King's Baby - A Bad Boy Romance (22 page)

“Shit, now I’m
freezing,” I say.

“Well duh, you’re all
wet, and you know my mama keeps the thermostat at like 70. Ya wanna go back
outside?”

“God, no. I’d rather
freeze. I can’t breathe out there.” I turn onto my side and curl into a ball,
watching Savannah strut around the
kitchen dripping
wet, fixing us some sweet tea with not so much as a shiver.

“You gonna be okay to
go to fireworks tonight?”

“Yeah, I should be
fine once the sun goes down.” I hope. I really don’t want to miss it. Savannah is
dating a boy from our little group of friends, and everyone is getting together
to watch the fireworks and build a bonfire on the beach. Savannah ditched her
summer itinerary after the debacle with King and me, but she’s still trying to
pack as much fun into our last summer together as possible.

“Good, because I
don’t want Troy to see me holding your hair back while you barf into the
ocean.” She smiles and hands me my tea. I finish half the glass in one drink.

“You’re so
compassionate, thanks,” I say, rolling my eyes and setting the glass on the
coffee table.

“When’s your mama
gonna be home?” I ask as she drops herself into a recliner sideways, dangling
her long, tan legs over the arm.

“Not till eight. They
close at seven, but she has to clean up.”

“The grill or the
salon?” I ask. Her mama has to work at a bar and grill, a hair salon, and a
nursing home to keep their house since her daddy left them.

“The grill. The
salon’s closed on the 4
^th
of July, and the grill doesn’t get any
business after six because of the fireworks and all.”

“Okay, do you have to
check in or anything?” I need to go home and show my face before my parents go
to their friend’s house for a BBQ.

“Nope, we can go
whenever. She’s going out with Daniel. I probably won’t see her till tomorrow.”

“Is Daniel the big
guy with long blonde hair or the Harley guy?” I ask. Her mama’s been through a
dozen guys in the last month alone. I can’t keep up.

“No, silly. Both of
those guys are old news. Daniel’s the slick, sexy suit she’s been seeing for a
week or so. He’s hot and mysterious and . . . hot.” Wow. For her to say he’s
hot twice, he must be volcanic. She’s not usually into her mama’s boyfriends.
This one must be different.

“Is he nice?” I ask.

“Yeah, like really
polite and stuff. He’s always shaking my hand and calling me Miss Savannah. I
think she really likes this one.”

“That’s good, right?
I mean, it’s been a couple of years since . . . well . . .”

“Since my piece of
shit daddy ditched us and left my mama twisting in the wind financially and
emotionally and me fatherless? You don’t have to pussyfoot around, Holland.
It’s okay, and yeah, this could be really good if he treats her right and
doesn’t turn out to be someone fake or into something illegal. Mama isn’t
usually the best judge of character. She follows her heart all the time.”

Ouch. She wasn’t
referring to my relationship with King, but ‘hot’ and ‘into something illegal’
hit pretty close to home.

“Sorry.” I twist my
lips and press them together. I really do feel bad for both of them, and I
admire her mama’s ability to bounce back. I wasn’t married for twenty years
like Savannah’s mama, but deep feelings are deep feelings, and I’m not sure
I’ll ever bounce back after King.

***

The bonfire was fun
until it wasn’t. We were all oohing and ahhing over the fireworks that were
being launched up the beach when my flu decided to come back with a vengeance.
Troy was in fact a witness to Savannah holding my hair back while I violently
threw up at the edge of the ocean.

I wandered down the
beach earlier when my mouth started watering and the panic of impending
sickness returned. I thought I was alone until I heard Savannah’s voice from
behind me.

“Aw shit. Pukey
again?” she says, right before I doubled over, wrapping my arms around my waist,
and lost it.

“God, I’m so sorry,”
I say, panting between retching and dry heaves. “I really thought I was
better.”

She waits for me to
settle, and when I’m able to stand up, her next words knock me down again.

“Holland, I think
maybe this isn’t the flu. Have you had your period since . . . well, you know .
. . since King?”

My period? It’s only
been like . . . I quickly calculate in my head how many weeks it’s been since
King and I were together. It’s been a month, maybe five weeks. I can’t remember
when I had my last period. I sway when the dark horizon tilts and bend over
when I feel acid in my throat again. It can’t be. It’s just the damn flu. I’ll
be fine with a little more rest. I’m sure I just overdid it today in the sun.

“Troy. Come here,”
she shouts, and I turn my head to the side. The ocean breeze blows my hair away
from my face, and I see poor Troy standing on the edge of the bonfire, where
he’s frozen mid-stride. He must have been coming to see about Savannah and
stopped when he saw me getting sick. Now, he’s being summoned closer to the
scene, and it’s clear that he would rather turn and walk through the blazing
fire than come any closer.

“It’s okay. Don’t
make him come. He’s freaking out.”

“I need help getting
you to the car so I can take you home.”

“I can drive myself.
I don’t want you to have to leave the party because of me.” She bends over and
gives me
a
don’t
be a moron
look.

“We’re taking you
home. You can’t drive, and I’m going to buy a pregnancy test at the drugstore
so we can make sure you’re not carrying a prince or princess in there.” Her
eyes move to my belly and back to my face.

“Stop saying that,” I
yell, but she ignores me and takes my arm to help me toward Troy.

“We’re taking her
home,” she says, trudging through the sand past Troy with me leaning heavily
against her. Troy mumbles a weak protest, and Savannah whips her head around,
smacking me in the face with the ends of her wild blonde hair. I can only
imagine the look she’s giving him, because even with his obvious barf phobia,
he’s jogging to catch up with us.

I manage not to throw
up in Savannah’s Durango. The nausea is only mildly annoying by the time we’re
home. My house is empty and still as she helps me to bed. She says she’ll be
right back. She’s going to the closest twenty-four hour Walgreens for a home
pregnancy test.

I don’t want her to.
I don’t even want to entertain the idea that I could be . . . I can’t even
think it, although it has been a faint whisper in the back of my mind the
entire time I’ve been sick. I cannot be
that
girl, the dumb girl who gets knocked up before college and drops out, giving up
on her dreams. But what if I am? Oh God, my life will be over. My parents will
disown me, I’ll lose my scholarship to Juilliard, my dream of playing with The
New York Philharmonic Orchestra will go up in smoke—sixteen years of
blood, sweat and tears
over
.

My heart is pounding,
and I’m shaking uncontrollably when I hop up, fling my comforter back, and race
to my bathroom. I turn on the faucet and splash cold water on my face over and
over until the vanity counter is covered in pools and the mirror is speckled
with drops of water.

I look up into my
terrified eyes. I thought this was over. I was starting to accept that the
thing with King was just a huge mistake, probably one of many in my young adult
life. But if I’m pregnant, it’s much more than just a mistake. It’s a barrier
to my future as big and wide as the Grand Canyon, expansive and impossible to
cross and dangerous as hell.

It’s one thing to get
pregnant with some kid my own age, but to get pregnant with a dangerous drug
lord who has more enemies than I can imagine . . .

“NO. I am not
pregnant, and that’s final,” I yell aloud to no one but myself.

I grab a towel and
wipe my face and mop the counter and mirror. When I’m done, I go back to my
room, turn on the lights, straighten the bed linens, and get out my violin.

I don’t even hear
Savannah when she returns. I’m exactly where I want to be, lost in the music,
where no one can steal my dreams or crush my heart, where real life won't rear
its ugly head and wreak havoc on my future with an unexpected baby.

She gently touches my
shoulder, and I jump a foot off the ground and drop my lifeline to
sanity—my bow.

She holds up a box
containing two pregnancy tests and bites her lip. I squeeze my eyes closed
until I see multicolored sparkles behind my lids. I don’t want to do this. I
don’t want to know. She carefully removes the violin from my tight grip and
leads me to the bathroom, where my fate will be proven revealed and sealed.

Chapter Eighteen

King

“King . . . do you
have a minute?” Sebastián stands just inside my office door, looking paler than
I’ve ever seen him.

“Yeah, sure. You
okay, old man?” I lean back in my chair, and the leather upholstery strains against
my weight while a knot forms in my gut. Something doesn’t feel right. His usual
confident stride is stiff and full of tension when he crosses my office. I
watch as he carefully lowers himself into the chair across from me, crossing
his legs and dragging his hand down his face, sighing.

“No, King, I’m not. I
have something to tell you, and I’m not sure how to do it.”

“You’re kind of
worrying me, man. What’s going on? Somebody die or something?”

“I received a phone
call this morning, and I’ve spent most of the day confirming the information
given to me. I didn’t want to worry you unnecessarily, but now that I know it’s
true, it’s necessary.

“Necessary to worry
me about what, Sebastián?” He’s a straightforward guy who doesn’t usually beat
around the bush. I’ve always liked that about him, but right now, Sebastián is
making me nervous. He won’t meet my eyes as he rubs his palms on his thighs.

“It’s about Miss
Bennett,” he says, meeting my eyes.

“Holland?” I haven’t
spoken her name for weeks, and when I do, a familiar ache begins in my chest
again. I’m on my feet in seconds, pushing my chair back against the wall so
hard that I hear the faint crack of plaster crumbling onto the floor. Sebastián
is up too, backing away from me, holding his hands out in front of him. I told
him to keep her safe. There were supposed to be eyes on her twenty-four seven.
If something’s happened to her, so help me . . .

“Yes, King. She’s
fine, she hasn’t been hurt,
she’s
fine. Calm down.”

I’m toe to toe with
him now, and my vision has gone blurry and red.

“You come in here all
cryptic and freaked out, tell me this is about Holland, and expect me to calm
down. What the fuck is going on?” I roar.

He steps back and
behind a wing back chair for protection from the potential blowback. He isn’t
afraid, but he did watch me suffer when Holland was cut from my life, so he
knows that any news about her could make me lose my shit. Sebastián is just
being cautious.

“Her mother contacted
me,” he says, inching around the chair away from me.

“Her mother? Why on
earth would her mother be calling you?” I follow him around the chair.

“King . . .” We are
playing ring around the chair at this point, and my blood is pounding in my
temples.

“Sebastián, you’d
better spit it out before I fucking strangle it out of you.” My words vibrate
from my lips. My entire body is shaking.

 
“She says Holland is pregnant and that
you’re the father, King. She’s threatening to go to the authorities if you
don’t speak to Holland and get her to have an abortion.”

Time stands still. I
stare into Sebastián’s eyes. His words travel through my ears and into my
brain, where they are slowly absorbed. The connecter between audible and
processed thoughts seems to have gone on vacation, though, and the words
‘Holland is pregnant’ are stranded at the train station, unable to be
understood.

“She’s very adamant
that her daughter is going to Juilliard this fall, and she wants you to pay her
tuition and encourage Holland to have an abortion in exchange for her silence
about your business.”

The only words that
have been allowed onto the train platform in my brain are Holland, pregnant,
abortion and Juilliard. The rest of them disintegrate in the air between us,
unimportant and insignificant.

She wasn’t on birth
control. Why did she lie? She was drunk and she said she never drinks. Why
didn’t I think about that? Oh God, she was probably a virgin. Things are
beginning to make sense—the pain, the look of surprise on her face, the
speckles of blood. Fuck, how did I let this happen?

I’m on autopilot as I
stalk out of the apartment and through the empty club down to the parking
garage. Sebastián stumbles out of the elevator a few moments after me, yelling
something about blackmail and flying off the handle. I slam the door of the Rover,
blocking out Sebastián’s warnings, and jam the voice command button before I
pull out of my spot. I cruise past a very distraught Sebastián and watch him
yell and wave his arms all over like one of those air dancer blow-up characters
outside the car dealerships. I keep my eyes straight ahead, but when I look in
the rearview mirror, he’s sprinting toward a car to follow me. That’s all right
with me. I might need some backup.

“Phone.” I say, and a
pleasant robotic female voice asks if I’d like to dial by number or name.

“Name.” The
hands-free device beeps, and a lump forms in my throat when I speak her name
for the second time in weeks.

“Holland Bennett.”
I’m surprised Sebastián didn’t remove her from my auto dial list.

“Dialing Holland
Bennett,” says the disembodied voice.

I have no idea what
I’m going to say, I just need to speak to her. I need to know if it’s true. I
need to hear her say it with my own ears . . . we’re having a baby. Oh my God,
a baby.

I’ve become a master
at repressing my desire for Holland. There was no hope, no way to fix this. I
buried it deep in that garden of temptation, and I’ve stayed far, far away from
it.

And now . . . now
there may be a life growing inside of her, a life that we created, a life that
will permanently tie us together forever . . . the thought is mind blowing.

Every muscle in my
body burns and twitches when I think of holding her in my arms again. My heart
aches to tell her how much I need her. Surprisingly, I have no doubts about
whether or not I want her to have our baby. If she is indeed pregnant, I do. I
need her to know that I’ll be there for her every step of the
way, that
I’ll take care of her and keep her safe. If she
will have me—fuck that. She
will
have me. I’m not taking no for an answer. This is my child too.

I drag my hand
through my hair and punch the steering wheel. Goddamn it, Sebastián had better
have his facts straight. If there’s no baby and I go barging back into her life
. . . no, he wouldn’t tell me something like this if he weren’t sure, and he
was sure.

Speeding and weaving
in and out of traffic, his words begin to sort themselves out in my mind. Her
mother wants to blackmail me? Really? She has no idea who she’s dealing with. I
have the law in my back pocket all over the world, but much more so here in
Houston and Miami, where I need insiders to keep the flow of drugs moving
smoothly across the border from Mexico and into the ports of Miami. Nobody is
going to blackmail King Romero, and nobody will be fucking murdering my child.
As far as paying for Holland to go to Juilliard, fuck
yeah,
I would have done that anyway if they had asked. I don’t take kindly to
threats, and Holland’s mom is about to find that out the hard way.

“No answer.” The
feminine robotic voice says. I didn’t really expect her to answer. Her mother
is probably monitoring her calls, waiting to see what I’m going to do. What
am
I going to do?

Glancing in my
rearview mirror, I see Sebastián floating through traffic, following me at a
discrete distance in my Bugatti. He would choose that car. He loves it, and I
never let him drive it.

“Call Sebastián,” I
say, and instantly we are connected.

“I see you. Hang back
in case I need you. I’m going to her friend’s house across the street,
Savannah, remember?”

“Yes, sir, how could
I forget?” If I know Sebastián—and I do—he’s rolling his eyes when
he sighs into the phone. Savannah caused quite a fuss that first night in the
club while trying to find Holland, and Sebastián was the one who had to deal
with her bossy, overbearing,
sassy
mouth.

Sebastián is a very
dominant man. The only person in this world that he takes orders from is
me
. He’s assertive and powerful. The people under him in my
organization fear him, and rightly so. When he gives an order, they know it’s
not just their job on the line. It’s their life if it’s not carried out to his
liking.

I was proud of him
for keeping his cool while dealing with the intoxicated, demanding girl who was
insisting that her best friend had been roofied and kidnapped.

Fifteen long ass
minutes later, I’m pulling into Savannah’s driveway, trying to decide whether
to barge in or call first. The adrenaline bubbling up inside me makes the
decision, and I jump out and head up the shallow flight of steps in front of
her modest middle-class home. I ring the bell and turn to face Holland’s house
directly across the street. It’s similar to Savannah’s except the lawn is
manicured and the house is maintained better. A train whistles in the distance,
and just when I’m about to bang on the door, it swings open and the air around
me seems to go missing.

“Holland,” I whisper.
My voice has abandoned me. She’s even more beautiful than I remembered
,
if that’s even possible. Her eyes widen and she clutches
the doorframe as she staggers back, and her hand flies protectively to her
abdomen. That one natural, instinctual reaction is all I needed . . . we’re
having a baby. Being this close to Holland again jump starts my heart and calms
my soul. No one else affects me this way. She’s my home, and I’ve been away far
too long.

“King . . . what are
you doing here?” Her voice is quiet and timid, almost afraid.

“I think you know
very well why I’m here.” I raise my hand to caress her cheek, but she turns
away. I gently take her chin and turn it back, but she bows her head, unwilling
to meet my eyes.

“Holland, you can’t
push me away. This is something we have to face together, no matter what the
world says about our age or our careers, no matter what you think of me and
what I am. This child, our child, is more important than any of that.” I step
into her space and place my hand over hers on her belly. “I’m not leaving you
alone in this. Can I come inside so we can talk? If you say no, I’ll pick you
up and take you somewhere else anyway, so . . .”

“Well in that case,
yes, I guess you’d better come in.” She steps aside to let me pass. As I move
past her, I take her hand in mine and lead her into the living room, where
Savannah is watching television in her swimsuit.

“Holy shit.” She
drops the bag of chips she was eating onto the couch, and her mouth hangs open
with a few chips still visible.

“Nice to see you too,
Savannah. Can we have some privacy?” I know it’s rude to ask her to leave the
room in her own house, but I don’t care. I need to be alone with Holland.

“You’re asking me to
leave my own living room so you can make my best friend feel like shit?” she
yells, unfolding her legs from underneath her to scoot to the edge of the
couch. ‘Mama bear’ looks like she’s preparing to launch off the couch and
attack me—a man five times her body mass. She’s annoying as fuck, but I
have to admit that I love her fierce loyalty and protectiveness.

“Hold on,
firecracker.” I hold up my hand.

“I’m here to help and
offer support, and you have to admit that we have some things to talk about.”
She’s on her feet now, with her hands clenched into little fists at her sides.
We both look at Holland for direction, and when I glance back at Savannah,
she’s looking at our hands. She raises her brows high before returning her eyes
to Holland, but she doesn’t pull away or drop my hand.
      

“Are you okay with
this? I mean do you
want
me to leave?
I’m not going anywhere unless you tell me to. I don’t think it’s a good idea
for you to be alone with him, Holland. He’s a drug deal—”

“That’s enough,” I
say, cutting her off.

“I’m not here to
discuss how I earn my living.” I face Holland and take her other hand, placing
them together in mine. “I just want to talk, that’s all.” She nods, and
Savannah huffs off, stomping down the hall and leaving us alone.

“Just yell if he
upsets you. I’ve got Daddy’s shotgun back here, and I know how to use it,” she
yells over her shoulder.
   

Fuck.
Savannah and a shotgun.
Just what I need
today.

“Don’t worry, I don’t
think she really knows how to shoot it,” Holland says, shaking her head.

“I heard that, and
yes I do,” Savannah yells and slams a door somewhere down the hall.

“She’s all bark and
no bite.” One corner of her mouth lifts in a small smile and she shrugs.

“I’ve told you before
that I like her protectiveness, even though it’s completely misplaced when it
comes to me. I’d never intentionally hurt you.” I pull her against me and wrap
her arms around my waist. I slide my fingers behind her neck into her soft,
thick hair and place my other hand on the small of her back. I bury my nose in
her hair and breathe in the woodsy, citrus scent that I will forever associate
with Holland. She doesn’t resist, but she also doesn’t melt into me the way she
used to. Her muscles are stiff and tense, and her hands are still.