Fated (BBW BWWM Billionaire Romance): A Second Chance Novella (Tied to Him: My BFF Book 1) (5 page)

I’m rendered speechless by horror and rage. The thought of anything happening to Nina, and the thought of my dad having anything to do with it, plus the idea that she thinks I wouldn’t scorch the earth searching for her—everything’s fighting to get out of me at once.

“Needless to say, I started to feel a bit scared. Before I could say anything, he said, ‘If you don’t agree, I’m afraid I’ll have to disinherit Brent, and the three of you will have to figure things out on your own. I know you care for Brent—think about what it would be like to fall from where he is. I know you’re used to the life you live, but Brent isn’t cut out for it.’”

Now I know Dad probably just said that as part of his manipulation tactic, but my blood still boils.

I can’t read Nina’s expression as she watches me. It is stormy yet soft, and I wonder what else is going on in her head.

“Anyway,” she continues, “I said, ‘So you want to pay me to go away, never contacting Brent again,’ and he said, ‘Brent has better matches lined up for him, and he is set to choose one any day now. The scandal won’t be as disruptive for him, as there are still plenty of women willing to marry a wealthy man with a bastard child, but think of your daughter feeling on the outside looking in once they have kids of their own—proper legal Colton heirs. How do you think your child would feel if she knew you had a chance to make her life very, very comfortable and you refused? How do you think she’ll feel when only the children from his legal union are acknowledged publicly? Surely you don’t want her to grow up feeling like the proverbial red-headed stepchild?’

“‘But she already knows Brent’s her father,’ I said. ‘She’ll feel that way any way you slice it—whether we’re living it up in Bermuda or fighting it out where we are now.’ Either way, something wasn’t adding up about what he was saying. Why would he pay me to leave you alone if you were set to marry some high-class debutante or whatever anyway? The problem would take care of itself—it’s not like I’d go after a guy who’s taken. Then I figured, maybe he thought I’d run straight to the Enquirer with the story or something, but even that seemed silly; I doubt
I have a billionaire’s love child!
starring a nobody would sell many mags, and how on earth could it hurt your family name? The girls always look like the losers in those situations—like gold-digging skanks—and I wasn’t about to do that to myself. Then I realized it really was just about making sure no one knew she’s biologically connected to you, and the most obvious reason of all presented itself to me.”

She gives me a sort of furtive look that tugs at my heart.

“Maybe it’s a race thing, I figured. Maybe the old bastard doesn’t want anyone to know he has black family members now, and paying me off means he gets to erase us from his legacy—a small price to pay to keep things pure.”

I really don’t know how to respond to that—I can’t exactly tell her she’s wrong; in fact, the more I think about it, the more I realize she’s probably right. There’s a definite pattern to the women he encouraged me to date and the ones he frowned upon.

“Anyway, once a few days passed and I didn’t hear back from you, I started to think about his offer.”

My emotions take a sharp turn again.

“You can’t be serious—how could you even think about doing that to me again?”

“How could I not? Where the hell have you been the past few days?” she says angrily, dark eyes flashing. “I’ve been calling you over and over and not a single response. I’ve been here before, don’t you remember? I do—after countless calls and texts and instant messages, you disappeared and never looked back, never checked in once to say hi. This looked like the same thing to me!”

We are beginning to attract attention.

“Let’s finish this in my car,” I say, unable to think of another place we can privately duke it out.

“
S
o let
me get this straight,” I begin as we settle in, “you were happy to let my dad pay you off to rip my child from me and tear my heart to pieces? Who the hell
are
you?”

“The woman you keep leaving behind, Brent! Look at it from my perspective for once—what evidence did I have that you were coming back to us? That you weren’t going to abandon me again? You’re a billionaire, and I’m only one of millions of women you could have. I had zero reasons to think you’d stick around, Brent. Zero!”

“It’s only been a few days—how could you consider doing something so momentous after just a few days?”

“Do you have any idea what it’s like watching Bianca get so excited about seeing you, then watch it get chipped away every day you don’t show up? A few busy days to you feels quite different in our household. She asks me all the time what time you’re coming and I can’t give her an answer because anything I say she’ll plant firmly in her mind and start looking for you, and I cannot bear to see disappointment on her face when you don’t show up whenever I say.”

“I deliberately didn’t tell her when I’d be back—I just said soon.”

“Yeah, you obviously don’t know a thing about kids.”

“And whose fault was that, me not being a parent? You took that away from me without batting an eye!”

“Oh, give me a break with the melodrama—I did more than bat an eye. You know how hard I tried to reach you back then, so don’t try to blame me! Brent, you really have some nerve thinking I owed you more than I’d already given. I was willing to give you everything and you threw me away like last week’s trash. I at least tried reaching out to you—what the hell did you do? You had to know there was a risk when you came inside me, yet you never even bothered to double-check! It’s your fucking fault how this went down, Brent—if I could have found you, maybe you would have known about Bianca sooner, so don’t blame me—blame the flaky, careless version of you.”

Shit. Well, she sure as hell had a point.

Why the hell didn’t I check back in at least once? I cared about her and I let myself get steered away from her in every way.

I often wondered how she was doing and I never even texted.

Even after Stacey and I broke up, I didn’t bother, and there’s really no excuse for that.

“You don’t think it looked like the old you had reappeared to me?” she continues, her voice softer, the quality of it a bit raw. “Here we are—you find out about Bianca, you tell her you’ll be in her life, yet she hasn’t seen you in days, and you wonder why I might have once felt that it was best for Bianca not to introduce her to you?”

Then she lets out a bitter chuckle. “Now she thinks you got lost again and pretends like she has accepted it. Then your dad suddenly shows up and offers me a chance to start over, to possibly wipe her memory of you—the flake. To cut ties and rebuild a whole new life that doesn’t involve you disappointing her over and over. I figured it’s still early enough and she still has a chance to get over you, regardless of how I felt.” She suddenly looks away. “You’d be amazed at the things you’ll think of doing on behalf of your kid,” she says quietly.

Nina is brimming with all sorts of emotions, and I feel like a total dick.

Underneath her anger, I sense that she still cares deeply for me.

I do wish I could blame someone else—Nina, my dad—but it really all comes down to me. I was careless and I fucked up royally.

I let out a heavy breath.

“I really didn’t mean to hurt your feelings back then, Nina…”

“Hurt my feelings?” She stares at me wondrously. “You broke my fucking heart! Do you have any idea how much I gave you that night, beyond my virginity?”

Of course, I did. Her love, her body and pretty much her soul; she got stuck raising my baby alone. The seed I’d planted in her went on to determine the course of all sorts of aspects of her life.

“You turned that moment into a slam-bam-thank-you-ma’am—even after I told you how I felt for you. You fucked me for no other reason than your pride or whatever the fuck that sudden jealousy was!”

Her voice has gone shaky and her eyes have watered.

It kills me to see how much she’s fighting herself not to cry, her raw pain on display.

“I just don’t know what came over me. The thought of some other guy being with you completely fried my brain in a way I rarely experience. But Nina, you must know how much you mean to me—I’ve told you so many times…”

“Oh, Christ, here we go again. They’re just words, Brent. There’s this old saying—maybe you’ve heard of it—something about actions speaking louder than words? You’ve told me all about appreciating me before and you still left. Getting the sound of crickets when you reach out to someone sure as hell doesn’t make one feel like they mean a lot.”

I am crushed again as I imagine how abandoned and lonely she must have felt, how broken I left her. All I want to do is make everything better for her—whatever it takes.

Nina brings out such extreme emotions in me and it frightens me—I don’t like the lack of control I feel around her and everything that has to do with her. I lost control when it seemed someone else would have her, and I lost my mind when I found out about Bianca. Still, our paths keep crossing, despite time and distance and so many other things between us, and feeling like someone else is pulling our strings freaks me out, but at the same time, I’m grateful to whatever this force is because it kept bringing us together, and now, it has glued us together.

My dad’s got an earful coming.

I have a sense of duty when it comes to my father, of course—a commitment to our legacy. But my sense of duty toward my child trumps both.

“I’m glad you told me before doing anything because the old man was bluffing. Even if he tried, there’s not a whole lot he can take from me. The work I put in built a hell of a solid foundation for me, and my name isn’t only tied up in my dad’s companies and investments. I busted my ass to make my own money, and I have shit-tons of it locked away—far out of his reach. He can’t touch me, Nina—not in that way, so you had no need to worry about me falling from grace.”

I realize she might have left out another part of why she considered my dad’s offer. Maybe she agreed it was better for me to be left with my billions and debutantes for my own sake.

Then something dawns on me.

“But at some point, you were considering staying with me, even if I was suddenly broke?”

She looks at me in disbelief.

“Of course! Brent, don’t you get it? I…” She stops and turns away, but I know what she was going to say and I need to hear it.

“Say it, Nina, please.”

She slowly looks back at me, tears making her eyes shimmer.

“I still love you,” she says sadly—like she wishes it wasn’t true.

I can’t help but place a peck on her lips then, surprising her into a gasp.

“I love you too, Nina,” I say, and saying those words cause a massive flood of relief to wash over me.

All tension eases away, and I can’t believe how light I suddenly feel.

All this time, that’s all I needed to do?

Nina’s tears fall and her face starts crumpling, but I can see she is still fighting off a cry as she quickly wipes her face.

“You can’t just fucking disappear,” she says. “You could have texted or something—let me know when you planned to talk. You have to let me know what’s up; you have to check in!”

“I know, and I’m sorry I took so long, but I’ve been making arrangements for you guys at home the past few days. I don’t ever want to be away from you again, Nina, and all I’ve been doing is working on making sure that doesn’t happen. As mad as I was at you, I wasn’t letting you go again.”

Her face slackens.

“Wait, you want to move us into your mansion?”

“Of course! What other option is there? My child is not staying in that neighborhood, and I want you both with me.”

Nina fixes her face and mouth as if to protest, but nothing comes out of her lips.

Yeah, I’d have trouble coming up with pros of living where they are now too. A shit-ton of cons, though—no doubt.

“Fine,” she finally says. “But I want Bianca to stay at her school. It’s a good one!”

“I have my assistant on it, and if she finds that it is indeed a good one, Bianca gets to stay.”

“You can’t have things totally your way, Brent—not all the time. We’re gonna have to compromise.”

“Absolutely! And when the time for dissent comes, we’ll deal with it and present pros and cons, and whoever makes the best argument wins.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“You mean, just to make you feel better, I should let you win here and there?”

She nods, smiling a bit.

I shake my head firmly. “Not when it comes to the security of a Colton heir. You are way out of your league when it comes to how this part of the world works, Nina, and if you want to insist Bianca only eats gluten-free or something, fine, but I will not have my daughter in a vulnerable position just so you can feel good about getting your way, understood?”

Her eyes widen a little, reflecting several emotions. If I’m not seeing things, I swear I see respect, and even desire in them. Well, my voice did have some added base to it.

“Yes, sir!” she says, and I can tell she meant it to come out sounding mocking, but she fails miserably. She likes what she just saw; she’s good with me putting my foot down.

She has no idea what she’s in for.

“Much better,” I say. “Alternatively, you can use ‘Mr. Colton…’”

She lightly punches me in the arm.

“There’s another matter we have to take care of,” I say soberly, and she regards me warily.

“I’m going to arrange to be added to her birth certificate soon, and Bianca will begin to be formally integrated into the family, but I don’t like the idea of having an illegitimate child.”

“Well, there’s nothing you can do about that, can you? Too late! She was born that way.”

“You’re wrong, Nina—there is something I can do about that.”

I squeeze her hands then reach into my glove box and pull out a small box.

Even while I stewed over the situation, I had no doubt what I wanted most of all.

Two days after our silent falling-out I picked a ring out, and now, two days after that, I finally get to show it to her.