For His Pleasure: The Boxed Set, Books 1-6 (For His Pleasure, For His Taking, For His Keeping, For His Honor, For His Trust, For His Forever) (42 page)

She recalled being annoyed because it came at an inconvenient time at work. Was she still working on the cowboy stuff for Remi at the time? Nicole tried to do the math to figure out if she was even late.

I think I’m late.

Of course you’re late. You don’t have morning sickness without being late, Nicole.

Oh god, she thought. I’m going crazy on top of being pregnant.

Nicole knew what she had to do. She had to go get a test immediately. Whether or not she knew exactly how late she was didn’t matter anymore. Get the test and find out for sure one way or another.

She got dressed in a pair of sweats and a t-shirt, threw on her flip-flops and headed for the door.

Unfortunately, Danielle was up and about, rummaging in the fridge as she left her room. “Hey, what’s going on?” Danielle asked, straightening and looking at her with a strange expression. “Why are you dressed like that?”

“Oh, I just realized…I need to…I forgot I need to grab something from Duane Read.”

Danielle looked at her. “Nicole. What’s going on?”

Nicole wished she didn’t always have such a “readable” face. Everyone always could tell what she was thinking and feeling, when something was wrong. It was annoying to never have the ability to hide anything from anyone. “Nothing’s going on,” she lied.

“Just running out for two seconds. You need anything?”

“We need to talk when you get back,” Danielle said.

“About what?”

“You know what. About Kane Wright. You can’t go through with this escapade.”

“I need to run to the pharm—to the store. And then I need to get ready for work,”

she said. “We’ll talk when I get home later.”

“Nicole, I’m serious!”

“Sorry, got to run!” Nicole called, heading out the door.

The nearest Duane Read was only three blocks away, so she was there in under five minutes, careening through the isles like a madwoman, grabbing three different pregnancy tests and running to the counter.

The man behind the register rang up her purchases with a look of satisfaction on his face, as if he was thinking, “good, another New York Sex in the City slut gets her comeuppance.”

Maybe she was just being paranoid and he was merely remembering a funny joke someone had told him, but it didn’t feel that way. She felt judged.

But Nicole didn’t have time to be upset about what the guy at Duane Read thought of her. She took her little bag of pregnancy tests and ran the whole way back to her apartment building, then took the stairs two at a time until she reached her door.

Inside, Danielle waited, ready to pounce like a concerned puma. “Nicole, you need to tell me what’s going on,” she said. “You can’t do this again.”

“Do what again?” Nicole asked, brushing past her and moving toward the bathroom.

“You can’t just shut me out when you don’t need me, and then dump all of your problems on me when it’s convenient for you. It’s not fair.”

That slowed Nicole down. She was gripping the plastic bag that held the answers to a burning question, gripping it so tightly her knuckles were white. “I’m sorry if I’ve been a bad friend. I don’t want to be, and I really do appreciate everything you’ve done for me—

I’m grateful, Danielle. But right now—“

“Right we are going to sit down and talk about Kane Wright. You can’t go through with this trip to the Caymans. What if he rapes you?”

Nicole couldn’t help but laugh. “That’s the least of my concerns, honestly.”

“It shouldn’t be,” Danielle said, pointing at her. “He wants you, he’s doing anything he can to get you alone with him somewhere far away from any witnesses.”

“I think he’s just a very rich man used to getting what he wants.”

“Exactly. What if he decides he wants to have sex with you one night?”

It was a valid point. “I don’t know. My instincts tell me he’s not that kind of guy.

Yes, he’s sneaky and entitled and I don’t like him much as a person. But rapist? I just don’t see it.”

“Well maybe you don’t, but I’m putting my foot down this time, Nic. You’ve gotten me involved now. I need you to call Kane and tell him you’re backing out on the deal.”

“I think he’s already made arrangements to pay off all your debt,” Nicole said. “So even if I back out, he’ll have paid close to a hundred thousand dollars on your behalf.

We’re going to owe him either way.”

“Maybe I’ll call him and deal with it myself.”

“Look, Danielle, I don’t have time to argue. I’m sorry for dragging you into this—

seriously, I am. But I need to get ready for work.”

Danielle glanced down at the bag.

For a moment, Nicole was sure she’d seen through the plastic and realized that Nicole had come back to the apartment with a bunch of pregnancy tests. But then she realized she was just being paranoid.

“Okay, do whatever you want Nicole. I’m just getting really tired of you treating me like an afterthought.”

“I’m sorry, I’ll make it up to you.”

“I’ve heard that one before.”

Nicole didn’t know what else to say. Danielle was right, of course, but Nicole had bigger problems. Like finding out for sure if her fears were unfounded or if she was going to be having a major life crisis.

She got to the bathroom and closed the door, even locking it behind her.

She’d never had to take a pregnancy test before. This was the first time. There had been a lot of firsts since she’d started working at Jameson International. Most of the firsts had been things she’d never imagined herself going through and this was certainly one of those instances.

Nicole sat down on the toilet and opened the first pregnancy test kit. Pulling out the directions, she read them carefully—even though she knew they were so simple a seventh grader could follow them (and she supposed in this day and age, many did).

She was heartened to read that “early morning urine” contained the highest concentration of hCG and so would make for the best sample. Thank god for small favors.

Hopefully, she would at least be assured of an accurate test right now.

Her heart was beating faster and faster as she held the strip in her hand. She needed a cup to pee into, which she hadn’t thought of, and didn’t want to go into the kitchen to get one. Facing Danielle’s wrath yet again wasn’t something she was looking to do at this particular moment.

But luckily they had some spare plastic cups under the bathroom sink. “You can do this,” she told herself, grabbing the cub and then pulling down her sweatpants and holding the cup under her.

She peed into it, just enough to make sure she could cover the stick the way she needed to, and then finished peeing into the toilet.

Her hands were shaking as she sat and dipped the test strip into the urine. She counted to three and then took the strip out and laid it across a folded up piece of toilet paper on top of the sink to let it dry.

The instructions had said that she could get results in as soon as forty seconds, but the entire time of three minutes should be allowed for full results.

So Nicole got up and stared at the strip lying on the sink and watched it. It was sort of like watching paint dry, she decided, only a whole lot more interesting. Her entire life was going to change depending on the results.

It occurred to her that she hadn’t truly thought about whether or not she wanted a child. Obviously it would be crazy to have a baby in the current situation, but what if Red was still in the picture?

They’d talked about having kids and Nicole knew she wanted to start a family someday, preferably when she was young enough to have two or three children without worrying about her age and reproductive capabilities.

As she was thinking about all of this, as her mind spun round and round the different what ifs and possibilities, her eyes suddenly registered what was happening to the test strip. First the one line appeared, which she knew could mean a negative. But then quickly thereafter, the second line began appearing, as if by magic.

Nicole swooned a little, watching the tiny purplish line slowly (but faster than she’d ever expected) appearing on the little stick.

“Oh my god,” she whispered. “Oh my god.”

She was pregnant.

Nicole didn’t know what to do next.

She sat on the toilet and held the pregnancy strip in her hand and marveled at how such a tiny, flimsy little thing could have such an enormous, earth-shattering impact on her future.

No matter what happens from here on, I’ll never be able to say I’ve never been
pregnant. I’m pregnant with Red Jameson’s baby.

Even thinking the words didn’t make it seem real. The realness of it only served to make it more…unreal.

That was the word that should be used to describe her life now, Nicole thought. If someone made a movie about her or wrote a book, it would be called UNREAL: THE

NICOLE MASTERS STORY.

She smiled a little at her crazy, jumbled thoughts, but then the smile died when she again stared at the test strip. Okay, possible false positive? She wondered.

Time to try again.

She ripped open the second test (a totally different brand) and also dipped that in the cup of urine.

Minutes later, it too had come up positive.

And not long after, she did the third one (because everyone knew three times is a charm and three strikes your out, etc. etc.).

They all said the same thing. Nicole Masters was incontrovertibly pregnant, and now she needed to figure out what to do next.

***

Nicole wasn’t sure exactly when she’d decided that she needed to talk to Red.

Everything was happening so fast. And yet, at other moments, time seemed to have slowed to a crawl and the seconds were like hours.

She removed all evidence of her pregnancy from the bathroom, threw it all in a trash bag and then dumped that trash bag into the bottom of another bag full of garbage that Danielle would be very unlikely to sift through (unless she was secretly working for the FBI or something).

With that piece done, Nicole took out her phone and sat in the living room, staring at Red’s cell number.

Danielle had already gone off to work, so she had the apartment to herself. Nicole sure as heck wasn’t going to the office today. No, today was a day she definitely needed some “me time.” Time to figure out how the hell she was going to deal with this issue, time to decide whether she could manage this on her own or whether Red might actually step up to the plate and help her to work through things.

But she was scared. She was scared first and foremost that Red had already moved on, put her in the past. Maybe he hadn’t really loved her the way she’d loved him—he certainly hadn’t played the part of a loving fiancé when he’d dumped her unceremoniously after his brother’s visit to his mansion.

Nicole didn’t believe that was the real Red who’d dumped her, who’d told her that he was protecting her from himself. Nicole thought that Red had been overcome by fear and self-doubt and self-loathing. He truly believed that she would be better off without him in her life.

Still, there was an echo of doubt reverberating in her mind. Maybe it was her mother’s voice, so sure of the fact that Red Jameson was nothing but a scoundrel, the worst kind of man you could meet—an undependable man.

Would Red even want to know that she was pregnant? She wondered.

Finally she forced herself to dial his number.

And her call went right to voicemail.

The mailbox was full, so she couldn’t even leave a message. After so much tension had built up inside her, struggling about even making this call, she was crushed to realize that Red’s phone was basically a nonworking number now.

The next step was even worse.

She had no choice but to show up at his home and demand to see him.

Changing into a decent outfit (a sleeveless blue dress and sandals), Nicole left the apartment and took the train out as far as she could, and then grabbed a taxi to take her the rest of the way to Red’s mansion.

She tried to keep herself calm as they got closer and closer. When they finally arrived at the front gate, the taxi driver turned to her. “You sure this is the place?” he asked.

“I’m sure,” she said, a horrible feeling coming over her.

The guard at the gate was someone she didn’t recognize. An older man with a bald head and white mustache, he glanced inside at her and then spoke to the driver. “Can I help you?”

“This girl asked me to take her here.”

“Name please?” The guard said, now directing the questions at her.

“Nicole. Masters. It’s an emergency.”

“What sort of emergency, ma’am?”

“I need to see Red—I mean, I need to speak to Mister Jameson as soon as possible.”

She tried to keep the neediness and fear out of her voice lest this stranger assume she was one of Red’s groupies, a stalker who’d carried out some delusional fantasy of seducing the powerful executive.

Red had told her such things happened from time to time and the security guards would all be well aware of it.

Nicole hated that she fit the profile, and she hated Red for putting her in a position of having to beg to see him.

The guard retreated back to his booth and picked up the phone. He had a brief conversation.

Nicole’s heart was pounding again. When the man came back to the taxi, he was stone faced and unapologetic. “I’ll relay the message ma’am.”

“Is he here?”

“I’m not at liberty to say. But I’ll do my best to make sure he knows you’ve stopped by and that the matter is urgent.”

“I promise you, he’ll really want to know—“

The guard held up a hand. “I understand ma’am. This is the best I can do.”

The tears were in her eyes as she nodded and sat back in her seat. “Okay. Thanks.”

The taxi driver glanced in his rearview mirror at her. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah. Just take me back to the train station,” she said softly.

***

There was nothing to do but go back to the apartment and sulk and fret and pace.

She couldn’t sit still and watch TV or read a book. There was nobody she trusted enough to call or talk to about this, other than Red. And apparently he didn’t want to talk to her. She couldn’t even be sure he was home or knew she’d come by.