The Billionaire’s Given Baby

Chapter 4

It was hard to believe that three months had passed since she first met Harvey. It was like the scene at the house had never happened. The few glimpses she got of him at work. he was back to being all business and strictly professional. Trish didn’t know how to feel or react so she just buried her emotions under work.

There was no telling when he would turn up either, his career took him all over the world and he would be gone for days on end. This particular day she hadn’t been feeling well due to morning sickness, and on the way to work Trish experienced motion sickness while in the taxi. She even vomited in it and ended up having to pay the cab driver four times his normal price and apologized profusely. Talk about an exorbitant amount of money wasted.

This was a new experience for Trish, she always had an cast iron stomach. These types of situations had never happened to her before. Her search on google had not told her anything she thought useful, one site mostly recommended ditching work, which she couldn’t afford to do since every penny she made right now counted. Other sites would have her drinking medicines or herbal teas by the gallons neither of which appealed to her enough to stop the nausea. She felt literally on her own. She had no one to turn to or ask for advice. She still hadn’t worked up the courage to tell her mom and face her disappointment.

Granted she was a grown woman, yet she couldn’t help but worry what others thought, it was inherent in her nature to please and in her job, public opinion mattered. She could easily be fired from her job for being pregnant. The less people that knew about it until she started to show, the better. She had to remain firm in her conviction that things would work out alright.

She should have known that today when she was feeling her lowest and most miserable Harvey would show up at work. If Harvey was upset that she arrived late that morning, he didn’t say anything. Just gestured for her to go and change into the outfit wardrobe had provided for the shoot.

Harvey had her doing all kinds of contortions with her body; she felt like a circus performer. Many of which was to give the illusion of flying, she had to be graceful, airy and quick on her feet. One of the pictures required her to hang upside down, her stomach wasn’t thrilled, and there was no time to beg for a break, in the middle of a reel she ran off to the bathroom to vomit.

Harvey yelled cut in anger, it was time he got to the bottom of Trish’s unprofessionalism. Trish had started off so well, what was the cause of this rash change.

He was glad that Betsy had sent him those candid shots of Trish which he had stored on his phone. It felt like he took a piece of her with him while he flew all over the world, he saw other beautiful women, and they definitely paled in comparison, none of them had appealed to him like Trish. He had never thought of playing God and arranging people’s lives but he had felt like a man possessed and had contrived a way for them to meet through the Livingstone campaign.

Only a few people knew that he was one of the largest shareholder of Livingstone Cosmetics and he wanted to keep it that way. When he realized Miranda was co*k blocking, he called Betsy to arrange a business dinner for the three of them and it worked out splendidly. Everything in his life he controlled and here was Trish sweeping through his life like a man made storm and upsetting the natural balance of things.

A few months ago he would never had made such a rash decision to pursue a woman but he felt it was worth it. She had brought his libido back to life, his co*k hardened at the thought of her. He felt no guilt at what he had done, he didn’t want to make things obvious by hiring her on the spot but it helped that she was a natural, and in his mind had outdone the competition by far.

Now at today’s shoot he sensed her reticence again as if she was having problems yet refused to speak her mind. So he had pushed on, hoping for a confrontation to get her speaking to him again, maybe he had given her too much space? Granted they were ahead of schedule and he wanted it to stay that way. At first he attributed her wanting to do mostly comfortable poses, to vertigo or he would even accept a fear of heights. Her constantly wanting to go to the bathroom didn’t sit well with him. Harvey grew impatient when Trish took so long to return. She would spend minutes on end in there, using a minty breath spray to hide the odor of vomit from her mouth.

He didn’t normally get personal with the models but he felt drawn to Trish, and treated her as a friend. He was hoping by now she would trust him and open up to him, he did his disappearing act because he didn’t want her to feel like he was rushing her into anything, he wanted her to trust in him.

Yet there she was shooting daggers at him with her eyes, maybe he was asking for trouble by avoiding her and giving her so much space too soon. He himself was confused, he wondered what she felt. However, when she repeatedly kept breaking set to make a dash to the toilet, in which gagging noises could be heard. He began to wonder if she was bulimic.

She needed an intervention and he would be the one to give it to her. Many models starved themselves to maintain a willowy figure but he never in a million years would think Trish was one of them. Betsy had made no mention of Trish having this sort of problem, was it possible she didn’t know. Granted Trish had him fooled as well, so why not the best friend she had known all her life.

When one was caught up with life’s daily activities, you often had no time to puzzle another’s when you got your own problems. Isn’t that how people committed suicide. Friends, family and coworkers would say that they were at the happiest point in their life and never gave any signs of despair. No one had seen their death coming. He wasn’t about to let Trish become another statistic. He was worried about her, he would have to convince her to see a doctor before the situation worsened and she ended up on life support or dead. This was no joking matter.

He waited patiently by the bathroom door for her at first, then paced the room, when the door finally opened he signaled for her to walk with him to his office. Once inside he closed the door and gestured to her to have a seat. He sat on the edge of his desk directly facing her.

“Trish, I know competition in the modeling industry is fierce, I can’t deny that but I will promise you this.” He took both her hands and nestled them between his.

“I hope you at least see me as a friend, if not a confidant. I recognize that something is not quite right with you, all I ask for is a chance to help, to let you know that you have people that care about you, and don’t like seeing you sick. I’m never too busy to go with you to a doctor for treatment. Just take this opportunity to not let this addiction that’s keeping you down get the best of you.”

Trish squeezes her eyes shut at the end of his passionate declaration to keep back the unshed tears. He knew! Would he expose her to Miranda Chase and embarrass her in public, setting tongues wagging with gossip whenever she walked by at the office. Miranda would happily stall her career once and for all. Could she deal with the jeers and disapproving looks from her peers?

 It wasn’t too late to have an abortion. No! She immediately shook that thought from her mind, this baby was part mind, body and soul for her now and she would fight to the very end to keep it. Just when things were starting to look up, her nest egg had started to grow and investors were now fishing around talking about portfolio’s and stock, which she ignored, no need to tie up her money when she wasn’t sure how long it was all going to last.

Speak of the devil and he arrives, her anger roiled in her chest. She needed to calm down, she just needed to plead her case with Harvey, but she couldn’t help it she blurted out without much thought.

“Since when is pregnancy an addiction! Yes, I had lots of s*x with Chris a lot, it didn’t matter where and in lots of different positions, it seems like we were doing the entire Kama sutra at one point. Often we took a risk by not using protection because he said it felt better. Chris did and said a lot of things and I believed him because he made me feel special. He said I was his one and only, that does not make me a freak. It wasn’t like I planned it, it just happened by accident.”