I Choose You (The Billionaire Brothers Series) (36 page)

A part of me was telling me I should just leave and go home, that this fight would yield no desirable results. But then, that would be me running, too. That would be me being too much of a coward to take the hard truth.

For all I knew, this was what he wanted: for me to leave out of anger and vexation. That way, it would seem as though
I
was the one who ran from the brashness of this situation and not him.

If we kept running from each other, we’d never be together. Someone had to stay. Someone had to wait. Someone had to have faith.

Therefore, I wasn’t going to leave.

I had pulled the runner on men ever since I lost my V-card. I ran from commitment, love, relationships. I ran from sharing myself, too selfish to do so. I ran because I never before had a reason to stay.

Not this time. This time, I wanted commitment. I wanted a relationship. I wanted love. I wanted to share myself. This time, I wanted to stay. There was a reason to stay. That reason was because Trevillo Marco-Dean Nelson had my heart. He had taken it because it belonged to him, and I never want him to give it back.

He barged into my empty, pointless life and filled it to the brim with himself. All of himself. He found all the dark, numb corners, shone his own dark light in them and made me feel. He wasn’t an angel or a white knight, a savior, or a safe, innocuous, decent man. He was just Trevillo Nelson — as flawed as the fallen angel with sins unhidden, and I loved every bit of him from his filthy mouth to his twisted edge. I loved it all.

So I wasn’t going to move a muscle out of this penthouse. I was going to stay and let life and love prove to me they weren’t overrated.

An entire week blew past, and Trevillo hadn’t made a single visit to the apartment. Neither did he call — well, he didn’t call
me
.

He spoke frequently with Mary about my wellbeing, and he even phoned Marsha, apologizing for keeping her from her family and business, and told her he would have her daughter picked up so she could stay at the penthouse with us, too, until he ‘got back’.

I was a bit surprised when Marsha agreed to that. Why?

Well, Claire, Marsha’s three year old daughter, was an enigma. Marsha sequestered her from this side of the world. She was my best friend, yet I’d only seen her daughter twice: on the cold, rainy night Claire was born, and another time when I’d made a surprise visit at Marsha’s house; Claire had been five months old then — a chubby bundle of kicking and constant wailing.

Most of Claire’s three year old life was spent in Silicon Valley with Marsha’s sister. One would almost think Marsha didn’t love her child, what with the way she kept her from both herself and her friends. So much so, that sometimes I forgot she even had a child. That damn Prime Douche!

Trevillo also relayed notice through Marsha that the deadline for Skylark’s completion was extended. For me, work at Skylark was on hold, and I needn’t worry about leaving the apartment.

As if I was ever going to
. I only left the apartment once, and that was to get a check-up at my gynecologist, then straight back ‘home’.

I had a strong feeling Trevillo’s demand that I don’t leave the apartment was another test of his, to see if I’d respond by doing the opposite of what he said in rebellion.

Normally, I would have done the opposite, especially when it came to work, because I was serious about my work, never allowing anything to get in between, and he knew that. Not this time, though.

If the boss said work was on hold, then work was on hold.

The following week, I tried to convince Mary I didn’t need a caretaker by doing a couple reps of jumping-jacks, sit-ups and push-ups, showing her I was walking, talking, breathing and living just as any other normal human being. Surprisingly, she agreed, and passed on that bit to ‘Mr. Nelson’. Then, she was out.

Trevillo knew he was being a supreme dick, so his ass was trying to surround me with people, in the hope they would blur my vision of him being a supreme dick. If his craven ass didn’t want to be with me anymore, then he should meet me eye to eye and tell me that.

Dick
.

“Really, Marsh, aren’t you losing money at your salon by wasting your days here with me?” I asked her one day.

Having Marsha around was great, I loved her. Her craziness helped ease my mind off things at times. However, I figured if she wasn’t around, if
no one
was around for that matter, Trevillo would be forced to face me. He wouldn’t call Jahleel; I was sure of that. Plus, if Jahleel were to ever know what happened, he’d fight Trevillo to the death to get me away from him.

“Well, yeah. But you mean more to me than money, Krissy K.”

She was sitting in a sofa chair across from me in the living room, looking rather fidgety, her feet close together, bouncing up and down, her fingers drumming restlessly over her kneecaps as she stared at the television. I linked her anxiousness to Claire’s pending arrival. Claire was supposed to be with us since last week, but Marsha had kept putting it off.

Dragging her jittery gaze from the television, she looked over at me with sincerity. “I just want to be sure you’re one hundred percent A-okay before I leave your side. What happened was pretty fucked-up. You almost
died
, and you’re acting like it isn’t a big deal. I don’t know how you do it.”

That’s because losing Trevillo is a much bigger deal
, I mused, flicking my cellphone over and over in my hand, hoping, as I did each day, it would ring, and Trevillo’s name would flash across the screen.

But it never did. And, at the end of each day when I didn’t receive that hoped-for call, I sent him a text message:
You. Are. A. Coward.

He never texted back.

Marsha was still being a big bundle of nerves across from me, and I decided to ask her a question that would hopefully piss her off and send her leaving in a fit of pique.

“Is he paying you to stay with me?”

Her feet stopped bouncing, but she didn’t look at me when she acrimoniously bit out, “He wanted to, but I declined. Because a
real
friend shouldn’t have to be paid to be around.” Her offended eyes flicked over to me. “Instead of being a bitch to everyone, you could say thank — ”

Abruptly, she stopped and narrowed her eyes at me. This was Marsha I was dealing with, I should’ve known she’d catch on to my ploy. “Nice try, Krissy K. But, since you wanna play that game … ” She smirked. “How did it feel to fuck your brother?”

Feigning indifference, I started to ask, “How do you know — ”

“Oh, c’mon! Don’t even try to act like nothing happened between you two,” she said with a scoff. “You were all but screwing each other on the dance floor at the club. Tongues and deep kissing and ass grabbing, then all of a sudden, you were both missing. It wouldn’t take a seasoned whore to figure out what happened.”

“I didn’t … we never … we only — ”

Marsha sucked air through her teeth. “You don’t have to explain. That shit was inevitable. It was obvious to everyone but you that JK’s balls deep in lust with you, Krissy K.”

I was never oblivious to it
, I wanted to tell her.
I just purposely and spitefully ignored his feelings. Same as he’d ignored mine when I was drowning in them.

Looking over at Marsha, I knew she wanted to hate me but couldn’t, because I was her best friend, and she had no choice but to love me. Marsha had always been in love with Jahleel, and for some dumb reason she wouldn’t let herself stop loving him. All he ever did was use her, and she let him. Over and over. Trying to give her advice was futile. So I butted out and let her do what made her feel … fulfilled.

I, however, knew Jahleel. And I knew for a fact he was never going to settle with Marsha. It didn’t matter how strong or high her hope candle flamed.

To cool off the tension, I got up and went to the kitchen for a drink. Feeling peckish, I grabbed a vanilla Greek yogurt and plopped down on a barstool at the breakfast bar.

A few minutes later, I heard the elevator doors open, and there was the squeal of a little girl’s voice saying “Mommy!”

Claire had arrived.

I decided to give Marsha some alone time with her daughter and went to grab a shower. Truth was, kids weren’t exactly my scene. I wouldn’t say I hated them, because that would make people look at me like I was a she-devil. But, for me, kids were annoying: chatty, whiny, and asked too many damn questions. So I kept as far away from them as possible, lest I might do something like pinch them, gag them, or stuff them in a barrel and roll it down a hill.

An hour later, fresh from my shower, I wandered back out to the living room, scrolling through my cellphone. Claire said something, and I glanced up. I felt an invisible fist punch to my stomach as I stopped dead in my tracks at the sight of Marsha and Claire.

It wasn’t unusual to see a mother bonding with her daughter, no. It was that the daughter was the spitting image of …

“Oh my God,” I whispered, and at those words, twin tears rolled down Marsha’s cheeks as she kept her eyes trained on the television.

Claire was sitting on her mother’s lap, looking up at me with that curious gaze children tend to look at unfamiliar people with.

I felt all the blood drain from my face as her light-gold eyes grew bored with looking at me and shifted back to the television. Her mass of thick, sandy-brown hair was caught up in a curly ponytail, and her nose … her lips … everything was …

“Oh my God,” I whispered again, unable to move from the spot where I was rooted.

Marsha still hadn’t looked in my direction. A few shocking minutes past before I finally found words other than, ‘Oh my God’.

“Does he know?”

Marsha shook her head from side to side, and the tears came harder, silently.

Taking tentative steps toward the sofa, I sat down beside her. “But, why would you keep it from him?”

That did it. Marsha broke down. She dropped her face in her hands and began crying. I reached over and started to lift Claire onto my lap, but she slapped my hand and squealed, “No! You maken my mommy cwy. Stop maken my mommy cwy!”

I promptly moved my hands and gaped.
This is definitely a mini Marsha.

“I-I can’t,” Marsha finally said.

“Why not? He deserves to know, Marsh.”

She wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands. “Because … I did it on my own.”

What?

“Marsh, I’m pretty sure it takes two to dance that dance.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “But, he always uses a condom.”

Expelling a breath, I flopped back on the sofa, confounded. “Okay, I’m confused. I’m not sure how — ”

“Turkey baster.”

Way past bewilderment at this point, my eyes blinked at fifty reps per second as I asked, “W-w-what?”

“I stole his sperm, okay?” She looked at me then. “I stole his sperm and got myself pregnant!”

What the fuck?

I couldn’t begin to imagine what expression I wore at that moment. “But, I don’t understand … you were engaged.”

“I did it before Dev proposed,” she explained. “I never really thought it would work. I still hid and slept with him even when I was with Dev. Then one night, I don’t know what got into me, I just did it. I was so consumed with love for him … ”

She trailed off and wiped away a fresh set of tears as they poured down her face. “Shortly after, Dev proposed. I accepted because I honestly didn’t think it would work. Dev had suspicions after Claire was born. Took a paternity test … he was so distraught. Dev loved me to no end, Krissy K. Would’ve given me his own heart if mine failed. Yet … ”

… you continued to let Grade-A Asshole use you like toilet paper to wipe his ass, while you flush a good, promising life laid out for you right down the drain.

I was reeling. This was some obsessive, messed-up shit. To think I hated Dev all these years, nicknaming him Prime Douche, badmouthing him … the poor guy.

“You can’t keep it from him,” I firmly told her. “I don’t care how Claire came about, but she’s his, and he deserves to know.”

With pleading eyes, she begged, “Please, Krissy K, don’t tell him! I just wanted
you
to know. You’re my best friend, and it was eating me up. But don’t tell him.”

“You know I love him too much, Marsh,” I replied, shaking my head. “He’s everything to me. I can’t keep something like this from him.”

“You
can’t
tell him,” she cried. “Please — ”

Abruptly, I shot up from the sofa, suddenly feeling pissed-off at the whole goddamn world. “You’re screwed-up in the head, Marsh, so I’ll give you some time to sort your shit out. But that little girl is not going to see her fourth birthday without knowing who her father is. If you don’t tell him before that,
I
will!”

Stomping off to the bedroom, I slammed the door behind me, flopped faced-down onto the bed, and screamed into the comforter. I wasn’t sure what I was more angry about: the fact my first love had a daughter he didn’t know about, who also hated my guts and might never speak to me again, or the fact that my new love no longer wanted me to be his chosen.

Screw you, Life. Screw you!