Big Daddy Sinatra: There Was a Ruthless Man (The Sinatras of Jericho County Book 1) (27 page)

“You
mean friends with benefits like Paige Springer?”

“Not
only Paige,” he said, “but yes.
 
Like
that.”

“Okay,”
she said.

There
was another long pause.
 
He turned his attention
back to that lake.

Jenay
was increasingly concerned.
 
When he
still wouldn’t say anything more, she jumped in.
 
“Okay, now what is this about, Charlie?
 
What’s going on?
 
You’re beginning to worry me.”

Charles
sat back, and turned toward her.
 
“One of
the ladies I slept with, Abigail Ridge, is pregnant, Jenay.”

There
was a moment, after he said those words, when Jenay felt as if she had lost her
hearing.
 
She had to have misheard
him.
 
But she didn’t.
 
Then she felt as if she had just been
sucker-punched.
 
“Pregnant?” she
asked.
 
She was requesting a
clarification she didn’t need.

“She’s
thirteen weeks or so.
 
I saw the labs.”

Jenay
frowned.
 
“But we’ve been together for
that long, Charles,” she said.
 
“Haven’t
we?”

“Not
quite that long, no.
 
We decided to give
it a try the day I showed up at your house for your graduation.
 
I was with her a week or so prior, yes, I
was.
 
But I haven’t been with Abby, or
any other woman, since that graduation day.
 
That was the day we agreed to give our relationship an all-out try.
 
I’ve been with you, and only you, since.”

“But.
. .,”
 
Jenay started saying, and then
shook her head.

Charles
could see the anguish on her pretty face.
 
He squeezed her hand.
 
“But what,
baby?”
 

“She’s
pregnant?
 
She’s going to have your child?”
Jenay frowned.
 
She still couldn’t
resolve it in her head.
 
She thought
about all those years she tried to have a baby with Quince.
 
She thought about all those years when she
couldn’t.
 
Now this woman, Charlie’s side
bitch, was pregnant?

Charles
hated to have to admit it himself.
 
“Yes,” he said.
 
“She’s going to
have my child.”

“But
how do you know for sure?
 
I mean, how do
you know she’s telling you the truth?”

“I
saw the lab results,” Charles said.
 
“And
after she left my office, I phoned the doctor myself.
 
He could not confirm or deny of course, but
he knows me.
 
Before he hung up, he
commented on how Abby appears to be gaining a little weight, and how she will
undoubtedly have to go shopping for bigger clothes soon.”

Jenay
looked at him.
 
“So he violated his
patient’s confidence without violating it?”

“Right.”

“That’s
 
still unethical, Charles.”

“That’s
still Jericho, Jenay.”

Then
a sadness came over Jenay.
 
“Is she
showing?”

“Oh,
babe!”

“Charles?”

“No.
 
I don’t know.
 
I think she’s been able to conceal it.”

Then
Jenay shook her head again.
 
“A week
before you came to my graduation, you had been with her?”

“A
week-and-a half before, but yes.”

“But
. . .
 
I thought you were interested in
me.”

Charles
frowned.
 
“I
was
interested in you.
 
I
am
interested in you totally.
 
Why would you question that?”

“Why
do you think?” Jenay asked.
 
But then she
decided against even going there.
 
Men
and their libidos never ceased to amaze her.
 
She, instead, thought about what it all meant, and how he would be duty
bound to marry this Abby person, and she found herself fighting back the
tears.
 
She fought them with everything
she had.
 
She didn’t cry when Quince dumped
her.
 
She wasn’t crying when Charles let
her go too.
 
She stood up.

But Charles
stood up too, and grabbed her by the hand.
 
“What are you doing?”

“I’ve
got to get back to work.
 
Don’t make this
any more difficult than it already is,” she added.
 
Tears were welling up in her eyes.
 
She was losing the battle fast.
 
“I’ll find another position, I’m sure I
will.
 
But you’ve got to give me some
time.
 
That’s only fair.”

Charles
frowned.
 
“What are you talking
about?
 
What position?
 
Give you time for what?”

Jenay
looked at him.
 
“I know how it works,
Charles.
 
You’ve told me repeatedly.
 
Where you come from a man marries the woman
he impregnates.
 
That’s why Donnie
married Susan, remember?
 
That’s why you
married your first wife.”

Charles
couldn’t believe it.
 
“You think I’m
going to . . . You believe I’m going to leave you and marry Abby?”

Jenay
didn’t understand why he would ask such an obvious question.
 
“You said she was pregnant.
 
You admitted you had been with her.
 
You know you’re the father.”

Charles
took her by the arms and looked her dead in the eyes.
 
“I’m not marrying her,” he said.
 

“What
do you mean?
 
You have to.
 
You said---”

“I
know what I said!
 
But that was before I
met you.
 
I’m not available anymore.
 
I’m off the market.
 
I’m not marrying her.”

Jenay
had emotions all over the place.
 
Was he
telling her the truth, or what she wanted to hear?
 
But Charles never told her or anybody else
what they wanted to hear, unless it was the truth.
 
“You’re not . . .I mean, we’re not breaking
up?”

“
Breaking up
?” Charles could not believe
she would even think such a thing.
 
“Are
you nuts?
 
We’re just getting
started!
 
I’m not letting her or anybody
else screw up what we have.”

“But
she’s going to have your baby, Charles.
 
What if she’s expecting you to follow the Jericho tradition?
 
What if she’s expecting you to step up and do
the right thing?”

“I am
stepping up and doing the right thing.
 
I’m being with you.
 
That’s the
right thing.
 
I’ll take care of my child,
and I’ll take care of my child’s mother.
 
But she’ll never be my wife.
 
She
knew the terms of our relationship going in.
 
She knew it would never be any more than what
it was.”

“Booty
calls,” Jenay said, to call a thing a thing.

Charles
nodded his head.
 
“Booty calls,” he
agreed.
 
Then a distressed look appeared
in his eyes.
 
He began to rub her arm.
 
“I’m so sorry, Jenay,” he said.

She
stared at him, and then touched the side of his face.
 
“I can’t fault you for something that
occurred before we decided to be in a committed relationship.
 
I’m disappointed it happened too, but it’s
something we’ve got to deal with now.”

Jenay
thought about the ramifications, and she looked distressed too.

“What
are you thinking about?”

“It’s
going to be hard,” she admitted.
 
“I’m
sure she’s going to make a public display about it, and try to embarrass me by
telling me and everybody else the so-called news.
  
I’m sure she’s going to try to pull a page
out of Paige’s playbook and make certain I know that she’s yours, and that
she’ll forever be tied to you.
 
But I’ll
deal with it.”

But
not if Charles could help it.
  
He took
her by the hand.
 
“Let’s go,” he said as
he began walking them toward the parking lot.

“Go
where?” Jenay asked, walking swiftly with him.
 
“Where are we going?”

“To
let her know.”

“To
let who know?” Jenay asked, although she knew who.
 
“To let her know what?”

“To
let her know that there is no daylight between us.
 
To let her know that she can put on public
displays all she care to, but she’ll be the fool.
 
Not you.”

Jenay
looked at Charles as they headed for his Jaguar.
 
She’d never met a man quite like him.
 
Talk about nipping it in the bud!
 
Talk about ending it before it got
started.
 
Talk about doing the right
thing.
 

She’d
never met a man quite like Charles.

“Big
Daddy just drove up,” the maid said to Abby Ridge.
 
“And he’s got a woman with him.”

Abby,
dressed in jeans and an oversized blouse, was in the kitchen, preparing a
salad, and she immediately began to think.
 
“The woman that’s with him?” she asked her maid.
 
“Does she happen to be black?”

The
maid nodded.
 
“Yes, ma’am.”

Abby
frowned.
 
So he wanted to play it that
way, she thought.
 
Then she immediately
placed the top back on the salad dressing.
 
“Invite them in,” she said to her maid, “and offer them drinks.”
 
She began heading up the back stairs that led
to the second floor.
 
“Tell them I’ll be
down in a few minutes.”

“Yes,
ma’am,” the maid said, as Abby left.
 
And
then the maid she shook her head.
 
“These
women and their tricks,” she murmured, as she hurried to let Charles and the
woman in.

But
after she sat them down, and offered and then brought to them their drinks, it
would be another ten minutes before Abby made her entrance.
 
And an entrance it was.
 

“Charles!”
she said gaily as she walked down the rounding staircase.
 
Jenay and Charles both looked up as she
stepped down in her sweeping nightgown/robe peignoir set that ballooned around
her with every step she took.
 
She was
gorgeous.
 
Even Jenay had to admit how
beautiful a sight she was to behold.
 
And
now she was carrying Charles’s baby.
 
In
that outfit, her baby bump was showing.
 
She had the trump card, and had to know it.
 
She wasn’t dressed this provocatively, Jenay
knew, for her health.
 

“I
didn’t expect to see you again today!” Abby went on.
 
“I was about to take my afternoon nap.”

Charles
ignored her lies and cheeriness and didn’t stand as she entered the living
room.
 
He was still convinced she had
stopped taking the pill and had set this up.
 
He had no proof, and would never know unless she told him so, but he
would always believe it.
 
Besides, it was
his fault too.
 
He was no innocent bystander
here.
 
He should have never stopped
wearing a condom.
 
The question for him
wasn’t if she planned this, but why did she plan this now?
 
They’d been sleeping together for a dozen
years.
 
Why did she wait until this late
date to pull a trick like this?

She
sat down.
  
“Hi,” she said.
 
“I’m afraid I don’t know you.”

“This
is Jenay Franklin,” Charles said.
 
“Jenay, Abby Ridge.”

Abby
smiled.
 
“Nice to meet you, Jenay.”

“You
came to my office today and told me you were pregnant with my child,” Charles
said.

Abby
already knew he was a crude man who wouldn’t know how to be diplomatic if his
life depended on it, but she didn’t expect him to be
this
blunt.
 
And especially
not in front of his new piece on the side.
 
But two could play that game.