The sound of my cell phone ringing echoed through the bedroom. I was wrapped up in Zane’s warm embrace and didn’t want to move but the phone kept ringing and ringing.
“Who the hell keeps calling?” Zane groaned into my hair, his hard length pressing against my backside.
“I don’t know.” I yawned, reluctantly rolling over to grab the damn thing. My mother’s name flashed across the screen. There was no outrunning this. Zane and I would have to face them head on.
I swiped my finger across the screen answering the call. “Good morning.” My mother’s cheery but slightly angry voice filtered in through the speaker.
“Why’re you calling me?” Somehow I had found strength. The very strength needed to stand up to my mother.
“Excuse me…” Silence. “I’m your mother. You answer the phone when I call you. I’m already extremely disappointed in you and the things that I’m forced to clean up. Do you know what everyone would say about Gerald and me if they found out you were having your stepbrother’s baby?”
I was so enraged with my mother and her sick twisted need for others’ approval on her life.
“I’m your daughter, your child. Do you hear the things you’re saying? Do you even realize how insane you sound?” I could hear the audible gasp fall from her lips.
“Insane? I’m not the one sleeping with my brother. That is beyond messed up Brooke. I’ve already received phone calls from people that have seen you together on campus. Do you not care that you’re ruining mine and Gerald’s reputations?” I shook my head, squeezing my phone hard enough to break it.
“Your reputations can go to hell.” I didn’t even know why I was still on the phone with her.
“If you want to continue to go to college you’re going to get an abortion. I will pay for it but I will not pay for another one. You need to understand…” Her voice trailed off in my mind. I heard nothing after the word abortion. It was then that my mother had officially died to me.
“Leave me the fuck alone. I will not get an abortion. Rip me from classes, take the cottage, take my car, take it all but I will not…” Venom clung to my words. “Bow down to you. I will not do what you want me to do.” I hung up then, my hands shaking as I threw the phone across the room, the phone shattering against the wall.
“Whoa…” Zane’s voice cooled my heated blood just enough for me to stop shaking with rage.
“She told me to get an abortion….” I couldn’t even believe the words I had just spoken out loud. My own mother, the person who gave birth to me, wanted me to abort her grandchild. A child she had yet to meet.
Zane’s facial features twisted in rage. “If murder were legal I would kill her right here right now.” My stomach churned and acid rose in my throat burning a path of fire up my esophagus.
I was off the bed and in the bathroom before Zane could say a word, last night’s dinner spilling from me and into the toilet.
“I’m sorry baby…” Zane appeared next to me, his cool touch pulling back any stray strands of hair that lingered against my face.
I couldn’t even speak because vomit continued to make its way out of me. Zane stayed right next to me, rubbing comforting circles against my back. When my stomach finally settled exhaustion seeped deep into my bones.
“I hate her. I’ve never hated someone but I hate her.” The words just came. I didn’t care if there was no taking the words back, they were the most truthful things I had said in weeks. I tried protecting Zane and me from them but once our baby came into the picture there was no way I could continue to lie.
I wanted Zane to have a part in our baby’s life and the only way for him to do that was for me to come forward and tell them all that I was pregnant.
“Don’t let what she said to you work you up. I’ll never let them hurt you again. Never…” I wanted to weep because I was so blessed to have the man I had spent the last month trying to push away right here beside me.
With Zane’s help I got up off the floor and brushed my teeth. I could feel his heated gaze on me the entire time and I knew that he wanted to make love to me again, just like he had last night, his body proving to me in more than one way that he was in this for the long haul.
“Zane…” I was breathless once I finished whirling around on him, his hands reached out and landing on my shoulder as he kept me at a distance.
“I want you so badly right now that it’s driving me crazy but I need you to be okay and you aren’t. So instead of doing what I want right now I’m going to tuck you back into our bed and go talk to my father.” I shook my head at him, my lip wobbling as emotions swarmed me.
“No. I won’t let you make some sick twisted deal with the devil.” I shrugged off his hands and collapsed against his chest praying he would see through his need to make thing right.
“I’m what he needs to keep his business going Brooke.” He pulled away enough for me to see his face, a seriousness riddling his features.
“I don’t understand what you mean. If he needed you he wouldn’t have done any of these things.” I was confused, a throbbing pain forming between my eyes.
“He needs me. I’m the heir to the company. If I’m no longer employed by him he has to sell out to one of his colleagues and knowing my father, he would rather stab himself in the eye than do that…”
The smile that pulled at Zane’s full lips made him look evil. A shudder ran down my spine. I didn’t want the man I loved making deals with his father, a man that couldn’t be trusted but what else did we have? If we wanted them off our backs and out of our lives we had to use whatever it was we could get our hands on.
“I don’t want you making deals with your father. He can’t be trusted Zane.” I voiced my concerns but Zane seemed too caught up inside his own head to care. All I could do was pray that everything worked out for the best because if it didn’t, I wasn’t sure what Zane and I would do. Our parents had a strong hold on both our futures, and now our baby’s.
“I swear to you Brooke, I’m not him. I’m doing this for us, for our baby…” His hand trailed down to my belly resting against it gently.
I bit my bottom lip in indecision. I wanted him to do whatever he had to do to get them to leave us alone but I didn’t want to lose the man I loved to his father.
“I can’t lose you again…” I confessed, my voice soft. Zane’s fingers gripped me by the chin, forcing my eyes to meet his. Love like I had never seen before swam in those seaweed blue eyes of his.
“You won’t Brooke baby… I’ll always be here. I’m not going to make a deal with the devil. I’m going to force his hand in a matter that I know I have the control over. If he wants his company to land in the right hands then he will do as I say. If he refuses to listen then I’ll walk away.” A little bit of relief washed away the anxiety I was feeling but still, the fact that Zane would be negotiating our future with his father terrified me.
Resting my head against Zane’s chest I listened to the steady beat of his heart beneath all the skin, bones and tissue that separated us. He was a part of me and I couldn’t lose him. Not now, not ever.