Chapter 2

She was going on two months when she knew she could not hold off telling him much longer. She had been getting as sick as a dog every morning and sometimes in the afternoon, and it was starting to get noticeable especially in her boobs. She had avoided seeing her friends claiming that she was busy because she knew that there was no way she could avoid the truth.

It was Friday night and she was about to finish her shift when she saw him leaving the table and heading outside. “Marty, could I leave a little earlier tonight?” she asked the elderly man as she took off her apron.

“Go on, honey, you look a bit green around the gills as it is. Go home and get some rest,” he told her kindly, signaling to another waitress to take over.

“Thanks,” she told him gratefully, hurrying to get her light jacket and her pocketbook. She caught him as he was about to take the keys from the valet.

“I need to talk to you,” she told him abruptly as he was about to enter his vehicle. She noticed that it was a different car from the one he had taken her home in that night. This was a bright red Corvette with the top down.

“Hi,” he said with a smile. “How have you been doing?”

She looked around to make sure they were not noticed. It was a little past ten, and there were still people on the tennis court, but most of the men were inside having a drink or two. “Can we speak in private?”

He looked at her with his thick eyebrows raised. “Of course, let’s go for a ride,” he suggested, indicating that she should get in.

Carrie clasped her hands together and stared out at the passing scenery and took a deep breath as he stopped the car underneath a Redwood tree. “Feel like talking now?” His tone was slightly insolent, and closing her eyes, she turned to face him knowing that this was going to be the hardest thing she would ever have to do.

“I am pregnant,” she blurted out. In retrospect, she figured she could at least have led up to it instead of saying it like that, but she wanted to get it out of the way. The silence that followed her admission was so fraught with tension that she found herself actually squirming on the soft leather seat of the vehicle. There were birds chirping overhead and somewhere there were rustlings in the bushes nearby, maybe some animal looking for a resting place for the night. It was a peaceful and lovely summer night, but for the couple sitting in the car it was anything but that. It would mark the beginning of a change in their lives forever.

“How far along?” he fired at her suddenly, his blue eyes accusing as if she had brought it on herself.

“Approaching two months.” She forced herself to remain calm in the face of the adversity coming from him in waves.

“Is it mine?” he asked her coldly.

Without thinking, Carrie lifted her hand and slapped it against his cheek with a force that had her palm stinging.

“I take it that the answer is yes?” he asked her cynically, the imprint of her hand on his jaw and his blue eyes darkening.

“I just thought you had a right to know,” she said, trembling with temper and despair.

“My parents are going to be thrilled,” he said with a harsh laugh, tunneling his fingers through his hair.

“I am perfectly capable of taking care of my child by myself,” she said, bristling.

“Darling, as long as the child is mine, there is no need for that,” he drawled insolently. “And I strongly doubt you can take care of a child with the amount of money you earn at the club. Unless you have some hidden wealth you care to tell me about?”

Carrie had never been so humiliated in all her life, and she just wanted to go home and cry herself to sleep. “Please take me back to the club so I can get my car,” she told him quietly.

“Look,” he began impatiently. “You can’t just expect to spring that life-altering news on me and not expect that kind of reaction.”

“Try being me,” she told him furiously. “And you can forget about trying to convince me to get rid of it.”

He looked at her in surprise. “Get rid of my potential heir?” He laughed grimly. “My dad would have a fit.”

“What do we do now?” she asked him hollowly.

“We do the right thing.” He started up the ignition. “I will make sure that you and the child are taken care of.”

He took her back to the club in silence and waited until she had gotten into her car before driving away in a cloud of dust!

*****

Patrick could not concentrate on the document in front of him. He had come home last night and not been able to sleep. Christ! He had always been so careful because his father had drummed it into his head that with their name and wealth women would try to get into the family by any means necessary. Now, a waitress at the club was pregnant by him! The irony of it all! He had no idea how he was going to break the news to his parents and Sophia! He groaned as he thought about the girl who was expecting an engagement ring anytime now, possibly a square cut diamond that would alert anyone around that she was engaged to Patrick Copeland. Now that was all shot to hell! How was he going to be engaged to one woman with another pregnant with his child?