A Special Summer(48)

He waited as she calmed down and found her voice. Her lips trembled when she spoke.

“I was afraid that you would be angry like you are right now.”

Nick nodded in agreement. He was past the point of angry. “Anything else?”

She nodded her head. “Yes.” Summer wanted to tell him her greatest fear, but would he hold it against her? Would he truly understand her reasoning? Would he care?

“Well?” Nick said impatiently waiting for an answer that would put his mind at ease.

“I was afraid of you, afraid of what you would do. I honestly thought I would never see you again. I had no idea you would come back to see me. I didn’t think you’d care about the baby.”

When Nick didn’t say anything, her heart began to sink. He still didn’t believe her. She could tell by the way he looked through her as if she wasn’t there.

“Please, Nick, don’t…” she whispered as tears fell from her eyes.

Nick wouldn’t let himself feel anything for Summer as he disassociated any affection he’d ever held for her. She had kept her secret and now she had to pay the consequences. He would handle this situation like any other opposition. It was cut and dry.

“Don’t what Summer? You were willing to keep my child away from me. I’ll be the first to admit I didn’t want children, but that gave you no right Summer, no right, not to tell me you were having a baby and I was the father.”

He walked over to the window and stared out into the darkness. That’s just how Summer made him feel, as if he was in complete darkness. He couldn’t stand to look at her right now.

Summer sat quietly crying. He doesn’t understand I have to make him understand. She rose from her sitting position to stand next to Nick.

“Nick, look at me please.”

He ignored her request as he kept his gaze focused ahead.

“Please believe me, I love you and never wanted it to be like this. I was just so scared of you. I knew you’d be angry with me, and that your anger would strike out to hurt me in the worst way. The only way that could destroy me…”

Summer’s eyes pleaded with Nick, though he never looked at her. “Nick, can’t you understand how I felt? How scared I was?”

Nick didn’t bother to answer her. Instead he asked a question of his own. “If I had never came back to see you, would you have eventually told me about the baby?” Nick already knew the answer to his question; he just had to hear her say it.

Summer wanted to lie, wanted to tell him that eventually she would have told him about their child.

Silence wrapped around them like a heavy cloak. She couldn’t bear to tell him that her intentions were to never let him know that their child existed if that’s what it would take to keep her baby. Tears continued to fall as no words would come from her mouth to tell him the truth.

Summer’s silence confirmed Nick’s suspicions. Glaring at her in disgust, he sneered, “Just what I thought. You’re no different than Veronica, Summer. You’re just as much of a conniving whore as she was.”

Stalking off, Nick left Summer stunned and crying in the living room.

Summer cringed at the words Nick hurled slapping her in the face. He’d said she was like Veronica. Veronica had used him, claimed he was the father of a baby she knew wasn’t his. She hadn’t loved Nick like Summer had. The only thing she’d been interested in was his money.

Emotions overtook her that were indescribable as she thought about how he’d compared her to a woman he downright loathed. She was carrying his baby. And she had never used him

the entire time they’d dated. Summer was devastated by Nick’s unfair judgment of her. She wanted to hate him for being so cruel, killing her with his words. But hating him would mean hating her child that was just as much a part of him as it was of her.

With lead legs, Summer made her way to Nick’s bedroom removing all of her items and taking them to the guest bedroom. Dropping everything on the floor, she crawled beneath the sheet and comforter of the queen size bed. Tears drenched the pillow as she cried until exhaustion and weariness claimed her.

♥♥♥

“Nick, man, what the hell’s wrong with you?” Kevin asked as he opened the front door of his townhouse to an enraged Nick.

“Just let me in.” Nick pushed pass Kevin not waiting for an invitation to come in.

Stopping mid-step, he pivoted on his heels. “My bad, do you have company?” Nick asked as he looked around Kevin’s bachelor pad.

“Nah man, come in and sit down. You want a drink?”

“Yeah, get me the usual.”

Kevin excused himself as Nick settled on the leather sofa in the living room. In no time he returned with a beer for himself and a double scotch for Nick. That was his usual drink whenever he was in a mood about something. Handing the scotch to Nick, he frowned as he watched his friend gulp down the drink without coming up for air.