Billionaire's Forbidden Baby: BWWM Interracial Alpha Male Baby Romance Novel (16 page)

But of course, it was entirely impossible.

Woozy with sleep deprivation and last night’s whiskey still on his breath, he got up from the desk, kicking the chair back so hard it toppled over. He didn’t care. Damien shoved his hands in his pockets and walked to the window, looking out grimly. It was early evening, and the city was just buzzing to life again from the afternoon lull, humming and swimming with cars. Usually, that kind of hustle and bustle made him feel at ease, but now it just seemed to add to the edge he was already walking.

Damien Thatch was currently not a happy man. Not only had he discovered that there was a woman left in the world who could resist his charms, but also that this woman happened to be the only person he was interested in. To say that stung was putting it mildly.

Each night, he’d tried to go out and forget all about Kiara – about her soft thighs, her heavy breasts, the way she mewled when he nibbled on her nipples, all of it. But with every drink he had, the mental images just got clearer. He couldn’t even look at other women. They only made him see what he’d lost.

How the mighty have fallen,
he mused darkly, rubbing a hand across his stubbly chin.

He’d closed three major deals over the last few days and had caught up on all his work. Jasmine was overjoyed, and his secretary at Divinad could barely keep up with him, but all of it barely gave him any pleasure at all. Life seemed to have lost its flavor.

He rolled the realization that she didn’t want him around in his head again, like an alien life form that needed to be studied and considered before decisions could be made. Had he been too forward? No, that couldn’t be it. He remembered how she blossomed when he pushed her to try things she hadn’t before, and how she learned to really embrace her pleasure when he was rough with her.

Was she serious about the career thing? If anything, being a marketing exec in Los Angeles, sleeping around with one of the biggest businessmen in the country would have upped her street cred.

So if it wasn’t either of those things, the fuck was it?

A third option lingered in his thoughts, but he pushed it aside, as he had done every previous time he’d thought of it. It was far too depressing to consider.

Morosely, Damien chuckled to himself. He would never have expected himself to turn into this sad sack of a man because of a woman – too bitter to drink properly, too angry to fuck. At least he’d retained his business sense. If Kiara leaving had taken that from him as well, he might have lost his mind altogether.

What if she’s just not interested in you,
he thought absently, that third possibility swimming up in a moment of weakness and biting him in the shoulder.
It’s happened to better men.

Still, he was Damien Thatch, and as far as he was concerned, that was pretty much impossible.

There was a knock at the door, and without paying any heed to it, Damien called over his shoulder.

“Come in.”

“It’s your four o’clock, sir. Will I show him in? And, um, sir, do you need some coffee?” his secretary asked.

Damien smirked to himself. He must have reeked of alcohol if his usually so mindful and quiet secretary dared speak up. Damien didn’t even want to know what he must have looked like.

He paused for a moment, letting his current situation swim through his thoughts. Was that really the best way to get his woman back? Feeling sorry for himself and looking like shit?

He didn’t need his assistant or anyone else to answer that question.

“Tell you what, Kiara. Have one of the VPs take the meeting. I hear what you’re saying. Get me some coffee and a fresh change of clothing, please. And plan that meeting with the board – we need to make a decision on Mirrorview and Sunstreak once and for all.”

“Right on it, sir,” she said cheerfully, leaving him alone with his tortured thoughts once more.

He refused to accept that there was nothing he could do to fix things. Damien was willing to give Kiara a few days to think things over, but if she thought he’d give up so easily, she had another thing coming. With renewed confidence, he spun around and walked back to his desk, plopping into his chair.

He could do it all. Rule his empire, live his life
and
get his woman.

And dammit, he wasn’t going to let anything stop him from achieving all he wanted. First thing on the agenda – have that meeting with the Divinad board he’d been postponing for days.

Second thing – show Kiara how wrong she was about him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Kiara

Kiara was nothing short of a teary-eyed, blubbery mess since walking out on Damien. It had seemed like the right thing to do.

It
was
the right thing to do,
she corrected herself for the umpteenth time that day.

So why did it make her feel like shit?

Sure, it could have been the pregnancy, but Kiara had managed to fool herself with that excuse for only a few days.  It wasn’t just the hormonal changes. It was Damien, and how much she missed him.

Kiara sighed to herself, flipping through the channels on her TV without focusing on any program for more than a few minutes at a time. She’d taken time off from work after the meeting with Divinad, and Gwyneth had gladly allowed her all the time she needed.

That was another thing that made Kiara feel less than awesome. Gwyneth was so happy with her work, but Kiara knew she could have probably done more. Or less, depending on how she looked at her current relationship with Eliza and Damien. Kiara was convinced there was no way Divinad would choose Mirrorview now that she had not only made an enemy out of the company’s main visionary, but also dumped the CEO.

Great going, Kei,
she told herself, laying a hand on her stomach.

She wasn’t showing yet, but she kept wondering how she would look when she did.
If
she did. The abortion was scheduled for the following afternoon, and Eliza had made a point of letting Kiara know that she would drive her to the clinic herself – ‘hold her hand’ as Eliza had said.

Kiara knew what that meant – Eliza just wanted to be sure that the deed was done. But that only made one of them.

Just thinking about it made her eyes well up again. Could she go through with it? Do that to her unborn child, even if it was probably better than being born into a one-parent household, never knowing the father and living with a mother, who would always blame herself for stupid past mistakes? She didn’t think it was fair, but at the same time, she wasn’t entirely convinced that she wouldn’t be able to give the baby a happy childhood.

There were plenty of single mothers who made it work, through thick and thin. Of course, things wouldn’t be perfect, but they would manage. Kiara Lockett was a tough woman, and she’d come through everything in life with flying colors so far, so why did this drive her so out of her mind?

Oh, right, because usually she didn’t have some crazed ice bitch out to ruin her life. She’d almost forgotten about that tiny tidbit of her current existence.

It’s the guilt… God, Kiara, you’ve made such dumb mistakes!

She bit her lip, flipping through a few cooking shows and landing on a sappy Latin soap. That’s how her life felt like – some TV drama that would never end and just kept getting more and more ridiculous every week.

Inches from falling into another bout of inconsolable tears, Kiara was stopped just in time by the appearance of Tasha, carrying a bowl of popcorn. Tasha shoved it in Kiara’s general direction, and Kiara took a big handful, trying to force down the tears at the same time.

“So what are we watching?” Tasha asked, nudging Kiara’s feet to the side and plopping down on the couch.

“My life, with more gesticulating,” Kiara said glumly, shoving the popcorn in her mouth.

“Oh, so we’re still feeling great, I see.”

Tasha gave Kiara one of those looks that Kiara could only translate as both knowing and judging – but with the best of intentions in mind. She nodded quietly, chewing on the popcorn and wondering if she would ever get used to the odd cravings she was having lately – like for example, right now she really wanted to put chunky peanut butter on the popcorn.

You won’t have to get used to it if you go through with the abortion… And then, Eliza won’t go to war against you.

“You know, that popcorn won’t get any better from you staring at it,” Tasha said.

Kiara stirred from her revelry and looked up, realizing she’d been staring at her palm for a while.

“Oh. Right. Sorry, I’m not quite myself right now.”

“No kidding. What’s got you so worked up? I thought you’d be calming down now that the big business thing’s dealt with. And Damien’s out of your life too, right? Smooth sailing from here. You can only get happier and fatter and more pregnant here on. Sounds awesome to me,” Tasha said, grinning.

Kiara didn’t find the energy to smile back. She knew Tasha was dreaming of becoming a mother one day, so sitting next to her, contemplating the unspeakable choice given to her seemed far too horrific for words.

“That
is
what’s going to happen, right? You have been telling me about everything that’s been going on, right Kei? Don’t you dare hide things from me. You know I’ll find out one way or another,” Tasha said, giving Kiara a makeshift glare, pierced by a wide smile.

Kiara almost couldn’t meet Tasha’s gaze.

“Not entirely,” she started, wanting to choke on the words. “I did call things off with Damien, that’s true. I didn’t think it was fair to him… Well, that, and I knew he would have called it off soon anyway – I can’t imagine a man like him would keep chasing a marketing specialist for very long. But I have an appointment tomorrow, and if I don’t go, Eliza will skin me alive.”

“What appointment,” Tasha asked, quirking her brow. By the guilty look Kiara was wearing, it must have been easy to figure out what she meant. “Oh, no! Kei! I thought you would never do that! What happened to all that conviction?”

Kiara curled up a bit tighter, Tasha’s words verbalizing the exact same questions she’d been asking herself all that time. Tasha put the popcorn bowl down on the table and pulled Kiara into a warm embrace, keeping her close.

“Come on, talk to me. What’s going on? I know the hormones must be messing with your head, but you sounded so sure when we talked about it before. I mean, I’ll support you, of course, if that’s what you really want to do. But is it?”

“I don’t know,” Kiara admitted with a small voice. “Eliza made it very clear that if I don’t go through with it, she will make my life hell. She’ll ruin my career, my reputation – I won’t be able to get a job in my field anywhere anymore. And do I really want to bring up a baby while working at some burger joint for fourteen hours a day? Is that what’s best for a baby? A mother who can’t protect it and a father who doesn’t want it? I just feel like I might be making the worst choice for the child no matter what I do.”

Tasha brushed her hand over her hair and cradled her. The human contact felt good. Kiara wished it was Damien she could be opening her heart to, but just being able to speak the words helped a little. Not to clear her head, but at least to lift a bit of that horrible weight that was pressing down on her chest.

“What do you want to do?” Tasha asked after a while.

“I don’t think that matters,” Kiara admitted, regret palpable in her voice.

“It always matters.”

Kiara didn’t have anything to say to that. Yes, she knew she should fight Eliza, fight her with all her might, but how much could she fight until she ran out of strength to go on? When the easier option also seemed like the kinder option, things got awfully fuzzy for Kiara.

It was a small bit of consolation that she wouldn’t have to really make the decision until the following morning. A sleepless night awaited her, and through it all, she felt that she’d not only let down herself, her baby and Damien, but her best friend as well. As much as Kiara was sure Tasha would support her, she wasn’t sure that her roommate would ever understand if she decided to take the offer Eliza was dangling in front of her.

And, worst of all, she wasn’t sure if she herself could forgive herself if she went through with it, or if she didn’t.

No way to win…

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Damien

“I still say that we need to trust tradition! Sunstreak has been doing great work for us for many years, and I don’t think it is right to just cast them aside!” Eliza argued passionately, her hair a violent mane around her head.

Damien leant back, watching the spirited debate going on amongst the board. They’d been there for hours now, and he was growing rather tired of the whole thing. Both sides made good points, but as with many situations that were allowed to fester for too long, this one was getting to a point where no democratic decision could really be made.

“Tradition! You speak about us like we are fossils!” James Abbott roared, red in the face.

Damien smirked to himself. The irony was that when talking about fossils, James was probably the most likely candidate in the room to be referred to as one. He had been the last person he’d expected to be swayed by the modern, upstart Mirrorview Group – just went to show that some things couldn’t really be foreseen and that some dinosaurs could adapt.

All morning, Damien had been trying his best to ignore the elephant in the room. He couldn’t really be partial to either side. He wanted to scream at the top of his lungs that they should go with Mirrorview. Not just because it had been his beautiful, breathtaking Kiara giving the presentation and running point on the offer, but also because it was the riskier and more daring of the two options presented to them. But doing that wouldn’t have been ethical.

Still, the longer he sat there, listening to both sides hash it out over coffee and bagels, the more he was sure that Mirrorview was the way to go – morals be damned! He was just about to say something to that effect when he noticed Eliza check her watch again. She’d been glancing at it every few minutes for the past hour and a half.