I couldn’t believe that I’d had sex with him again. Not only had I agreed to it, but I’d practically begged him for it. I’d certainly urged him on when he was inside of me. I wasn’t a victim, surely, but there was no doubt in my mind that I had made a mistake.
He stopped me and kissed me softly on the lips. “Why are you putting your clothes on, Desiree?”
I could barely look at him, but I dragged my eyes up to his and tried not to look hurt. He was just being safe, and I knew that I had been partly to blame before. But I knew then that I was not going to give him my news. It was news that he wouldn’t want to hear.
“What’s wrong, Desiree?”
I told him that nothing was wrong, but inside I was dying. No amount of orgasms and shared moments of bliss were going to make everything all better again. Reality was back, and I was finding it hard to be around him when all I could think to tell him was the news that had made me question everything that I was doing. My whole life was in question, but now I had an answer on one thing. I knew now that I was going to have to raise our child alone. Greg Jefferson had no desire to have a baby with me, and I wasn’t going to be the type of woman who trapped a man who didn’t want me or our child.
Looking away, I pushed the wetness from my eyes. When he pressed, I told him that I was fine. I felt his hand on my arm, and though I wanted to jerk it away and call him a liar, I let him pull me back to his hard chest. When he did I melted in his arms. Saying goodbye to Greg was going to be one of the hardest things I’d ever done. He whispered into my ear how beautiful I was, and the words made me shiver.
“I’ve got to go, Greg. It’s almost time for my shift.”
“Your shift?”
He pulled away so I could turn around. I was lucky enough that I really did have to work that evening. If I’d been able to, I would have stayed in his arms even longer, but that would only have made leaving him even harder. It was bad enough that I had to push him from my life, but the way he looked at me then made me wish that everything was different and he wanted our child.
“Yeah, I work at the bar down the road.”
I saw his frown set in and I shook my head. “It’s really not that bad.” At least I wasn’t fired and rehired and then fired again by another jerk. The bar was not my dream, and it was a waste of my college degree, but it was steady money and I worked with people that I understood, not underhanded rich men like Greg and his kind.
“I want you to come to work for me, Desiree. You’re not supposed to be a bartender, not with all of the education you have.”
When I finally turned around, he was still only in his pants. His smooth chest was distracting. “Well, it wasn’t like my last job was going to give me a good reference. I had to find something to pay the bills.”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Desiree. I didn’t even think about that.”
“No, you didn’t. You just left me high and dry, and now you come back months later and everything is supposed to be okay? Well it isn’t okay!”
I could feel myself getting madder the more I thought about it. I had waited for him for what felt like forever, and now he was just toying with me, playing with my emotions. He wouldn’t want me if he knew the truth, and I knew that it wouldn’t be long before he guessed it. That was why I had to make sure that he never found out.
He tried to touch me but I sidestepped his hand. I didn’t want to feel his hands on me, because every time that happened, the next thing I knew, I would be underneath him and I wouldn’t care about anything but the feel of him inside of me. If he touched me again, I was going to be lost.
“I really need to go, Greg. Thanks for coming over. It was good to see you.”
I caught a look of surprise on his face. I figured it was just because he never got told no. It seemed like a good lesson for him, so I didn’t feel bad about it. I couldn’t let it be known that we would never see each other again. I didn’t know where I was going, but I couldn’t be around him again and he knew where I lived. I was going to have to change everything. So how could I worry about his feelings? I was the one who was going to have to raise our child alone.
“I don’t know what I did. Ten minutes ago you were moaning and coming all over me.”
“A lot can happen in ten minutes, Greg. Or three months. I have to go.”
I held the door open and he looked at me a little shocked. I tried to smile at him and let him know that I wasn’t bothered, even though I was sure I was literally dying inside. I didn’t want him to go, but I knew that I couldn’t let him stay, either. Any way that I went about it, I knew I was going to be hurt in the end. This way I didn’t have to see the look in his eyes when he found out I was carrying his child, something he’d just explicitly said that he didn’t want. It was easier this way.
For a moment I thought Greg wasn’t going to go. He was looking at me with his mouth open. I couldn’t meet his eyes anymore. I thanked him again for coming over and bypassed another attempt to kiss me.
“I’ll call you tomorrow morning, okay?”
I shrugged like I wasn’t sure if I was going to be busy or not. “I’m sure we’ll see each other again.”
“I miss you, Desiree. I miss our lunches together, and I miss you under me.”
The last part made my face turn red. I couldn’t believe that he would say such a thing, and it was certainly the last thing that I wanted to hear at that moment.
When I closed the door, the part of me that had been strong enough to hold me up was gone. I knew that I had made a huge mistake. As much as I wanted to tell myself that I didn’t have a choice, I wondered if I did. Had I really just pushed away the only man that I had loved, the man whose child I carried in my stomach?
“You didn’t have a choice, Desiree.” I repeated the words under my breath a few times until I finally started to believe it. Only then could I leave to go to the job that I hated. The sinking feeling in my stomach told me that I was never going to see him again.
To be continued…