The Marriage Ultimatum (City of Dreams Series) (4 page)

Sabrina absorbed that admission, wearing her anger like a shield protecting her lest the fear push through.

She looked over his shoulder, away from the eyes that were so different from last night. Last night, they’d glittered silver with sensual heat. Today, they were as opaque and distant as the storm clouds rolling past the floor-to-ceiling windows behind him.

“Enough.” He waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “Collect your things. The child has a father to provide…”

“Alex’s father? I…”

Ha, that was a good one. Her mom had never divulged that salient bit of information.

Lily was embarrassed at first that a new boyfriend at age thirty-six had resulted in a pregnancy. Hadn’t she learned to stay away from fickle bad boys when she had fallen pregnant with Sabrina and married at eighteen? But as her first child, Sabrina, was the joy of her life, she viewed the new baby as a blessing. The baby’s father promised to settle in New York. He’d promised they’d be a proper family. With his help and Sabrina’s, Lily figured she’d retain her position in real estate sales, and all of their lives would be full.

That had been the plan.

Sabrina shook her head.

“No, no, Alex’s dad isn’t in the picture.”

She said that as calmly as possible, but still she tensed at the path this conversation was taking. No one could know; no one could ever find out she was Alex’s sister rather than his mom. Social services would descend on them just the way they had when she was a girl. Her care would be found wanting. God only knew where they would go if they couldn’t pay the rent. They would take Alex away. She shivered.
No. I can’t go back to that life again. I won’t.

“Alex has only me. His father doesn’t, isn’t.” She stumbled over her lie.

****

Vlad was quick to sense any weakness. His innate ruthlessness and personal experience of the most sordid failings of human nature was no match for this young woman’s evasions and half-truths.

He straightened in his state-of-the art leather desk chair, the kind that was so good for his back. It did nothing for the migraine beginning to form behind his eyes. What the hell was she playing at? For the life of him, he was slipping. How had he been so overcome with lust that he failed to see the cuckoo that’d come into his nest? This is where thinking with your cock got you.

In spite of it all, he was still attracted. Whatever mermaid’s spell she’d cast on him in the break room and later in the car, still had him firm in its grip. She was so far from his usual type it was laughable. Her torrent of hair cascaded down her back in unruly waves and, with a motion he was starting to recognize, she pushed it over her shoulder, then pulled at the hem of her chain store sweater. And what was it about this generation and the fad of ripped tights? Completely inappropriate, even if she did work in VGI’s unseen tech pub division.

He knew she lived in a rundown building, in an untrendy section of Brooklyn close to the old docks. But like all New York real estate, it probably cost a bundle on her terms.

He didn’t care. He couldn’t care. He’d fired her.

He stood, crossed to the window to put some distance between them. The breathtaking view of lower Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty from the vantage point of fifty stories had always served to dazzle visitors and energize him. But right now, all he could see in his mind’s eye was a distant port on the Baltic Sea, imposing cargo ships and grimy tankers crowding the aging docks.

He was uncomfortable in so many ways with this. She got to him on some elemental level he hadn’t cared to look at in years. Father providing? Like his did? Like he even knew who the guy was? Like he’d ever met him?

He turned abruptly away from the memory and addressed a point above her head.

“He may not want to contribute but that’s tough; if you bring a child into this world you need to be responsible for it.”

He knew that for a fact he felt deep in his bones. Children had a habit of needing to be fed and clothed and some of them, if they were lucky, loved. It was a truism. Kids didn’t ask to be born, but once they were on the planet, parents had to be responsible.

“It’s not that simple.” Her cheeks reddened at his piercing stare.

Vlad had used his eyes when he was too young to understand spoken words, and, as he grew older when the English language had still been a mystery to him. He learned fast how to read faces and body language and prided himself on his ability to spot a lie even as it was emerging from the liar’s mouth. He strode toward her, his gaze pinning her in place like a dart on a bullseye.

“You don’t know who the father of your child is,” he said. His voice was harsh and accusing.

Her already pale face whitened to chalk; the troubled gray of her eyes the only blot of color in its delicate bone structure.

“No, it’s not…”

“Don’t bother to lie.” He paced away from her only to pace back. “Not my business, but you’ve made it so.” He heard the disgust and condemnation in his tone. “You chose a lifestyle, chose to be commitment free, and the child deserves better.” The words were spit out like bullets shot from a gun.

“You weren’t so choosy last night, were you?” She struck back hard.

The penny dropped and Vlad reared up to his full, threatening six-foot-three inches. They were chest to chest and he could swear those mermaid eyes were trying to pull him under.

“Do you mean to file a harassment claim? I warn you, I fight dirty.”

“I have a witness,” she said.

“Who? My driver? He’ll swear that it was consensual which by the way, it was.”

“But then when I didn’t give you what you wanted, you fired me!”

The heat of embarrassment scorched his cheekbones, and he turned away. Untrue, but she hit a sore spot. He absolutely never behaved that way with anyone in an office setting. Those kinds of complications made no sense when admittedly women were all but his for the asking. Though he always confined himself to dating women outside of his own employees, he would have to be blind not to notice the speculative looks that came his way and even the more overt invitations within his own offices. But he had never once reciprocated or in any way responded to those overtures. It was plain stupid, and he liked to think he could keep his mind above it and his pants zipped.

It infuriated him to think that this slip of a girl wound him up so fast that he had thrown away the habits of a lifetime and been ready to take her in the backseat of his car.

Perhaps not a slip of a girl. She’d shown up at his office with her child.

He was losing it. He badly needed a break if someone like Sabrina Boyd could get the better of him.

“You will regret it if you try that tack, Ms. Boyd. Let’s face it, who’d believe for a second?” His gaze trailed over her body in insulting appraisal.

“You’d slum it with a girl like me?”

She swung her hand in a swift arc and connected hard with his cheek.

“Rina?” Alex, who had been silent and transfixed watching the byplay between the two adults, reacted to the harsh vibration in the air. “Ri-na?” He lifted his arms and wiggled in his seat.

“Okay, pumpkin, we’re going.”

Hands shaking, she struggled with the doorknob. Vlad stepped forward to open it, to get her out of his orbit, and presented his hovering assistant with a close-up of the vivid handprint Sabrina left on his cheek.

****

Sabrina stuffed the last few personal items in a shopping bag, unable to organize her teeming thoughts. Her pounding head beat out a flashing, neon crisis list—job-apartment-preschool-college-job-apartment-preschool-college-job…

She trembled with fear and a bone deep realization that every nightmare she’d ever had of losing Alex was in danger of coming true.

More humiliating, Sabrina was forced to acknowledge her extreme case of naïvety. Somehow, in the far reaches of her treacherous mind, she’d built up her initial encounter with him into something special, the first meeting of a lasting relationship. Her inexperienced body had mistaken hormones and biology for feelings. That was hysterically funny and completely pathetic.

And then she’d gone on with that angry blather insinuating he sexually harassed her. By that point, she had no clue what she was saying. She was simply reacting.

The thought of filing any sort of claim that could be made public, where people would search into her background, was the last thing she would do. Even if he had harassed her, which he had not. They had both been so deep into whatever flared up between them that no thought beyond the pleasure of the moment crossed her mind.

The reality was that she was the
de facto
mother of a three-year-old, light years out of Vladimir Grigory’s league. And yes, he was hot, but underneath that kick-ass suit, he was just another guy who didn’t believe in second chances.

****

Rain continued to fall steadily outside the VGI building as Sabrina hooked her bulging bag onto the stroller’s handles. She pulled Alex’s rain hat down over his feathery black hair, kissed his cheek, and wiped away the raindrops, not tears, she told herself, from her own cheeks, and pushed the stroller to the downtown subway.

Chapter 4

Hurricane Vlad

The thumping on her front door echoed the agonizing pounding inside her head. The banging was merciless, and she wanted to yell ‘go away’ but the added volume of her voice would surely awaken Alex from his nap and do serious damage to her nerves. Alex needed his rest and she needed him to rest, so she could.

Last night hadn’t ended till early this morning.

Sabrina was too chicken to tell Mrs. Egan about her disastrous day and her dismissal. If only she could forget the whole sorry day ever happened.

To cheer them both up, Sabrina treated Alex by making his favorite pasta and veg followed by ice cream for both of them and wine for her. She invited her friend Lacey, who lived on the floor above them to share, and they opened wine given to Sabrina on her birthday. Lacey brought another bottle and so, one Pinot Grigio had turned into two.

“Yum,” Lacey pronounced her verdict with her mouth full of linguine. “So amazing to eat honest-to-God carbs for a change. Man, I don’t know how I survived without ’em.”

“And tomorrow you’ll weigh exactly the same as yesterday and call it lucky metabolism whereas I—” Sabrina pretended to frown.

“Whereas real women have curves,” Lacey countered. This was an old routine of theirs.

“And everything you see I owe to pasta.” Sabrina wriggled and struck a voluptuous pose as she quoted the famous Sophia Loren line.

Sabrina continued to tease. “So, I guess pasta’s one compensation for giving up your title of ‘world famous model.’”

“Oh, there’s more than one positive in that bargain,” Lacey’s tone turned dead serious, “but don’t change the subject, we’re talking about you and your not-by-your-own-choice departure from under the thumb of Nanny Bordon.”

Sabrina giggled. At least she could be happy that Gert Bordon was now part of her past.

“Really, once the shock wears off, Rina, you might want to think about my offer, you know, about staying with me? Remember,
mi sofa es su sofa
.” Lacey’s blue eyes, which could go from innocent to smoldering in a heartbeat for the camera, were genuinely sincere.

“Hell, no, Lacey. You’re changing jobs, too.”

Lacey had just gotten out of a sticky work situation herself. Leaving modeling was a huge financial and emotional change for her, and Sabrina had no desire to add to Lacey’s troubles. Sabrina hadn’t gotten all of the dirt about the why of it, because they’d both been so busy of late, but she knew her friend was hurting. And
Miranda’s Moments
lingerie models would have to somehow muddle through without Lacey in their number.

“Just promise me, Sabrina, honey.” Lacey’s Maryland drawl turned to steel.

“I promise. We are far from that, but definitely, I will call you if anything.”

And she would. Because it wasn’t just her, it was Alex who would be affected most and if the best alternative was to sleep on Lacey’s sofa, they would. By the time next month’s rent was due, if she still hadn’t found work, Sabrina would swallow her pride and accept Lacey’s offer. Sabrina had taken another sip of wine, unwilling to acknowledge how close her family history of transient living was to repeating itself.

She also hadn’t been able to bring herself to tell Lacey about the embarrassing almost-hookup that had preceded her termination. It was still too raw, and she couldn’t actually believe it herself. In a few days or maybe weeks, when she could repeat the entire sorry tale without humiliating tears, Lacey would be the first to know.

Much later on, when Lacey had gone back to her own place, Sabrina planted herself on the couch, her mom’s ancient laptop on her knees, and searched the employment listings until the wee hours. Depressing in the extreme.

The racket started up again and she jumped off the sofa and flew to open the door before her brother could stir.

Vlad stepped into her apartment with a swiftness at odds with his size.

“What the hell are you doing here?” The words were delivered in a hiss that marred the effectiveness of the curse not to mention she was in socks, and once again he dwarfed her.

“Spare me the phony outrage. You knew I couldn’t ignore this!”

He thrust a bunch of damp tabloids in her direction. His face was livid, his voice clipped with barely contained anger.

“What could you possibly? Oh no…” she said.

The Post
, the
Herald
, the
Eye of New York
each had a similar screaming headline:

Billionaire Baby Drama!

Baby Mama Bolts!

Grigory Jolted by Appearance of Love Child!

All were accompanied by a photo of Sabrina and Alex in their ineffectual raingear standing in front of the VGI building yesterday looking utterly pathetic as the rain pelted down on them.

Sabrina shook her head. Fired, now this? Had the world completely fallen off its axis? They were calling her the baby mama of her boss’ son? It was such an insane tale, she should be rolling with laughter. But Vlad’s furious face was no laughing matter.