Baby Number Two(34)

"You already have," I said, forcing the words out. "From now on … I'm just  your wedding planner. Please just do me a favor and respect that."



Hanging up on him was the hardest thing I'd done in awhile, but I had to  do it. I couldn't keep drawing this out. If there wasn't any honor to  be found in being the other woman, there definitely wasn't any to be  found in being the woman a man would leave his pregnant fiancée for. The  press would have a heyday, and regardless of my feelings, I couldn't  allow that to happen.



The rest of my workday passed in a blur of paperwork and meetings. When I  finally slumped through my front door later that evening, I poured  myself a glass of wine and changed into something more comfortable  before pressing play on my answering machine. The robotic greeting  informed me that there was a new message awaiting me, and Caleb's smooth  voice filled my ears a few seconds later.



Ignoring the fact that I had no idea how he'd gotten my home number, I  grabbed my cell off the kitchen counter and called him back despite my  better judgment.



Caleb picked up on the third ring. "Chantel?" he exclaimed. "Is that really you or am I imagining things?"                       
       
           



       



"It's me," I confirmed, taking a seat on my couch and folding my legs up  under myself. I nursed my glass of wine as I spoke. "Sorry I hung up on  you last week. Bad connection."



"Oh you're good," Caleb said, failing to comment on what Jack had said  to him. "I was just wondering if you'd gotten a chance to think over my  offer."



"I don't know," I said, feigning ignorance. "Care to refresh my memory?"



Caleb laughed. "Let me take you out. What do you say? You free tomorrow night?"



I took another sip of my wine and thought it over. On the one hand,  taking my mind of Jack seemed like a pretty good idea. On the other, I  wasn't so sure it was possible. Dating other people always just felt  like a means to an end. "Alright," I finally said, deciding on the  former. "Why not?"



"Great," Caleb said. I could practically hear him smiling on the other end of the line. "I'll pick you up at six."



I told him that worked for me and started to hang up, but I stopped  short when something occurred to me. "Wait … don't you need my address?"



"Nah, I've got it," Caleb assured me, not bothering to elaborate. "See you tomorrow."



I must have stared down at my phone for a full minute once he hung up. I  had a strong feeling that I'd just made a date with the devil, and my  suspicions were confirmed when I looked him up on Facebook and found a  treasure trove of tagged pictures featuring him and every high-priced  escort from here to Manhattan. The common link being that they were all  visibly twice his age.



Great.



Caleb Greenwell was a run-of-the-mill womanizer with a fucked up fetish,  and in his eyes, I was nothing more than his latest score. If I was  looking forward to this date before, I certainly wasn't now.



~ CHAPTER TWELVE ~



As tempted as I was to bail on my date with Caleb after my little  discovery about him, I didn't for the sake of keeping things kosher with  Mayor Greenwell. All his annoying traits aside, he was still one of my  biggest clients, and I didn't want to rock the boat by blowing off his  son on a date he was clearly looking forward to.



However, there would be no literal blowing. All I wanted to do was get  this date over with so that I'd never have to see him again outside of  my occasional interactions with his father.



Caleb arrived at my place at six o'clock on the dot just as he'd said he  would. I did a quick once over of my appearance before going to greet  him, and he flashed me that signature smile of his as soon as I opened  the front door. I tensed up when he leaned in to press a kiss against my  cheek, but I forced a smile all the same and locked up before following  him down to where he'd parked at the curb.



"You look amazing," Caleb said, holding open the passenger side door of his SUV for me.



I said something predictable about how he didn't look half bad himself,  but as much as I wanted it to be a lie, it wasn't. There wasn't any one  adjective sufficient enough to describe how good he looked. The blazer  he was wearing was expensive and form fitting, and the rest of his getup  was just as impressive. It was obvious that he put quite a bit of  thought into his appearance, from his slicked back hair, to the slight  hint of aftershave that wafted off of him as he drove.



"So where are we going?" I questioned once we'd been on the road for  almost a full ten minutes. He'd gone past the club district, which I  thought was odd considering his Facebook gave off the impression that he  took most of his dates there.



"This new restaurant downtown," Caleb explained without looking away from the road. "It's good, trust me."



He pressed down harder on the gas and proceeded to speed the rest of the  way there, driving so fast that I began to wonder if we'd even make it  there alive. Luckily, we did, and he strutted over to the VIP section  like he owned the place the second we walked in.



We got a table without any trouble, and I was just about to take a seat  when I heard someone call out my name from across the room. I tried to  ignore it at first, thinking it was just a coincidence, but when I  looked up from my drink menu to find Lauren walking towards me it became  pretty clear that it wasn't. To make matters worse, she wasn't alone.  Jack was seated in the booth she'd just gotten up from looking every bit  as taken aback as I was.                       
       
           



       



"Lauren," I greeted, keeping things cordial despite the fact that my  stomach was in knots and my heart wouldn't stop racing. "Fancy running  into you here … "



Lauren nodded and said something about this being one of her and Jack's  favorite restaurants before turning her attention to Caleb. I noticed a  peculiar look passed between them, but I chalked it up to them being  strangers and avoided reading too much into it.



After making the introductions, Lauren suggested that Caleb and I join  her and Jack at their table, and I began to wonder if this was karma  coming back to bite me in the ass. As horribly as I'd anticipated this  date would go, this right here exceeded my expectations tenfold. I tried  to indicate to Caleb that I wasn't up for making our date a double, but  he hadn't known me long enough to pick up on my visual signals.



This was happening whether I liked it or not.



After we were settled in our new booth, Caleb ordered the entire table a  couple tapas and some cocktails before proceeding to boost that he'd  been one of the lead architects behind the restaurants construction. It  was obvious by his body language that he was just as comfortable around  strangers as he was old friends, which was good considering I was far  too shook up to offer much in the way of conversation myself. As far as I  was concerned, the more he talked, the less I had to.



Jack seemed to share my feelings, because he was being every bit as  quiet as I was. He kept his attention focused on his drink, but he was  quick to throw out a fleeting bit of input every time Lauren glanced his  way. She had a lot of pull in that respect, and by the time our tapas  arrived, even Caleb was giving his two cents on wedding dress designers  and honeymoon locations.



I stole a glance at Jack despite my better judgment and froze when I  felt his leg graze mine beneath the table. I couldn't do this. I had to  get out of here before the tension between us became any more palpable.



"I need to use the ladies room," I spoke up, tapping Caleb on the  shoulder. He stood up to let me out of the booth, and I made a quick  dash down the hall without looking back.



The restroom was empty when I entered, but not for long. I was in front  of the sink doing a breathing technique I'd learned in therapy when an  older woman came in and gave me a concerned look.



"Boy trouble?" she questioned, coming up beside me and pulling a tube of lipstick from her purse.



I shrugged and watched her apply it.



"That's what I figured," she said once she was done. "There's a fella  standing outside the door. Might be yours. Real tall, nice build,  handsome as sin. He sure looks like trouble to me."



"Not mine," I told her. "But he is trouble."



The woman nodded. "Men like him always are," she said, slinging her  purse back over her shoulder and patting me on the arm. "Be careful."



I watched her leave and sighed when I caught a fleeting glimpse of Jack  in the hall. I wasn't doing this dance with him. Not tonight. I exited  the restroom and walked past him without a word, but he called my bluff  and was quick to pull me back.