Page 35 of Don't Lie to Me
“How many times have I asked you to call me Martin?” He scolded me teasingly.
I smiled cheekily, being around Martin having temporarily erased all the tension. “About as many times as I’ve called you Mr. Crawlson.”
He threw his head back into a full stomach laugh. “Touché.” He grinned at Jack. “She’s smart, don’t let her go.”
“I don’t plan on it.” He smiled at Martin and gestured with his arm for Martin to head into the living room. Leaving the two of us alone for one last minute.
I leaned up and kissed him chastely on the cheek in the doorway. His hands gently cupped my face, holding me stil while he returned the kiss equally soft. He leaned his head against mine and firmly whispered, “Tomorrow.”
I simply nodded in understanding. “Good night, Jack.”
My legs shook while I walked to the train. Who was I kidding? My entire body was shaking from nerves and shock and anger. I wasn’t stupid enough to think I could escape Marcus forever, but that was not how I had ever envisioned seeing him.
I picked up the phone to call Macy and cancel my plans for the night. I just wanted to go home and curl up with Logan in my lap and hold him because I knew, now that Marcus was around, he would want to know what I decided.
“Hey you!” she chirped happily into the phone. The tears I had been holding in suddenly overflowed into one gigantic sob as I waited on the train platform. Thank goodness I lived in a large city full of people used to seeing strange things. No one gave me a second look as I melted down right in front of their eyes. I didn’t bother hiding my tears.
“Oh shit. What’s wrong?” Macy’s happy voice dropped to just above a whisper. I heard her shush Tate in the background. I stood quietly for several minutes while my mind flipped through the images of earlier. Marcus standing in Jack’s doorway with a look of shock at seeing me again. His blonde hair and blue eyes made him just as handsome as he had always been, if not slightly better looking now that he had aged some. The immediate tension between him and Jack and Jack’s welcome possessiveness of me. The complete and utter shock I felt as I saw him notice me. Shit.
“Marcus.” I coughed out his name and finally wiped a tear away. Macy was silent on the other end of the phone and I could picture her face one of confusion. I took a deep breath. “He’s a new lawyer at McMillan Holdings. Jack brought him on, one reason being his family connections. He showed up at the dinner tonight.” Right after I had Jack’s cock deep in my throat. I didn’t think Macy needed to know that part. But the very memory sent shivers through me at how happy I had been up until the moment I opened his door.
“Shit.”
“Yeah. Pretty much. Listen, I’m going to cancel tonight. I just want to go home and hug Logan and forget this happened and figure out what I’m going to do when I see him again.”
“You think you will? See Marcus again?”
I snorted. “You’ll probably see him before I do since you work in the building.”
Macy sighed heavily. She was my best friend in college. She knew all about Marcus and his dad and the day Marcus Whitmore the Second showed up at my apartment paying me twenty five thousand dollars to ‘fix my mistake’ as he so eloquently put it. Apparently, it wasn’t kosher to be a Senator basing his campaign on conservative family values only to have his son knock up his girlfriend. Offering to get rid of the baby, on the other hand, was totally acceptable. I shuddered at the memory and felt like running to the bathroom to throw up.
“Listen, I’m just not in the mood to party tonight. I’m going to go home and hang out with Logan and try to figure out what in the hell I’m supposed to do now.” Like look up plane tickets to Bora Bora.
“Do you want me to ditch Tate and Dean and come hang out? I can bring wine and ice cream.”
The wine did sound like a good idea. A case of it. I shook my head and realized she couldn’t see me.
“That’s okay, Mace. You go out and have fun. I just need to be alone tonight.”
I knew she didn’t want me to be alone. She had seen me alone after the whole ordeal and watched me struggle to climb out of my insane misery. Fortunately for me, she was a good enough friend to know I meant what I said and she quietly agreed.
I clicked off my phone just as the sound of the ‘L’ came rushing toward the stop.
TWELVE
After sending Penny home early, Logan and I played way too many games of UNO and I let him stay up much later than normal while I simply stared at him. I lost every game of cards and didn’t pay a single bit of attention to the movie we watched, or the popcorn and ice cream he ate. Instead, I sat back and drank in every single small detail of my beautiful son. Marcus’ son. Their features were undeniably similar with the same curly blond hair and light blue eyes. Even their face shape was similar and even though Logan had never seen his dad, they shared so many similar mannerisms that it sometimes made me catch my breath.
After I read him more books than he requested, I finally put Logan to bed two hours later than normal.
I grabbed a bottle of wine from the fridge and took a swig straight from the bottle – classy girl that I was. I sat alone in my living room, drinking my wine with only one lamp lit for light, and remembered.
I wiped a tear from my eye and nervously held up the test in my hand.
Marcus’s eyes widened in shock instantly. “Oh.”
“Yeah…..” my voice trailed off because I didn’t know what to say. I had found out three days before, and waited for the right time to tell Marcus that I was pregnant. We finished our last midterm on Thursday night and I figured now that they were over, and Marcus wasn’t stressed from studying this would be a good night. I still felt incredibly stupid I didn’t remember that the antibiotics I had taken for my sinus infection would affect my birth control pills. I was terrified of being twenty-two years old and pregnant. Terrified I would lose the man in front of me who I loved so much. I held my breath waiting for him to answer. I half-expected him to be just as terrified as me and take off running. I wouldn’t blame him, I guess. His dad was going to freak out when he found out his son got his girlfriend knocked up. He never thought I was good enough to be involved with a Whitmore…this would be icing on the cake.
I didn’t expect a small smile to form on Marcus’ lips and then increase until it was so large that it spread from cheek to cheek. He slowly stood up from the table across from me and came around the table, kneeling before me.
