” she said listlessly, remembering Dr. Klein explaining what some of the blood draws were for. She wasn’t particularly concerned that they would find anything untoward.

“So, you’re going to be like those impractical chicks in the romance novels, all super strong and independent: ‘I don’t need no stinking man and his stinking money to take care of me and my stinking baby’?” Cal asked after a while. “And while their men are rolling in dough, they’re living in poverty—because they’re good girls and taking his money would seem greedy, right?”

Cleo didn’t respond. When Cal was off on a tangent, it was best to let it run its course.

“Because that’s just plain bollocks. The guy was there when this kid was made; he should damned well own up to that and help you out.”

“I don’t even know if I’m keeping the baby,” Cleo said weakly.

“Hmm. Just don’t be a fool, Cleo. False pride never helped anybody.”

“Look, I only learned about this pregnancy today, Cal,” she said, exhausted. “I need time to think about some things.”

“Yeah, and one of the things you need to think about is the fact that this baby’s father isn’t exactly impoverished, and if you wanted to keep it, there’s no reason he couldn’t support his child.”

“Enough.” She held up a hand and rubbed her forehead with the other hand. She was developing a splitting headache. “I’m going to bed. Good night.”




For the next couple of weeks, Cleo felt like someone who was swimming in ether. She couldn’t get her head together. She felt like she was living in a weird otherworld where nothing made sense—up was down, left was right, and she was carrying Dante Damaso’s baby. She kept expecting to wake up and heave a huge sigh of relief because of the outrageous dream she’d had, but that never happened. Every day she faced the same crazy reality. Worse, her pregnancy made itself felt in all the nastiest ways: constant morning sickness; a severe lack of energy; lack of sleep; bloating; tender, swollen breasts—just about every symptom she’d read about, she had. It was crazy, annoying, and more than a little unbearable.

Every Sunday night she picked up her secondhand copy of a handy week-to-week pregnancy guide she’d bought at a bargain bookshop and read up on what she could expect over the next week. She found it fascinating how fast the baby was developing every week, but she found the changes in her body slightly less fascinating.

Cal was still pressuring her to tell Dante, while Blue and Luc’s stoic refusal to ask about her decision had the opposite intended effect. She felt more pressured by their unwavering, silent support.

She put all of that out of her mind and focused on her book, wanting to see where the baby was this week. The most exciting news was that it should now have perfect little fingers with fingernails starting to grow in. Her hand rubbed her flat abdomen in wonder as she pictured those tiny fingers with their soft, brand-new little fingernails. If it was a girl, someday—years from now—she might take an interest in manicures and want pretty painted nails. If it was a boy, he might like working with his hands and getting dirt under those nails. Or maybe vice versa. Who knew?

Cleo fell asleep thinking about those tiny perfect hands.




It was the fingernails that did it. Cleo could not stop thinking about them. She fell in love with those fingernails and their tiny fingers on their equally tiny hands. And over the course of the next week, she stopped thinking of it as “the baby.” It had become “my baby.”

It was a seemingly trifling change in thinking but it had major implications. The baby was now hers, and she couldn’t imagine anyone else loving it or taking care of it. There was no longer a choice. She was keeping it.

And Dante was entitled to know about the baby.

But first she would have to think about how she would go about this. She had to make it perfectly clear that his responsibility began and ended with the baby. She wanted what was best for her baby, and what was best was for the father to provide some kind of financial support. She wasn’t looking for some huge payday, even though she knew he would think otherwise.




Two weeks later, during her twelfth week of pregnancy, Cleo was sitting in the waiting area of Dante’s office, smiling nervously at Mrs. Clarke. The woman—currently sporting a gigantic diamond on her ring finger courtesy of Mr. Whitman, who had proposed after just a month of “courting”—had happily agreed to help Cleo sneak in a visit with Dante. Cleo didn’t want him to know she was coming, didn’t want him to speculate about the purpose of her visit, so here she was . . . ready to turn his carefree bachelor existence upside down.

“He’ll be done with that conference call in about ten minutes, dear,” Mrs. Clarke informed her. “Would you like a cup of coffee or tea while you wait?”

“No, thank you, Mrs. Clarke, I’ll be fine.” As much as Cleo would have loved a cup of herbal tea to settle her nerves, her bladder had become ridiculously small over the last few weeks. She couldn’t trust herself not to need a bathroom within minutes and miss her window of opportunity.

She was nervous about seeing Dante again, not just because of the news she had, but because she couldn’t help wondering if that crazy chemistry would still sizzle between them. She didn’t understand this attraction they had for each other. How could you want someone so desperately while disliking them so intensely? It was bizarre. Well, whether the chemistry still existed or not was a moot point; this baby would take care of any lingering desire soon enough. Dante was about to regret the day he’d met her.