Mr. James: A Forbidden Romance (14 page)

His face grew fierce and his eyes were filled with anger. “I don’t give a damn if you feel like you can get an abortion or not, you are going to get an abortion and you are going to go to another school and graduate away from that bastard!

“I did not give up all of my retirement money, all of my savings, all of my health and my life, and every single thing that I have given up since the day that you were born, to enable you to be able to go to college and get a decent education so that you could make something of yourself and your life, just so that you could go screw some teacher at your college and get knocked up by him and blow it all to hell! You are not going to wreck your future! I’m not going to let you do it, damn it!”

She stared at him as everything in her felt like it was careening as far out of control as it possibly could.

She shook her head. “Daddy… please! I don’t think I can get an abortion! I don’t feel like that’s right!”

He leaned down close to her, not bothering to lower the volume of his voice at all. “You are not having a kid! You are going to do what I tell you to do, or you are going to get the hell out of my house and never show your face here again!

“You can’t have a kid, you’re not even responsible enough to not get pregnant and not have an affair with a man you have no business sleeping with!” he shouted at her. “How in the hell do you expect to raise a kid? You haven’t graduated, you have no job, no home except mine, and I’m sure as hell not bringing a baby in here!

“You have nothing! Nothing at all in the whole world except one chance to graduate and make something of yourself! You are not giving that up for some bastard kid! I have not killed myself slowly all of these years so that you could blow everything I’ve done for you in one shot like this!

“No! You get your ass to the women’s doctor and you get an abortion! There is no other

choice for you! You want a kid later on, fine, you get a job, you save some money, you buy a house, you find a guy, you get married and settle down, and then, and only then, do you take on the lifelong commitment of raising a kid! Do you understand me?” he roared at her.

She stared at him, trembling. He was right. She had nothing to give a child. She had no place to take it, no way to raise it, no way to care for it, and no one to help her with it.

“What if I gave it up for adoption?” she almost whispered.

He narrowed his eyes and shook his head. “No! What are you going to do, spend the next six months trying to get through your last year of college pregnant and walk across that stage to get your diploma all fat with a baby?

“What if something goes wrong medically while you’re trying to go to school? What if you wind up having to do bed rest or something goes wrong with the kid while it’s in you, what if anything happens and you aren’t able to graduate because you’re too busy trying to take care of yourself while you’re pregnant, trying to save a kid that you are going to give up the minute it’s born anyway?

“Then what, huh? You sacrifice your final semester and wind up graduating late and not being able to get a job when you want one because you got all tangled up with a kid? No! You go abort that thing right away! As soon as they can get you in, do you hear me?” he demanded angrily.

“I’m not sure what I’m going to do!” she told him nervously. “I am positive that I don’t want to leave the college I’m at, though, I want to graduate where I started school and I am not sure what I’m going to do about the baby!” she stood up and faced him, looking up into his dark eyes.

He spoke low; his voice stern. “You are going to get rid of that pregnancy, and you are going to change schools, or you are going to get the hell out of my house, do you hear me?” he told her for the final time.

She took a breath and looked at him sadly, and then turned and walked away from him, going to her room and closing the door behind her. She truly was just as alone as she felt.

*

The next morning when she woke up, her father was already gone, and there was no breakfast made for her, there was no note, and there was no sign of anything from him to her. That in itself was a huge mark of his anger at her.

She could only think of one person that she could try to go to for help and direction, for comfort and support, and that was Connor. She knew that they had said they wouldn’t see each other again, but there was no getting around it. She dressed herself nicely and went to the school, walking determinedly toward his office, a place she had avoided at all costs until that morning.

Catalina hadn’t been there since the last time they had made love and said goodbye, and now she had to go back to tell him that she was carrying his baby. She had no idea how he would react, or what he would want to do, but she had to take the chance to talk with him and at least let him know.

When she reached the door, she saw that there was a light on inside and she knocked on the door. A woman’s voice called out for her to enter. She frowned slightly and turned the doorknob, pushing the door open and walking in to see one of the other professors from the campus sitting on the wide old leather sofa against the back wall. The last time she saw that sofa, she had spent hours making love with Connor on it. She drew in her breath and looked at the professor, who gazed up at her with dark eyes.

The woman had long silvery white hair that was pulled up at the back of her head, and she was wearing a pants suit with a jacket and a light blue button up shirt that was only buttoned up to the lower part of the woman’s cleavage. Catalina remembered her name.

“Good morning, Miss Hargrove,” she said politely.

Deborah Hargrove looked her over slowly and then stood up, towering in her high heels. “What can I help you with?” she asked coolly.

Catalina felt ill at ease in her presence and stopped where she was, just inside the doorway. She looked around the room and then back at Deborah. “I was hoping to see Connor… I mean Professor James,” she said in a level voice, though she felt nervous inside.

Deborah narrowed her eyes at Catalina. “I just bet you were,” she almost hissed. Then she smiled and took a few steps toward Catalina. “Who are you?” she asked showing herself as polite once more.

“Um, I’m Catalina Marshall,” she answered, and as soon as she spoke her name, she saw the expression on Deborah Hargrove’s face change instantly. It was a strange combination of rage and jealousy and bitterness.

“Oh…. So you’re the little slut that almost cost my husband his job,” she spat out at Catalina.

Catalina froze where she stood. She couldn’t have heard Deborah correctly. “I’m… I’m sorry, what did you say?” she asked, astounded.

Deborah walked a little closer to her, her piercing eyes boring into Catalina’s.

“Which part?” she asked coldly. “The part where I realized that you are the little slut that my husband was screwing, or the part where you almost cost my husband his job?” she repeated.

Catalina stared at her. “What do you mean, your husband?” she asked in utter confusion. “Connor’s not married.”

Deborah looked up and laughed coldly. “Oh… yes, I guess you’re right. We’re still just engaged. He asked me to marry him, and he gave me this stunning ring,” she held her left hand up and showed off a massive diamond rock on it, “and we’ve been as hot for each other as newlyweds, but we haven’t walked down the aisle together, yet.

“That is still two weeks away. I apologize for the confusion; we are already calling each other husband and wife. I guess we’re both just so excited about it that we can’t wait for the official day. Oh well. Hot lovers, I guess, passionate about each other and the prospect of spending our lives together, but what can I say.”

Catalina’s heart shattered where she stood. Connor was getting married. He was marrying the cold hateful woman standing in front of her. Her mind was a blur of questions and confusion as she shook her head and stared at Deborah.

“That… that can’t be…” she said quietly.

Deborah laughed at her. “Oh, honey, I promise you that it most certainly… is.”

The older woman walked right up to her and blocked her off from the rest of the room. “Now, I realize that he had a little fun screwing you, but you were just a little toy for him to amuse himself for a little while. He’s done with you. You can go now, and don’t ever come back. He doesn’t want to see you ever again.

“He told me how miserable he was after he screwed you the first time and you just kept coming back after him, trying to get him to be with you, and my poor lover couldn’t get rid of you, like a bad penny…” her eyes moved up and down Catalina’s body and she shook her head, “and by the looks of it, worth about as much as a bad penny, too.”

Catalina couldn’t breathe and for a moment she was sure that she couldn’t move either, until Deborah took another step toward her and she suddenly had the energy to turn on the spot and bolt from Connor’s office, racing as fast and as far as she could with no destination in mind at all.

She was blinded by the tears that poured from her eyes, and she finally fell to her knees in the yellow winter grass, just beneath a huge old oak tree. She buried her face in her hands, sobbing into them as her whole body shook.

Catalina had never known that she could hurt as much as she was hurting just then, and it was all that she could do to just try and breathe in between the sobs. It felt like everything in her had been destroyed beyond a point of salvation, as if the entire universe had somehow ended and there was nothing that she could do about it.

Connor was getting married. He was not going to care about a baby, he was not going to care about her, and he was not going to ever see her again. He was going to spend the rest of his life with the cold evil woman who was sitting on the sofa in his office.

The sofa where she had made love with him a few times, and where each time she had felt like she was the only woman for him. The sofa where he had probably had sex with the cold evil bitch that had kicked her out of Connor’s life and out of Connor’s heart.

Catalina felt like she was going to throw up, she was crying so hard. Out of nowhere, she felt a large hand on her back and she sucked in her breath and looked up to see Reggie kneeling down beside her.

She closed her eyes and he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close to his chest and hugging her tightly as she cried herself out and finally the tears and sobs subsided. She took a few deep breaths and then looked up at him and he loosened his arms from around her, letting her go.

“What- What are you doing here?” she tried to say as calmly as she could.

He tilted his head and smiled kindly at her. “Well, this is our spot,” he told her and she looked around and discovered that she was on the grass beneath their big old oak tree, and their bench was just a few feet behind her.

She laughed a little in surprise and then wiped the tears from her eyes and face. “I didn’t realize I was here,. she whispered.

“I did,” he told her quietly.

She looked up at him in confusion, her brow furrowed slightly. “What do you mean? How did you know that I was here?” she asked him curiously.

He took a deep breath and sighed. “Well, I went to your dad’s house to talk with you and your dad said that you weren’t there. He told me that you found out that you’re pregnant and I knew you would really need someone to talk to, so I thought that the first place you would probably come would be here.”

She closed her eyes to try to hold in all of the pain she felt, at least for a moment, and then she looked back up at him. “Did he say anything else to you?” she asked, surprised that her father had been home.

Reggie nodded subtly. “Yeah, he did. He said that you are going to change schools and get an abortion or you’re going to get kicked out of his house.”

Catalina’s shoulders fell in defeat. “Yeah. That’s what he said,” she whispered.

Reggie reached for her hands, taking them into his and holding them gently in the cool morning air. “Listen,” he said gently, “I wanted to tell you how sorry I am for everything that went wrong between us. I never meant to hurt you or make you angry. I never meant for any of this to get so crazy and blow up the way that it did, I guess it just happened. I was just trying to look out for you.”