Never Have A Baller's Baby: A Bad Boy Pregnancy Romance (11 page)

Chapter5

The story of Naomi that was printed in the
Times
went viral on Los Angeles social media in almost no time. To her surprise, the phone at the design firm began ringing off the hook with requests for her and Malaika to do design work for homes and businesses as far north as San Francisco, and as far south as San Diego. They even got calls from Las Vegas.

Most of the callers didn’t care about the fact that Naomi had been a stripper, although some of them requested that she come dance at parties and events, which she summarily turned down; the biggest portion of their callers were contacting them because Naomi had done Scott’s house and Jennifer Jones’ house, and everyone wanted to use the same decorator as the hot beautiful couple who graced the pages of the magazines and newspapers.

Other media agencies blew the phones up calling in, and they emailed almost non-stop, wanting to get an interview with the side girl who Scott had been seeing behind Jennifer’s back. Some people were angry with her, calling her a home wrecker who was trying to break up Scott and Jennifer, and some people didn’t care about the celebrity politics of it, they were more interested in her association with Scott.

Churches and organizations called about the baby, and Keisha fielded all of those calls, stopping anyone from getting in touch with Naomi who wasn’t calling about serious design job. Their calendar, which had echoed with emptiness, was suddenly overfilled and in the matter of a week, they were completely booked out six months in advance.

None of the ladies could quite believe the chaos that came in the wake of the article. The one thing that seemed almost like an anchor in the storm was Scott. He told her he had gotten an appointment for the paternity test and asked her if he could go with her to the first baby appointment, and she told him that he could. He had been more than a little excited, and she was far more than a little surprised about it.

Three days after the article was published, Scott met her at the doctor’s office, and greeted her with an enormous hug. He held her for a long while, breathing her in and losing himself in her before he let her go and looked at her sympathetically.

“I saw the article that was published in the
Times,
” he said quietly.

She looked down in misery. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know he was there. I was sitting in a café talking to my best friend… we were talking through everything, and… well, I guess he must have been listening in. I’m so very sorry.”

He nodded. “Now you know why I’m so careful with the media, with who I take with me in front of the cameras, with how I handle being a celebrity, it’s such a volatile place to exist… all of the time. I never wanted you hurt. I never wanted you to experience this.”

“It’s bad for both of us,” she told him, looking up at him into his blue eyes and finding some solace there. “I can’t imagine what you’re going through as well. Everyone is calling you a cheater, and me a home wrecker because they think I’m trying to break you and Jennifer up… it’s crazy!”

He nodded. “It is crazy. But there’s nothing that we can do about it right now. Harold is working on it as much as he can. In the meantime, let’s go find out who the father of my baby is… shall we?” He gave her a teasing smile, and she managed to smile back at him just a little bit.

Neither of them saw the reporter hidden not too far away, snapping photographs of the two of them as they entered the obstetrician’s office.

They were shown into an examination room, and Scott grew quiet and slightly withdrawn when the nurse left them for a few moments. Naomi saw the change in him and worried.

“What’s the matter with you?” she asked, wondering if he was bothered because it was their first time out together anywhere, and of all places, it was an obstetrician’s office. She felt her stomach tighten a little.

He looked around at the walls where pictures of babies in the womb were hung, and at a nearby counter where a small array of educational devices showing the uterus and womb with a small fetus in it were sitting.

“I just… I guess I didn’t really think about the gravity of this. You’re…. you’re really pregnant. I’m going to be a…” he swallowed hard and his eyes grew wide, “a father. It’s a little surreal,” he finished quietly.

She realized then that he was finally coming to a place of acceptance with it, and she relaxed a little more, knowing that he would probably be all right with it, once he felt more comfortable.

The doctor came into the door and looked at them both with a smile, and then did a double take as he looked back at Scott. “Oh my… you’re Scott Thompson from the Los Angeles Waves, aren’t you?” He grew giddy with delight.

Scott nodded and gave him a polite smile, shaking his hand. “Yeah, I am. Nice to meet you, Doc.”

The doctor shook Scott’s hand with elation and then visibly tried to gather himself and act with a bit more professionalism. “I’m sorry; I’m just a really big fan. I didn’t expect to see you in here. So… so you’re going to be a father! Well congratulations! That’s wonderful!”

The doctor opened the chart and looked down at the papers inside, and his old weathered cheeks turned pink. “Oh… so, you’re here for a paternity test… well, then. We may be able to congratulate you afterward…” he turned away from the couple, embarrassed.

Scott saw his awkwardness and made light of the situation. “Oh, we’re sure it’s mine, we just need this for official documentation. I’m not doubtful at all.” He gave the doctor a confident smile, and the doctor glanced at Naomi with less assurance.

He performed the paternity test, and then hooked a machine up to Naomi’s belly, so that they could all listen to the baby’s heartbeat. The doctor brightened and smiled a little more then.

“One hundred fifty-five beats per minute! That’s good. You know… that is about the heart rate of most baby girls.” His eyes twinkled a little as he gave Scott and Naomi a knowing look. “Of course, we won’t really be able to tell what gender the baby is until about the fifth month, but the heart rate is usually a good indicator.”

He went to his paperwork and then told them he’d contact them as soon as he had the paternity test results. Thanking them for coming in, and swearing confidence about their visit, he left them.

Scott turned and grinned at Naomi, and she could see in his eyes that excitement had taken the place of uncertainty. “Did you hear that? A girl… it’s probably a little girl. Wow! A daughter. I never thought I’d have a daughter…” he trailed off as he stood staring at the wall, not really looking at it as much as he was looking through it into his own future with a little girl to raise.

“Well, he said gender isn’t really determined until the fifth month,” Naomi replied to him gently as she adjusted her clothes once more.

“So I guess that means princess birthday parties… a pink room… a kitten…” he almost looked as if he was in a daze.

Naomi laughed a little and shook her head. “Come on. Let’s go,” she told him, taking hold of his arm. He followed her out of the office and stopped her before she got into her car.

“I want to take you shopping!” he announced excitedly. “I think we need to start getting things for the baby now. We don’t really have that much time. I mean… we’re both very busy people and the months are going to fly by so fast. We should really get on this now. Right now. Are you busy today? Can you come with me for a little while? I could meet you at the firm and then we could ride in my car. What do you think?” he asked in eager anticipation.

She stared at him. “Wait… you wouldn’t date me because you didn’t want to be seen out in public with me, and now you want to go baby gear shopping with me?” She couldn’t quite believe it, and while she wanted to believe it, it seemed as surreal to her as the baby did to him when they had first walked into the examination room.

He shrugged and his cheeks flushed somewhere between pink and red. “Yeah… I guess… I guess I do. I mean, we have this responsibility together, and we’ve got to start sometime, so now is good… isn’t it?”

Naomi felt a bubble of happiness rising up in her. It was finally beginning to happen. He wanted to be with her; out in public with her, in private with her, at the baby doctor’s office with her… everywhere that she wanted him to be with her. It was finally happening.

She brightened and smiled at him. “All right. I’ll meet you at the office and we can go from there.”

He gave her a nod, and they left in their cars. A short while later, she met him at her office and he drove her to a nearby baby boutique. He parked the car in the private garage and took her hand, helping her out of it.

“We’re really lucky. I called ahead and told them that we needed a private shopping appointment, so they cleared the store for us. There won’t be anyone else in there but us. Won’t that be nice?” He grinned as he walked to the back door of the store with her.

She felt her heart skip a beat and she felt a little cold as they entered the store. His words ricocheted off the walls of her mind. ‘There won’t be anyone else in there but us…’  She understood then that he was still trying to keep them behind closed doors, but at the same time, they were out together in public, shopping for things for the baby.

She told herself to put her fears and worries to rest, and to focus on the day with him. They were out of his house, and it was the second public place that they had been to that day, so it was already improving for her, and she was determined to focus on that.

They were in the store for two hours, and in that time frame, he had purchased a crib, two car seats, a bassinet, two strollers, a layette, a rocking chair, a bookcase, lamps, bedding, curtains, wall and room décor, toys, a wagon, a toy box, infant clothing, a baby bath with accessories, a mobile, a walker, a highchair, a bouncer, no end of baby items from teething rings to baby fingernail clippers, and a teddy bear.

Naomi stared at him as the clerk rung it all up and smiled lightly at him as she asked for an obscene amount of money. He handed her his card and asked her to have it all delivered to his house. After he gave her the address, he looked back at Naomi and smiled happily, and Naomi shook her head at him.

“Do you think you got enough?” she asked coolly, meaning for her question to be sarcastic.

He gave his head an adamant shake. “Oh not at all. No… absolutely not. We’re just getting started. We’ve got so much more to get! You have to decorate the nursery! There wasn’t a nursery when you started on the house. Now we need to redo one of the guest bedrooms. I was thinking the green one right next to my room; it’s close but not too close. Right? Don’t you think?” he asked in a giddy voice.

She just laughed at him and shook her head, and as they walked out of the store, he took her hand in his and kissed the back of it. “I’m happy about this. I want you to know that. I am really happy about this.”

Naomi felt a lot more happiness moving through her too, and it was a nice change for her. She had been so stressed out and upset for so many weeks up to that point and hadn’t even realized it. The difference between the low that she had been feeling, and the happy high that she was experiencing with Scott just then, were incomparable, and it made her joy all that much sweeter.

He took her back to his house with him to drop off a few of the things that they had taken with them, including the little teddy bear, and he walked with her into the green guest room that she had just finished, and which he was talking about turning into a nursery.

He turned in a circle in the middle of the room, looking around it. “What do you think? Do you think this will be a good nursery? Should we put the crib in that corner by the window, or over here by the door? Maybe not the window. What if it gets too hot or too cold? What if there’s a draft in the window? What if—”

She laughed at him and cut him off, laying her finger softly against his lips. “The crib can go by the door. It’s probably the best place for it.” She shook her head and laughed at him. “This is such a change from where you were with this before… it’s so… different.” She smiled, wrapping her arms around his neck.

He let out a long slow breath. “Well… I hadn’t really… comprehended it before. I mean… we heard the heartbeat today. It’s just… more real to me now,” he admitted, wishing it had felt that way the whole time, and pushing away the feeling of guilt that gripped him when he admitted to himself that he hadn’t felt that way the whole time.

“Oh, it’s real all right.” She chuckled. “I like this change in you. It’s sweet.” She smiled and drew herself up against him. Tipping her face up to his, she kissed him softly, and he closed his arms around her and kissed her in return, deeply.

“I like this change in me, too…” he mumbled as his lips moved over hers. The fires of need began to burn in them both and he subtly closed his hands around her hips, moving his fingers and gathering her sundress upward slowly until he could touch her skin. He curved his hands over her fleshy backside, sliding his fingers beneath the back of her panties and she gasped and a soft moan escaped her.

“What do you think you’re up to?” she asked him in a whisper in between kisses.

“I think I’m going to pull these panties off and make love to you right here and now…” he replied with a hint of a smile on his hungry lips.

She gasped at his forwardness, and didn’t stop him from doing exactly what he said he was going to do. Losing herself in the passion of the moment with him, she went with him to his bedroom as he pulled her along the hallway, carefully peeling off her clothes as they made their way slowly.