AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A soft knock came at the door. It was Pierce. “Melinda. Can I come in?”
“I just want to be alone,” I replied.
“I can respect that.” A long pause. “Was it something I did?”
“No,” I replied. It was the truth—none of this was Pierce’s fault. It was mine. “I’ll tell you about it tomorrow. But it’s nothing you did.”
“Okay. I… I’m sorry for whatever happened. I’ll be here when you want to talk, whether that’s tonight, tomorrow, or a week from now.”
I didn’t hear his footsteps leave down the hall. After a few seconds, I gave in and ran to the door, throwing it open, desperate for the reassuring presence of him—
But he was gone. The hallway was empty.
I woke up the next morning to a flurry of texts. The first was from my dad:
Dad: I’m sorry for Carly’s outburst last night. Your mother and I calmed her down. I hope you two can talk about this with cooler heads today.
Another was from Mom:
Mom: I warned you it was a bad idea to become that man’s surrogate. I don’t care how handsome and charming and wealthy he is. None of this would have happened if you had stayed home with your family.
Then there was a text from Carly, which was sent this morning:
Carly: Landon and I are at the airport. The paparazzi are here taking photographs of us while we go through security! Some of them are on our flight. I’m SO excited to have them pestering us during our honeymoon. Thank you SO MUCH for doing this to me. You’re the BEST sister in the world.
Carly: In case you couldn’t tell, that was sarcasm.
I groaned, then Googled Pierce Benning’s name—just like I had done the first time I arrived on the Bellerophon. But when I switched to the News tab, I was confronted with my worst nightmare.
A photograph of me.
The link led to a tabloid article about the wedding, with the headline: “PIERCE’S PRESUMPTIVE PARTNER PINNED AT PICKFORD WEDDING PARTY.” There were dozens of photos of us at the wedding, including several paragraphs describing who I was. It was strange having your entire life, your entire essence as a person, boiled down to a few lines of copy.
Even worse than that were paragraphs detailing Carly, Landon, and our parents. It reminded me of the world’s fervor when Kate Middleton became engaged to Prince William.
It’s because we don’t have princes in America. We have billionaires instead. They’re our royalty.
I skimmed the Google search. There were dozens of similar articles from other tabloids, and even a few mainstream media sites had picked up the story. There was also a Wall Street Journal article speculating that our relationship had to do with Pierce’s big mystery project, and that Landon’s family—who did business in real estate—were involved.
I cringed thinking of Landon’s poor family waking up and being inundated with reporters and cameras.
I was already guilty to the point of bursting, and this made everything worse. Never in my wildest dreams—or nightmares—did I expect all of them to get roped into my drama. For a moment, all of it swirled around in my head: the mystery business, the European trips, the cameras and interviews and countless other stories about the child I would eventually bear for Pierce. It felt like a hurricane, building strength and threatening to blow me away.
I don’t feel like myself. And that’s the worst part of all of this.
That’s when I came to a decision. A decision that felt right the more I thought about it.
38
Pierce
I sat down in the study of the Bellerophon with Andrew and Tristan. They had been speaking for five minutes, alternating between them. Pouring out their hearts to me. Tristan seemed almost reluctant to tell me all of this, but I could tell his words were genuine.
“Wow,” I said. “I had no idea you felt this way.”
“Originally, I had no interest in becoming a father,” Tristan said. “I believe I still feel that way. However, if I were to biologically produce one, and one which would be in close proximity to me throughout its life… well, I am quite certain I would struggle with that scenario.”
“I’m sorry for roping you into this situation without allowing you the time to process how you felt,” I said.
