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“I said that I’m pregnant,” she repeated, beginning to feel a small ball of uncertainty in her.
He continued to stare at her. “I… I don’t know what to say.” He replied. “Are you sure?”
She nodded, and waited. It began to feel like she was waiting for a sentencing from a judge.
He rolled over onto his back and stared at the ceiling. “Wow… a baby. I didn’t… I didn’t expect that.” Visions of a tiny infant began to fill his mind, followed by images of the infant growing up throughout the coming years; kindergarten, summers playing baseball, football, and swimming, high school, a car, graduation. He felt as if he could see all of his life passing right before his eyes. “A baby…” he repeated.
She waited. She knew that it could be a big shock, and she remembered how hard she had taken it, and she told herself not to expect him to be too excited or happy about it right away. Even so, she was beginning to feel a little disappointed that he hadn’t appeared to be too receptive about it.
“This is incredible…” he began and stopped, lifting his hand to his forehead to rub it. He turned his head then and looked at her. “How do you feel about this? What do you want to do about it?”
She leaned up on her elbow and looked at him earnestly. “I want to keep it. I want to have this baby with you and start a family. I really… I really love you, Scott, and I want this to be everything that it could be. We are going to be parents and have a child, and I want to do that together.”
She had told him the truth. All of it. She knew that it was a risk, but she didn’t want to leave anything unsaid. She told herself that she would rather that he know all of it at once so that he could make the best decision for himself and for her and the baby, than to hold anything back from him and cause more problems later.
He closed his eyes and sighed heavily. It felt like the weight of the world was on his chest. With a deep breath, he pushed himself up to a sitting position and leaned against the pillows. “Naomi, we have to talk about this. I understand what you’re saying, but nothing has changed for me. I can’t be with you, at least not publicly.
My agent Harold is demanding that I use the publicity I’m getting from all of the newspapers and magazines that are saying I’m in a relationship with Jennifer. He wants me to really plug that and feed it. It’s good for her image and it’s good for mine. This is really important!”
She pushed herself up and lowered her brows at him. “No it’s not! Your public image is not that important! This child is!” She felt anger stirring in her.
He raked his hand through his hair and then dropped his fist onto the bed. “It’s really not that easy, Naomi! You still don’t understand! This is about a lot more than just whether or not people believe that Jennifer and I are together. It’s my career, and for her it’s her career! That’s everything right now. That’s hugely important!”
“Your career is everything right now?” she snapped at him nastily. “So this child of yours that I am carrying in my body isn’t everything? This son or daughter of yours isn’t everything? Your job is more important than your family? Is that what you’re telling me?”
He shook his head in frustration and frowned deeply. “That’s not it! Of course the baby is important to me, and so are you, but I can’t just go out in public with you and run around! Not when everyone thinks that I’m with Jennifer! It’s making a huge impact on my career; not as far as the football goes, but definitely with the commercial sponsors and my popularity!
It’s vital! Why can’t you see that? Yes, my career is important to me. I’ve worked most of my life to get where I am today, and I’m not about to lose it because I got some…” he trailed off and pursed his lips, gritting his teeth angrily.
She glared at him furiously. “Because you got some girl pregnant? Is that what you were going to say?”
His eyes shot up to meet hers. “No! That’s not what I mean. I just have to think about more than a baby right now! I have to think about my career and my future! I can’t provide a future for a child if I don’t have a future myself, can I!”
Naomi shook her head and got up off the bed, reaching for her clothes as she spoke angrily to Scott. “You are the most selfish, thoughtless, cold-hearted, self-centered bastard I have ever known. I can’t believe this. I should have realized that you would take it this way. You didn’t want me for anything more than a secret piece of ass in the privacy of your home.
I don’t know why I thought you might want you own baby any more than that. I was stupid, though; I believed that you might. I thought that you might actually care about it, and care about me, and I let myself believe for a minute that you might actually love us enough to be a family.
I’m such a fool! Why didn’t I realize that you would push your own child away just like you push me away. I’m only good for you when you want to screw me in your home, but I’m not good enough for anything else.”
Dressed, she stomped to the bedroom doorway and turned around to face him once more. “I’m tired of this, Scott. I’m done with this, and I’m done with you. I can’t take this anymore. I have my own career to think of. I have my business to think of.
I’m not putting any of that before this baby. I’m going to work my ass off to do both, which is apparently more than you can do, but this baby means something to me. It’s my child, and I’m willing to do whatever it takes to put this baby first. Obviously you can’t be bothered to do that yourself. You’re a low-life bastard. I know I’ve said it before, but unless you decide that you want to be part of this baby’s life, and part of my life, I don’t ever want to hear from you again.”
He gaped at her, and she turned on her heel and walked out of his house, getting into her car and driving down out of the hills. She was too angry to cry that time. She had cried for him too many times already, and she swore to herself that she wasn’t going to give him any more of her tears. He’d gotten enough from her, and she was done giving to him. She was done giving her body to him, done giving her heart to him, done giving her love and time and grief to him; she was done.
There was nothing that she could give him that he wouldn’t walk away from, and she knew that she was worth far more than being used and disregarded by someone who didn’t really want her for more than brief moments of pleasure. She was a woman, and that made her priceless.
Scott laid back in his bed, covering his face with his hands. It seemed that no matter what he said or did with Naomi, he always wound up making the worst possible mistakes, and losing her over and over. He felt like he had just made the biggest failure of his whole life, and he had no idea how to fix it, or make it right.
He knew that he had to do something, and do it soon. There was a woman he cared for and wanted who had walked out of his life again, and she had taken his unborn child with her.
Chapter4
Naomi was sitting at her desk when Keisha looked at her with her hand on the phone. “It’s Scott Thompson. I have him on hold. Do you want to talk with him?”
She didn’t want to talk with him; she didn’t want to see him or hear from him again, but she knew that that was anger speaking in her heart, and she also knew that perhaps he had had enough time since she told him about the baby, to really consider his responsibility and come to terms with it. She hoped in the back of her mind that perhaps he had come around and was ready to face the obligation he had to his own child, and to her.
With a nod, she reached for the phone. “This is Naomi.”
