Billionaire's Package_A Billionaire Romance Novella Page 4

  He was my only family, since I didn’t talk to my parents. But Hazel was… a woman I’d known for a day, and one I’d somehow cultivated feelings for in that span. A connection unrivaled by anything I’d felt before.

  With her, shit was easy. It was natural.

  “Don’t do it, man. I’ll never forgive you. She’s my ex.”

  I pushed past Jacob and sprinted out of the room, down the hall. But by the time I reached the lobby, it was too late.

  She was gone.

  Chapter 7

  Hazel

  Sunlight trickled between the curtains in my bedroom and slanted across the beige carpet, worn from years of foot traffic. I sat on the edge of my bed and held the stick between my fingers, trembling ever so slightly.

  I’d been up since five, first because of nausea, then because of stress, then because I had to run to the convenience store down the street – braving my fear of walking alone in New York for the umpteenth time – and now, because of this.

  The two pink lines had etched themselves into my soul.

  “Impossible,” I whispered.

  It’d been three months since the nightmare of the wedding. The first month, I’d dismissed my missed period as stress. No, actually, I hadn’t even noticed it. The second month, I’d thought, okay, definitely stress.

  I’d been attending a photography course for the last year and things had gotten complicated the past while, particularly with the wealth of assignments we had to turn in.

  But I couldn’t ignore it anymore and here was my god damn answer.

  “Pregnant,” I whispered. “How?”

  I hadn’t forgotten to take any of my contraceptive pills. And the only person I’d had sex with was him. Jacob’s brother.

  The sex between me and Jacob had petered off a month before he’d ended it with me. He’d always had some excuse not to come around, and it’d hurt like a son of a bitch, particularly because he’d been my first time ever.

  And now, the second guy I’d slept with had gotten me pregnant. And, oh, by the by, he happened to be my ex’s billionaire brother.

  Resort owner extraordinaire. Definitely not a stripper.

  Shame washed over me, a stroke of heat, and I flopped back on my pillows. Maybe, the heat was from the hormones. I pressed my free hand – the one not clutching the pee stick – to my breast and winced at the pain.

  I have no one. I have no one to help me with this.

  I had a distant aunt who lived somewhere in Wyoming, but she hadn’t seen me since before my mom had left. After that, it’d been foster homes and the system, and yeah, nothing else. I had nothing but these four walls, and the night time job at the diner and my photography classes.

  None of my friends would so much as text me, let alone talk me down off the cliff that was my current anxiety attack.

  No one.

  I struggled upright and balled up my fists.

  “Fine,” I said. “No one. I have no one now, and I had no one before and that’s fine. If I have to do this on my own, I will.” The words were empty, but they injected me with a little strength.

  I’d have to take double shifts at the diner to earn the money to put away. I might even have to quit my photography classes and sell the camera. All fine. None of that mattered. What mattered was I’d finally have someone of my own to love and hold. And I wouldn’t ever give up this baby.

  Not ever. It wouldn’t go through what I did as a kid.

  “You’re mine,” I whispered and pressed my palm to my stomach. Something fluttered deep within my womb, and tears welled in the corners of my eyes.

  You’re mine. That was what he said, wasn’t it?

  Oh, god, I didn’t even want to think of telling Bain Mitchell.

  He’d lied to me, and I’d lied to myself about what’d happened between us.

  At the time, I’d figured it was just a one-night stand, a fling with someone I’d never see again, but the truth was something between us had clicked. We’d had a connection, and it hurt thinking about it and him, and how things had ended between us.

  The lock on my front door scraped and I sat upright, pulse pattering in my throat. Only one person had the key to that lock, and they hadn’t used it in forever.

  “Hello?” I called out.

  Silence, followed by a slam, and then muffled footsteps. My doorknob turned.

  “Who is that?” I asked and slid open the drawer of my distressed bedside table. I grabbed hold of my can of mace.

  The door swung inward and Carly entered, her hair tied up in a messy bun, dark circles under her eyes, and wearing her old faded Metallica t-shirt. She halted just inside the room and stuck her hands in the pockets of her cut-off shorts. “Hey,” she said.

  I released the can of mace, finger by finger. “Hi,” I replied and tucked the pregnancy test behind my back.

  “Hi,” she said, again.

  “You said that already.” I chewed my bottom lip. “What’s up? No offense, but I didn’t expect to see you around here again.” I’d already struggled to replace her as a roommate, and she hadn’t returned to remove any of her stuff.

  “I got an annulment.”

  “What?!” I jolted, then shook my head. “Carly, what happened? I mean, if you want to tell me. I know it’s not my business.” God, what if her wedding had gone tits up because of me?

  No, she’d have come back earlier than this, then.

  “It didn’t work out,” she said. “I couldn’t force myself to love him. I wanted to make it work, but I couldn’t. The whole thing was a huge mistake, and over the last three months, all I’ve thought about is how I messed up everything. I hurt your feelings and I – I hope you can forgive me, Hazel.”

  I worked my mouth, tried for the words to forgive her when I couldn’t really. What was there to forgive? It’d been her weekend, and she’d chosen her best friend over her roommate. I couldn’t fault her for it.

  “Hazey, I was so wrong to take it out on you. It’s just, I was feeling all these crazy emotions at the time, and I needed to express them, and then you were there with that super sexy guy and I couldn’t deal with it.” She shuffled her feet.

  “I wasn’t there with him. It just happened.”

  “Jacob made me choose between the two of you, and he apologized for that,” Carly said, and swallowed. “Which brings me to my next point.”

  “What point?” I massaged my stomach but it did nothing to quell the nausea brewing there. This was surreal. I hadn’t expected an apology or even contact from Carly and I had way more important stuff to deal with today than this.

  “I – are you okay?”

  “Fine,” I said. “Just a little sick.”

  She dismissed that with a wave. “Right, so there’s something you need to know. Jacob’s sorry, too. He’s really sorry. And so am I. I’m so sorry, and I’m sorry for the next part, too, because you have to know that Jacob and I are an item and we have been for a really long time, for months before you two broke up and oh, god, I think I’m going to pass out. I’m so so so sorry.” She swayed and stumbled.

  The shock hadn’t even had a chance to settle in. I scooched off the edge of the bed and rushed to her side, then guided her to the sofa beside my desk, right under the shelf groaning with a collection of all my favorite fantasy novels.

  I’d have to replace them with copies of What to Expect When You’re Expecting or How to Know Whether You’re Crazy or It’s the Hormones.

  “Breathe,” I said and patted her on the back. “You’re fine.”

  “Are you kidding?” she asked, between gasps. “I betrayed you. I slept with your boyfriend before you broke up with him.”

  Carly, beautiful blonde, busty Carly, had taken Jacob from me. Had she really?

  I’d always been more into the relationship with him than he’d been with me. And it certainly hadn’t helped that I’d been super insecure about myself the entire time.

  The fact that he’d moved on with her, and that I had something so
much bigger than a relationship to deal with helped. The anxiety slid from my shoulders, at least, when it came to this.

  What did it matter in the grand scheme of things?

  Carly grasped my hand, still suctioning in breaths like a vacuum cleaner low on juice. “I love him. That’s why I broke up with Pete. I love Jacob. I was so confused about everything before the wedding. I was doing it because my parents expected me to marry Pete, and I love Jacob. I really do. I would never have done this to you if I didn’t. I swear. I’m sorry. I’m –”

  “Stop,” I said. “Carly, stop. It’s okay.” She could have Jacob. I prayed that he wouldn’t cheat on her as he’d done to me. “I forgive you, not that there’s anything to forgive.”

  Her brow wrinkled, and she licked her lips, swallowed once – an audible gulp. “Okay, how are you so calm about this, right now? You’re like, super relaxed. I thought you’d be angry at me.”

  “I’ve got bigger issues to deal with, right now,” I said, with a small, tight smile.

  “What?”

  I laughed. “I’m pregnant.”

  Carly flumped back on the sofa and wailed, “Oh god, you’re pregnant with his child. I knew something like this would happen. Jacob’s going to freak.”

  “What? No,” I snapped – please, god, let me never have been this pathetic. “Jacob’s not the father.”

  “What? Then who is?” Carly’s frown smoothed out as if an invisible iron had been run over her skin. “Oh. My. God.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Fuck me, right?”

  Chapter 8

  Bain

  “What do you want?” I asked and shifted the papers on my desk to one side. A collection of documents, really, signed lease agreements from folks who’d decided to rent out villas at one of my resorts for longer periods.

  I removed my reading glasses – fuck, thirty and I needed a pair, god damn my dad’s shit eye genes – and pinched the bridge of my nose.

  My brother sat on the side of the rosewood desk in my office, lazing in the leather chair like I couldn’t kick him the fuck out of here at a moment’s notice.

  “Well?” I asked and dropped my hand. “I’m busy.”

  “I haven’t seen you in a couple months,” he said. “Thought I’d pay you a visit.”

  A couple months? No. Three months and two days, exactly, since the moment Hazel had stormed out of her hotel room. I’d ticked off every day mentally, much to my chagrin.

  Since when had I cared about a one-night stand? A fling? Since, now, apparently.

  Since I’d met a woman who was vulnerable, and sweet, and smelled of cherry blossom, and radiated good will.

  That was what had gotten me about her. She gave a shit about people.

  Through all of this, she’d given a shit about her friend and even my sleaze bag bro. But did she give one about me?

  I pushed my executive chair back and rose, walking to the open window that afforded me a view of the beach, palm trees, and the wedding now taking place beneath them.

  Paradise.

  Empty without Hazel.

  You don’t even know her. Yet I knew the curves of her body and the fears seated in her soul. What did it matter that I didn’t know her middle name or her favorite color? I understood what she was made of.

  I’d had this damn argument in my mind over and over again.

  Remain true to my brother, the only tenuous connection I had to my family. He was an asshole, but he was still my brother, after all.

  Or go after her. Make her mine. Claim his ex-girlfriend.

  “Fuck,” I said and turned my back on the wedding, the groom now holding the ring out to his bride. “You’re the last person I want to see, Jacob.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “I’m serious,” I said. “We’ve never had a great relationship, why start now?”

  “Aw, come on, bro. I mean, we haven’t had the worst relationship. We got on fine when we were kids, before you went and committed Grand Theft Auto,” he said. “In real life, not in the game.”

  “Wow, that’s real funny, Jacob. You should be a fucking comedian, man.”

  He shrugged his shoulders under a Lacoste polo shirt. “Just trying to lighten the mood.”

  Jacob was right though. Ten years separated us. He was twenty-two – same age as Hazel – and I was thirty-two. I’d changed his friggin diapers and built Legos with him. All that shit had changed the minute I’d gone away.

  “What do you want, man?” I asked.

  “To talk about Hazel,” he replied, evenly.

  A lead weight dropped in my stomach. “Fuck off. Get out.”

  “Dude, it’s not what you think,” he said. “I’m not going to rub it in your face that I had her first.” The smugness appeared – he’d inherited that from out mother. “Though, I did have her first.”

  I bore down on him, and he shrank back in the chair, raising his hands.

  “Dude, I’m fucking with you. Okay, okay, jeez, relax. I wanted to let you know that I don’t give a fuck whether you’re with her or not. I’m with somebody else, now.”

  “Now?” I seethed, fumed; fucking smoke should’ve pulsed out of my ears. “You couldn’t have mentioned this at the time? You couldn’t have let it happen? You knew exactly what you were doing, Jacob. You fucked it up.”

  “I didn’t know you were in love with the chick, for Christ’s sake.”

  “It doesn’t matter what you did or didn’t know.”

  “You’re not even denying the love thing,” he said and leaned forward in his seat, balancing his wrists on the sharp edge of my desk. “Wow. Then, I guess it’s a good thing I’m here.”

  “Why are you here?” I asked.

  He’d flown out from New York, taking a break from his heavy ass-kissing schedule at Mom and Dad’s place.

  “I’m marrying Carly,” he said.

  “Carly? Who the fuck is Carly?”

  “She’s the bride, remember? She was getting married. One of Hazel’s friends?”

  Hazel. Fuck it, hearing her name was a shot to the chest. “And you’re marrying her?”

  “Yeah, she got an annulment with her previous dude. Look, that’s not the point. She went over there to speak to Hazel like two days ago and yeah… she’s pregnant, dude.”

  “You got Carly pregnant?” I laughed. “That’s great news for you, my man, maybe it will help you grow a couple hairs on that slick chest.”

  Jacob rolled his eyes. “No, not me, you. You’re going to be a father.”

  The implications sank in piece by piece. My eyes widened, and I stared at him. The room zoomed in to a focal point on my brother’s face.

  “Is this some kind of joke?” I asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Wha- why? What the fuck? Why are you here telling me this?” I asked.

  Jacob showed me his palms and affected an expression of purity. “Because I thought you deserved to know. And this is not the type of thing you tell someone over the phone, right?”

  I paced toward him, then back again, circled my desk, made a grab for my desk phone, then thought better of it.

  “She wasn’t going to tell you,” he said, at last. “That’s why I came. Carly found out about it from Hazel during one of their girly chats, and she told me that Hazel hasn’t decided what to do about it yet.”

  “Do about it?” Christ, she couldn’t possibly consider getting rid of my child. My child. I gripped my forehead. How had this happened? And why wasn’t I more upset about it?

  “Yeah, well, she’s not exactly flush with cash. She’s got a lot of shit to consider, according to Carly. Women stuff.”

  I have to get to her and stop her from doing something crazy. But I couldn’t put that image together in my mind.

  Hazel hadn’t struck me as the type of person who’d do something like that. Who’d make a decision this big and exclude me from it. Because she gives a shit.

  “Hey, man, I’m just the bearer of news. I thought you should know. I owe
d you a couple favors, didn’t I? You were the one who got me the internship at Sterling and Stone for next year,” he said.

  I shook off that information.

  My baby. Hazel was pregnant with my baby.

  She likely thought she couldn’t afford any of this. That she was on her own and that was that, but it wasn’t true.

  I’d never been a man to back down from a challenge. To pussy out of a difficult situation.

  And the thought of seeing her again made my stomach twist in the best possible way.

  I swept my coat off the back of my chair and made for the door.

  I’m coming, Hazel. You’re not on your own.

  Chapter 9

  Hazel

  “This is a Canon EOS 750D,” I said and clasped the camera between my hands. “I used this camera to take pictures of weddings.” Only the once, but still! “This is worth way more than one hundred dollars.”

  The guy behind the counter in the pawn shop ran thin fingers through his greasy hair and bobbled his head at me. “Let me explain. You give to me, I give to you one hundred dollars, we call it even, yes?”

  He had a thick accent, something Eastern European that I couldn’t place, and he wore arrogance like a coat. He reached for the camera and I held it back from him, squinting beneath the fluorescents in his ill-kempt shop.

  “No,” I said.

  “Heh, these women, heh,” he muttered. “You all think you know what price is for what. I tell you already, woman, it is one hundred dollar or you leave for free. Great price.”

  “The leaving part maybe,” I replied, eyes narrowed. It’d been a week since I’d discovered my pregnancy, and I still hadn’t decided how I’d tell the father. The only decision I’d reached was that I had to make more money, and that meant quitting my photography course, selling the camera, and taking up extra shifts at the diner.

  If I could get one of the damn store owners in this cursed city to buy the damn thing.

  I waggled the camera at the dude. “This cost me seven hundred. It’s hardly used. I expect at least five hundred for it.”