Her Swedish Billionaire's Baby: A BWWM Pregnancy Romance For Adults (8 page)

"Well, are you
sure?"

"I've been
feeling sick all week," Samara looked down at her hands,
fiddling with the hem of her skirt. "And I'm late. And-and-"
Tears choked the words from her throat, and Amy immediately wrapped
her arms her. She felt the strong sisterly comfort that she'd only
ever experienced from her. Amy was like the older sibling Alison
neglected to be her whole life.

"What are we
going to do about it?" The jump to 'we' was automatic. Of course
it was we, she had told Amy.

"We can't tell
him!"

Amy pulled away.
"Samara, we have to tell Bjorn."

"We can't."

"It's his,"
Amy insisted, before she squinted leaning away skeptically.
"Unless... it's not?"

"No, Merlin,
no," Samara shook her head, and Amy relaxed. "It's
definitely Bjorn's."

"Then he needs
to know." She comfortingly rubbed her arm.

"Not yet."

Amy snorted, poking
her in the side. "I think eventually, if it turns out positive,
you will have to."

"I'm going to
tell him," she winced. "Just, not today."

*****

The pregnancy test
was positive. Samara had no idea where she was supposed to go from
here. The thought that this might happen hadn’t even crossed
her mind once. She felt stupid just thinking about it. She was top of
her class in her Masters program for crying out loud! How had she not
thought to use birth control? Come to think of it, how had Bjorn just
gone along with her. They must both have been drunker than she’d
thought. But it was spilled milk now and she needed to get on top of
the situation as fast as possible.

Amy
had left brochures scattered about for abortion clinics. She thought
she was being subtle but she wasn’t. Samara had tried to read
one of the brochures but she’d been overcome by nausea as soon
as she began reading about terminating her pregnancy. She didn’t
know if it was the morning sickness or just her baby protesting but
she hadn’t been able to finish reading. She didn’t
want
to think about aborting the child.

When she closed her
eyes, she imagined telling Bjorn she was pregnant and his eyes
lighting up with delight. He would hold her close and tell her how
happy he was about the baby and that they should get married right
away.

Samara snorted; she
was too much of a realist to actually fall for her own fantasies. At
least she’d thought she was. Still, she went to Professor
Zhang’s office, knocking tentatively in spite of the open door
policy.

“
Yes?”
the professor’s crisp voice rang out from the other side of the
door. Samara pushed it open with a tentative smile and stepped in .

“
Er,
professor? Good morning.” She began.

Her mentor frowned,
“What’s the matter Samara? Why do you look so…”

“
Grey?
Pale? Ill?” Samara finished for her.

“
All
of those. Is something the matter?”

For a moment Samara
was tempted to just…spill all of it. But she wasn’t sure
what the university policy was on sleeping with guest lecturers let
alone allowing them to get you pregnant so she refrained.

“
Uh…I’m
fine. I was wondering if I could possibly get the address for Bjorn
Fredriksen?”

Professor Zhang just
stared at her as if awaiting further explanation. Samara sighed,
crossed her fingers and drew on her years of hustling to sell this
story.

“
We
got to speaking about his father and he promised to send me some
mementos that might help me in my research. It's been five weeks
since he left however and I haven’t heard anything. I thought I
might just remind him…”

The professor
frowned, “Now Samara you aren’t going to be a nuisance to
him are you?”

“
No!
Of course not. I just need….I mean we were talking and I was
supposed to take his email so I could remind him; I just forgot. I
just want to send a polite reminder that’s all.”

Professor Zhang
sighed, giving her a look, “I’m only doing this because I
trust you and I know how passionate you are about the subject matter.
And I know you know better than to send nuisance emails.”

Samara sighed with
relief, “Thank you ma’am.”

Professor Zhang
tapped a few keys on her laptop then looked up at Samara.

“
I’ve
sent it to your inbox,” she said. Samara nodded, faked a smile
and left the office. All that was left now was to notify Bjorn.

*****

Inga Sorenson opened
her boss’ mail for the day, as she did every day, in order to
divide them into ‘Personal’, ‘Business’ and
‘Spam’. She would then categorize each mail in the former
two categories according to its urgency while deleting the latter.
When her eyes fell on an email sent from a UCLA.edu address, she
hesitated whether to place it in spam or business because the
addresser seemed to be an individual rather than an office and
negotiations about the artifact were already completed. She decided
to open it and read it so as to have a better idea where it belonged.

From:
[email protected]

Subject: News

Hi Bjorn,

This is Samara, we
met at UCLA when you came to give that lecture. And then you invited
me to your boat for a cocktail party and things got a bit hot and
heavy between us. Well…I’m happy to inform you of the
consequences of that session. We are expecting a baby.

I hope this message
finds you well.

Regards

Samara Khaled.

Inga stared at the
message in disbelief. She was strongly inclined to place it in the
spam folder or delete it outright. But then she thought, ‘what
did this person want and how far were they willing to go to get it?’
She knew that dealing with this was way above her pay grade, but on
the other hand she didn’t want to disturb Bjorn with it if she
didn’t have to…

She snatched up the
phone and called a number from memory.

“
John?
John Watson? This is Inga Sorenson, from Sweden”

“
Ah,
miss Sorenson; lovely to hear from you again. What can I do for you?”

“
I
have a matter of importance I need you to investigate for
me..discreetly.”

“
I’m
always discreet madam. State your business.”

“
I
need all the information that you have on one…” Inga
snatched up the printout of the email, “Samara Khaled.”

“
Do
you have any other details aside from her name?”

“
Well,
I know that she is or was a student of UCLA as of five weeks ago and
she attended a lecture given by Bjorn Fredriksen at that time. She
was also at a cocktail party he hosted on his yacht therefore his
California security firm will have her details. I will contact them
as soon as this call is done to avail them to you.”

“
Great.
That’s a good start. And you need results…?”

“
Yesterday.”

“
Of
course.”

Inga hung up and
leaned back in her chair with a sigh. They did not need this shit
right now.

*****

“…
.Samara!
Samara!” Amy was shouting in her ear and she started with
surprise.

“
What?”

“
Have
you heard a word I said? I’ve been talking to you for the last
thirty minutes and it's like you’re somewhere else.”

Samara sighed, “I’m
sorry. It's just…I sent Bjorn an email two weeks ago about the
baby and I haven’t heard back. Not so much as a word.”

Amy rolled her eyes,
“Well what did you expect?”

Samara shrugged and
grimaced wryly, “I guess I thought…I mean even my dad
with his less than honest character didn’t abandon his kids.”

“
Well
for one thing, he was in love with the woman who birthed them. For
another, by the time she died you were more than an abstract concept
to him. You were his child. For another thing, he’d known your
mother for more than one night before she declared she was pregnant!”

Samara grimaced
again, “Why are you being so mean?”

“
I’m
trying to knock some sense into you!” Amy said.

“
You
sound like Alison,” Samara said.

“
Yeah
well…maybe she had a point sometimes.”

Samara gave her a
look and Amy caved. “Sorry. I’m not saying she was right
with the whole ‘don’t go to college thing’ but
maybe you do tend to have unrealistic expectations about people.
Which is weird considering everything you’ve seen in your
life.”

Samara
deflated. “You’re right. I know you’re right. And
so was Alison…a lot of the time. I just…
what
am I supposed to do
?” she wailed.

“
Prepare
for single motherhood,” Amy said and when Samara’s bottom
lip trembled and her eyes shone with tears, Amy leaped over the space
that separated them and gathered the taller girl into her arms.
“It’ll be alright. You know we’ll help you as much
as possible. Ma’s gonna be a doting grandma and Nanny can
babysit while you go out to work…”

“
I
still can’t believe you still have a nanny,” Samara
mumbled into Amy’s neck.

“
Thank
your lucky stars I do, otherwise you might have to consider day
care.”

“
Oh
Amy, it's great to hear you say all these things but I couldn’t
possibly impose like that. But you’re right. I have to start
thinking about the baby and how I’m going to manage this.”

“
Damned
right I’m right,” Amy said.

*****

Samara opened the
door of her dorm room to find her sister standing outside, hands in
leather jacket pockets, black jeans and boots completing the
ensemble; her hair was dyed red and styled Rihanna circa 2009. She
looked like the bad ass she was.

“
Hey
sis,” she said shyly.

Samara reached out
and enclosed her in a hug.

They stood like that
for a long time before Alison pulled away, wiping discreetly at the
moisture on her face. If asked, she would say it was sweat so Samara
didn’t bother. She stepped back.

“
Come
in,” she said.

Alison stepped shyly
over the threshold like she was a vampire, unsure if she had
permission. She slung off her jacket and laid it down on the bed,
sitting down tentatively on it as well.

“
It's
good to see you Samara,” she said.

“
You
too Alison.”

“
Wow,
I turn my back for six years and you manage to land yourself in a
mountain of shit huh?” Alison said once Samara had caught her
up on her life as is. She shrugged in response, feeling much better
about things now that her big sister was here. Alison always knew
what to do, even if she did give Samara shit about it.

“
So,
this Bjorn guy hasn’t responded to your email?”

Samara nodded.

“
And
you don’t have his phone number or nothing?” it wasn’t
really a question but Samara nodded in response anyway.

“
And
abortion is off the table?”

Samara just gave her
a look.

“
Right.
Okay. So…first things first. Doctor’s visit. Have you
done that?”

“
Yeah.
I went to the campus medical center. They did a test. It was
positive.”

“
Have
you seen an obstetrician?”

“
Not
yet.”

“
Why
not?”

Samara shrugged
again. Saying she hadn’t known what to do and she was scared
and didn’t know who to ask, would sound just so absolutely
lame.

“
Don’t
worry. The brains of the operation is here. We’ll get you
sorted out in no time,” Alison said with a clap of her hands,
seeming to understand, as always, what Samara left unsaid. Samara
sighed with happiness. She had really missed her sister.

*****

“
What
is this Inga?” Bjorn asked walking out of his office holding
the printout that Inga had finally placed in his inbox together with
Watson’s findings. Inga wanted to shrug and say, “You
tell me,” but she liked her job and wanted to keep it so she
just stood up and looked at him with an impassive expression.

“
It
arrived in your inbox a few weeks ago. I didn’t know what to do
about it so I had Watson gather some background information on the
girl and here are the findings.”

Bjorn
stared down at the paper and then up at Inga as if he didn’t
understand
anything
.

“
How
long is a few weeks?” he asked.

“
Three
weeks to be exact sir.”

“
Oh.
Okay. And have we communicated with her at all at this time?”

“
No.
We have not.”

“
Alright.
I have a dinner tonight; after, I’ll go through this
information and then decide how to proceed.”

“
Yes
sir,” Inga said and Bjorn nodded and returned to his office.

*****

The dinner was
interminable and the speakers were boring and long winded. Bjorn
wanted to just stand up and leave but he couldn’t do that
anymore. He was a ‘representative of the family’ now, not
just Bjorn. He was itching to go through the intelligence sent by
Watson though and find out whether this woman who claimed to be
having his baby was on the up and up or not.

If
this was his baby then…it was a game changer for sure. If it
wasn’t…well this Samara was playing a very dangerous
game if so. He remembered how nervous she had seemed around him. So
innocent looking; was this her endgame? To get herself pregnant with
his child? Earn a meal ticket for life? From what Watson had gathered
in her file, her family made a living conning people out of money.
She had left them to attend college six years ago on a full
scholarship but then had immediately latched onto Gordon Whitaker’s
daughter, Amy, who was very well off and certainly facilitated Samara
a great deal.