Blue Lines: The Assassins Series: A Loveswept Contemporary Romance (12 page)

As he parted from Alla, Erik glanced back at Piper and she knew right then that the
reason she put up with his crap was that she loved him. The more she thought about
her unreasonable support of this man, the more sense it made—she had been hopelessly
in love with him. Gah, was she crazy? She must be, because if she told anyone how
she felt about this guy they wouldn’t friggin’ believe her.

She held Erik’s gaze until Cooper wrapped him up in a backslapping hug and said, “Good
to see you, son. Real good.”

Erik chuckled.

“It’s so good to see you, Piper!” Erik’s mom greeted her with enthusiasm—boy, wait
till she hears the news.… For the longest time Piper thought that Alla was their real
mother, but Erik had talked a lot about his family when they’d spent the night together
and had told her he and Jakob were adopted. Piper had never expected that. They favored
Alla so much probably because Erik’s real mom and Alla were sisters. Alla had dark
hair like Erik’s and it was styled in a cute pixie cut. Her eyes were dark brown and
very exotic looking and she had a bright smile that resembled Erik’s. Alla was a bit
on the tall side, but beside her giant of a husband she looked tiny.

Cooper was such a great guy and Piper knew he loved Erik unconditionally. They were
never blessed with children of their own and made up for it by loving Erik and Jakob
all the more. It was refreshing but also unnerving because Piper had no idea how Alla
was going to handle Erik and Piper being married and pregnant.

Looking over Alla’s shoulder, Piper noticed her parents had entered the room, with
Harper close behind them. Reese was there, too, with Ally on her hip, and Jakob was
leaning against the wall with a grin on his face.

Isn’t this convenient
, she thought with a sigh.

Alla pulled back with a puzzled look and glanced down at Piper’s growing midsection.

She then looked up at Piper’s face and asked, “Honey?”

Piper gave her a nervous smile.

“Yeah, there is a baby in there,” she said with a laugh.

Alla turned looking for Piper’s mom, Rowan, and said, “She’s pregnant? You didn’t
tell me that!”

With a tight smile, Rowan said, “We just found out the other day.”

“Oh,” Alla said with a “whoops” sort of look on her face.

Piper bit into her lip when all the eyes fell on her. She felt stupid and knew that
her whole family and now Alla and Cooper were looking at her as if she had fucked
up again. She wanted to burst out in tears but before she could even do anything,
she felt someone come up behind her, and then a hand rested on her stomach. Looking
up, she met Erik’s dark eyes. He looked just as nervous as she did but for some reason,
she felt comforted by him.

Erik turned from her and was about to address their families. Piper watched as a smile
crossed his face and he told them, “We are excited. It was unplanned and a complete
surprise but we are happy.”

Piper wanted to laugh at his lie, but she remembered that she was a part of it. She
put on a smile of her own, then noticed everyone looking at them with shocked faces.

“Whoa, excuse me?” Harper asked as Jakob came off the wall and to her side. Up until
now Harper knew that Piper was pregnant; Piper just never told her sister it was Erik’s
baby.

“Erik?” Jakob asked as Erik chuckled.

“Guys, come on, don’t act so surprised,” Erik said. “You must have noticed Piper and
I had a thing for one another.”

Rowan’s mouth was moving but no words were coming out. Harper’s face was red with
anger as Jakob stood with a silly grin on his face, “Stop playing, Erik. What is going
on?”

Erik massaged Piper’s shoulders. “We are having a baby. It’s due in September, right,
gorgeous?”

Piper looked up at him with what she hoped he saw as a warning look. He was laying
it on pretty thick and no one was going to believe this shit.

“Yes, the twenty-first.”

They gave each other fake smiles before looking back at their family. Rowan was still
blinking uncontrollably, her mouth moving, while Piper’s father, Blake, stood beside
her, his eyes locked on Erik. Piper looked over at her twin to see Reese glaring at
Erik, too. Alla and
Cooper looked shocked as well, and Piper was starting to feel self-conscious. This
was bad. They should have done this another way.

“I remember everyone being a little happier when Harper and Jakob announced Ally,”
Erik added, hugging Piper close to his body.

She loved when he’d hugged her all those months ago but it felt different now since
she knew that he didn’t mean it.

“Um, you’re six months, Piper, and we are just finding out about this?” Alla asked.
“Erik, why didn’t you tell us?”

“We weren’t sure how we were going to do this,” Erik lied. “I wasn’t sure if I was
ready to be a father and kind of freaked for a while. We broke up but then I decided
I couldn’t be without Piper any longer and asked her to marry me yesterday and she
said yes.”

“You’re married?” Harper, Rowan, and Reese yelled all at once.

Erik laughed. “Surprise!”

Piper elbowed him as she nodded.

“We’re in love. We want to be a family.”

“This is insane,” Harper said, looking over at Jakob.

“Oh, Piper,” Rowan said, shaking her head as she held her hand over her mouth. There
it was. The ultimate disappointed look from her mother.

“Piper, baby, why didn’t you tell us?” Blake asked, but Piper couldn’t look at her
father. She couldn’t look into his eyes and lie.

She couldn’t.

“It was all so sudden, Daddy.”

Minutes passed with only Ally making a noise. Piper’s heart was pounding against her
ribs and she could feel Erik’s hands trembling. Talk about uncomfortable moments.

Finally Cooper cleared his throat before saying, “I think we need to talk, son, outside.
Piper, no offense to you, sweetie, don’t think that we aren’t happy to have you in
our family, and having our grandchild, but I need to talk to Erik.”

Nodding her head, since she didn’t feel at all offended, she said, “Yes, I understand.”

She glanced back at her family as Erik pressed his lips to her temple. Her traitorous
eyes fell shut at his gentle touch, and when his lips fell to her ear, she took in
a deep breath as he whispered, “Stay strong, stick to the story, and everything will
be fine.”

He gave her one last kiss on the cheek and followed Alla and Cooper out the door.
Jakob was close behind and when the door shut, Harper started yelling. “Are you fucking
crazy? You don’t love him! He sleeps with everything that walks!”

“Piper, sweetie, what have you done?” Rowan asked.

Piper took in another deep breath and ran her hands through her hair.

“Is it really that crazy for you all to believe that I love him?”

“Yes!” Harper and Reese and what seemed like the entire room cried out together.

“He’s a dick!” Reese added.

“And he probably gave you everything from the clap to herpes!” Harper said as Piper
shook her head. “Why didn’t you tell me this the other day? You said you were pregnant
and that was it. Why didn’t you tell me then who the father was?”

“Harper, it wasn’t time. I wasn’t ready to say, and really, you guys, he isn’t a bad
guy. He is good to me and I love him,” Piper argued.

“Piper, baby, why didn’t you tell us about the pregnancy back when it first happened?
We could have helped you. Erik isn’t going to stay; you know how he is,” Rowan said,
her hands moving with every word.

“Wait a minute,” Harper said. “I know what’s going on—Piper, he is using you for something.
What it is I don’t know, but I do know Erik Titov does not want a wife and baby. He
is Jakob’s total opposite. He’s told Jakob and me both over and over again!”

“Now you’re stuck with his baby and you’re gonna be a single mom because he is going
to leave,” Reese said with a disgusted look on her face.

Piper was getting pissed. She usually could take the females of the Allen clan coming
at her, but for some reason she was about to blow a gasket this time. She was still
so overwhelmed by how much her life had changed. She hated lying to them, she wanted
to tell them the truth, but most of all she wanted the support of her family. She
wanted the love they showered Harper with, not this. This was wrong. They were supposed
to love her no matter what! No matter whom she loved or who knocked her up. They were
supposed to support her.

Putting her hands on her hips, Piper let them have it. “And what is wrong with that?
What would be so wrong about me being a single mother if it came down to it?” Turning
to Harper and Reese, she continued: “I take great care of Ally, and when I teach at
the studio I’m amazing.” Her mom was standing next to her twin as she said, “Yeah,
I tend to mess up and make bad
choices, Mom, but at least I’m still a functioning adult. I don’t ask for money. I
don’t sleep on your couch. I am happy, and now I am having a baby, and I have a husband.
Why can’t y’all be happy for me?”

Whatever happened to unconditional love? Piper’s disappointment in her family probably
equaled their own in her.

“You’re emotional from the pregnancy,” Harper said, “and Erik doesn’t really want
this. Piper, please believe me. Leave him, and come live with me, I’ll help you, and
then we can talk about adoption or something. You don’t want this. You are just starting
your life with the book stuff and everything; you don’t want a baby.” She pleaded
softly but Piper didn’t want to hear that.

She did want her baby. What Harper was saying sounded very self-serving.

“No, I do want this. This is my baby and that is my husband! We are married. Leave
me be, I am happy,” Piper said. “What’s done is done. Nothing is going to change,
so just let it be.”

Her father spoke, fortunately putting an end to the ongoing squabble.

“She is right. Even if we don’t agree or think she is making the wrong choice, Rowan,
we always said we would let them make their own decisions and hope that we raised
them right. What do we know? Erik could be a different man than what we all believe
him to be.”

Reese scoffed as Harper shook her head. Rowan crossed her arms and tears pooled in
her eyes. Blake looked over at Piper. She hated to disappoint him but that’s all she
saw on his face, disappointment, and it killed her.

He cleared his throat. “It isn’t our place to tell you how to live your life, Piper
Madison. All we can do is be here for you if you need us. You are an adult now, free
to make your own decisions, and we will always love you. Don’t forget that.”

Good, because Piper thought she would probably need them sooner rather than later.

* * *

“Erik, please tell me what is going on,” Cooper said once the door shut behind Jakob.

Erik crossed his arms and shrugged his shoulders.

“I got married yesterday and we are having a baby in September.”

“Yes, I heard that; I’m trying to figure out how the hell this happened.”

“I thought you were playing the field,” Jakob said. “You always said you’d never get
married or have kids; even just last week you made that comment.”

“Erik, why didn’t you tell us? We would have liked to have been there for you,” Alla
cried.

“Oh, Mom, come on. It isn’t about that. It’s just that I freaked, and didn’t want
any of it. I went on a—excuse my language—a screwing spree and it always came back
to her. I missed her, I guess, in a way, I don’t know, but my mind always went to
her, and now that I’ve convinced her to stay with me and marry me, I don’t want to
be anywhere else.”
God, I said that too easily for it to be a total lie
.

Jakob started to laugh and Erik glared over at him. “That,” Jakob declared, “is the
biggest crock of shit I’ve ever heard. What the hell is going on? Give it to us straight
so we can help you. Is she bribing you?”

“Jake, that’s your sister-in-law!” Alla shrieked.

“And he is my brother. I don’t think Piper would do that, she is a good girl, but
Erik isn’t going to give up all the females in the world for one. He isn’t that guy;
we all know this and have accepted it.”

“She’s worth it.”

Erik looked down at the ground and rolled his shoulders as everyone’s gaze fell on
him. Any other time, he would have given it to Jakob straight, told him the truth,
but Erik knew that once he did, Jakob would rush to Harper, who would go to Elli,
and everything would blow out of control. The only way to keep the peace was to lie,
but the line that came out of his mouth wasn’t really a lie. Piper was the one girl
he would give everything up for if he wanted to do that, but he didn’t. In just a
couple of months things would calm down and Elli would get off his back. Then he could
go back to his life, because there was no way he wanted to live as a one-woman man
for the rest of his days.

Not even for Piper. He was too messed up for that.

“Erik, are you sure? We’ll help you any way we can,” Cooper stressed.

Erik nodded as he smiled.

“Everything is fine. It’s new and maybe I wasn’t ready to settle down before, but
I am now. We are going to be fine; we are going to raise our child and we are going
to be happy. If it doesn’t work out, at least we tried, and I know that we’ll always
be friends.”

Alla shook her head before saying, “Oh, Erik, I’m so proud of you right now.”

She then wrapped Erik up in her arms and gave him a loud kiss on the cheek.

Guilt washed over Erik as he held Alla. He was a dirty, despicable man for lying to
the three people who loved him unconditionally, but before he could even think of
telling them the truth, Alla said, “Well, thank God we are moving here, huh, Cooper?”

“You are moving here?” Erik asked.

“Yup, Cooper is retiring and of course we wanted to be close to you boys and Ally.
We were going to tell everyone inside but I’m not even sure I am welcomed in this
house,” Alla said. “I can tell that the Allens are not very happy with you, but that
will all change in time. They’ll love you just as much as we do.”