Baby For My Billionaire Rival (Billionaire Daddies)

18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Jake

H alfway through the semester means it’s time for quarterly reviews with Fig. I arrive early for my appointment purposefully to get some emails sent out. Emails are one of my least favorite activities. When Caroline and I were together, she’d always let me dictate to her while she tapped that out on my phone, her nails clicking. We’d be lying in bed running my business and the next moment we’d be completely naked, all over each other.

I miss her. I miss her a lot.

Not just for the sex and the intimacy, although that’s a big part of it. I just miss her . Her presence and her bright smile. The way she listens and leans in when I hold back from saying what I really want to say.

I feel more alone than I did after Dad passed away. Because it felt like for a moment, I saw a glimmer of hope at the end of the dark tunnel, only to be shrouded once again in darkness.

From the way she looks at me in class, I know I could probably salvage this. But every time I consider what I’d say and how I’d say it, I feel barbed wire encircling my brain. That if I try and cross that line again, I’m going to feel even more pain than I already feel.

I plop down on one of the couches in the seating area just down the hall from Fig’s office and pull out my laptop. As I’m sitting there, working, I see my classmates come and go from her office, appointment after appointment rolling by. They say hello, and ask me why I’m camped out here, I tell them it’s nice and quiet here.

Better than being back at the farm with all my grief.

With my head buried in my laptop, I nearly miss Caroline when she rushes past me. Her head is ducked down, blonde concealing her face from my view. I look at her for a second, pleading with her to look back at me. She doesn’t.

From my seat, I have a full view of Fig’s office door. I watch Caroline rap on it, and hear Fig’s muffled, “Come in.”

And then I see our professor’s expression. A smile that curdles into a look of concern and worry.

“Caroline, what’s –” Fig begins.

Caroline slams the door shut behind her.

I stare at the door like somehow, if I stare long enough, I’ll get some sort of x-ray vision and the hearing will come along with that too.

My meeting is next so I carefully pack my backpack and go to stand against the wall by Fig’s office. But the time comes and goes with no sign of Caroline emerging.

The muffled conversation is urgent. I think she’s crying. What if she’s telling Fig about me? What if she’s saying that I’ve broken her spirit, and ruined her experience? What if she’s trying to get me kicked out of the program? There’s no way that could happen, right?

Caroline isn’t spiteful, not like that. And once I remember her quality of character, my heart expands, wishing it could reach out to her and wrap her up in my safe embrace.

I still care for her. Hell, I still love her, even if we never said the words.

Abruptly, the door swings open and Caroline steps out. When she sees me standing right there, she pales. “Jake,” she says my name, her hand swooping across her face to get rid of the tears. More than anything, I want to hear her call me Jacob Leslie right now.

“My meeting’s next,” I say in an immediate defense. I don’t want her to think I was listening.

Caroline opens her mouth to respond, but instead shakes her head and rushes off down the hall.

“Simmons –” I hear Fig call out.

I poke my head into the doorway. Fig looks just as distraught as Caroline, save the tears. “Are you alright?” I ask.

“Um, no, I think I might need a couple of minutes if you don’t mind us delaying your meeting just a bit longer. I’m sorry, I’m… a bit stunned.”

I glance back over my shoulder, seeing Caroline disappear into the main lobby of Trilby. I should run after her. But I think she’d only run faster. “Is there anything I can do for you? Glass of water or –”

“No, no, I just need a minute to compose myself.” Fig pauses, a lopsided smile on her lips. The usual slyness is betrayed by the weak corners of her eyes. “I know you and Gladstone haven’t always seen eye to eye, but maybe you can convince her not to leave the program.”

My jaw hits the floor. “What?!”

Fig gestures. “The door please, Simmons.”

I close it quickly and turn around to the empty hall. Caroline is leaving the program. Is her heart that broken? Have I hurt her that badly?

I can’t let her get away.

I drop my backpack and sprint after her, not caring about any of the sidelong looks from those I pass. I burst through the front doors of Trilby, spotting her veil of blonde hair several yards away. “Caroline!”

She walks faster.

“Caroline, wait!” I call out. I should have snuck up on her instead. Somehow, she’s faster than she should be in those high heels. But I’ve got longer legs. It doesn’t take long for me to catch up. I finally am close enough to grab her arm. “Caroline, please –”

Caroline whips around, the angry expression of a bulldog on her lips. “ What?! ”

I stop to catch my breath, licking my lips. I’ve never seen her so angry. “Fig said you’re leaving.”

Though her face is still sticky with tears, Caroline laughs darkly. “Wow, great, she’s already telling everyone my business.”

“No, no, she asked me to come after you. To stop you.” My grip softens on her arm. I close the space between us by just a step. “Listen, Caroline, you don’t have to run. I know what happened between us –” I hate that. Past tense . I don’t want Caroline to be past tense. “I was hurt. And I haven’t been kind. You can’t leave because of me. You can’t.”

Caroline shakes her head. “You shouldn’t think so highly of yourself. That you’re so great I can’t even be around you.”

Ouch . I deserved that.

“I just have something to sort out in my personal life. Okay? It’s no one’s business but…” she trails off. She’s not telling the whole truth. I know it. I know her. Not just the few months we dated, but the months before that. I know her as my enemy and then my friend and then my lover. I can read her because I chose to memorize the book of Caroline. It’s the only thing I ever want to read. “Please let me go,” she says.

“I can’t.”

“ Jake ,” she begs, her eyes welling with tears again.

I grab her other arm, her biceps now cradled in both my hands. “I can’t let you go, Caroline. Not after I’ve been so stupid.”

Adamantly, she shakes her head. “It’s not about –”

“It wasn’t fair of me to judge you and your family. I was hurt and I couldn’t take the time to understand.” I take one of her hands and press it to my chest. “I only care if you want me. If you want to be with me, Caroline. Fuck what Gram says and fuck what –”

“ Jake! ”

The urgency in her voice finally shuts me up.

Amber brown eyes cross my face, darting back and forth, searching for some sort of answer. “Jake, I’m pregnant.”

My grip on her loosens. Then the information reaches my brain. “Pregnant…?” I repeat as if I was raised in the jungle and never learned to speak properly.

Caroline slides her hand out from under mine. I’m too slow to grip it harder.

“How long have you known?” I ask, cotton-mouthed.

She purses her lips. “A few days.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You didn’t want anything to do with me,” she says, voice small and tight in her mouth. “You told Greg Pollard nothing had happened between us and sicked him on me like a lame dog. Why would I tell you anything?”

I swallow. My heart throbs in my chest, threatening to break my ribs.

“I was going to tell you eventually. I just wanted to make a decision first.”

Pins prick my skin. “Do you know what you… what you want?”

Caroline shakes her head.

“Because I –” It doesn’t matter what I want. It’s her body. Her life. It’s not my place to demand anything of her, especially after how I’ve treated her. That’s not how a man should treat the mother of his child. However, seeing Caroline in this light affirms for me further how much I adore her. How I want to keep and protect her. To love her. “I would be so happy to have a baby with you,” I say.

Caroline’s eyes widen. “Oh.”

I can tell people are staring as they walk past us. There is a moment playing out right here in the middle of the quad. I couldn’t give less of a shit, though.

“My family would be disappointed in me,” she says, her eyes falling to the ground.

Gram . I hate how she rules with an iron fist, controlling all her family from inside their own head.

“They’ll be disappointed to know that I can’t follow my dreams because I…”

Of course, it’s still not the most honorable thing, a child out of wedlock. “I’ll marry you. If that fixes anything.”

“Jake!” Caroline says through an impossible laugh.

And that makes me smile. “I’m serious.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Is that what I am?” No, I think I’m just in love.

I can’t help but notice Caroline hasn’t pulled away from me. She hasn’t stepped back. Hasn’t shaken away my touch. I think she might need me. Just as much as I need her.

“A baby is a lot,” Caroline says. “I can’t do grad school and take care of a baby and –”

“I’ll take care of the baby,” I interject.

She scoffs.

“I’m serious.”

Caroline furrows her brow. “That’s not how it works. I have to carry it, I have to –”

“I know, that’s –” I duck my head down for a second, my cheeks warming. It is just occurring to me that this isn’t a hypothetical. A part of me is inside Caroline right now, taking root and growing. I love that feeling, love knowing I’m an indelible part of her for now. “I’ll leave the program.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” She starts to pull away.

I don’t let her go, sliding my hands to her waist, and pressing her up against me. “I’m not being ridiculous! I just love you, alright?”

Caroline’s face softens. She shakes her head in disbelief.

“I love you, Caroline,” I repeat, bringing my hands to her cheeks. “And I’ll do anything to keep you happy. You want to go to school, you want to run your family’s company, I’ll make that happen. You can do all of that and be with me and have a baby with me –” My heart is about to fly out of my chest. I smile to try and lessen the pressure. “We could be a family. If that’s what you want.”

Tears drip down her cheeks. “Is that what you want?”

After Dad died, I walked around aching. Trying to find some sort of meaning in life. You can’t count on other people to bring it to you, that’s true. But I’m not going to stand here and say that Caroline Gladstone hasn’t shifted everything for me. That her presence in my life hasn’t created a shaft of light I want to stay in forever. To have a baby with her, well, that would mean everything to me. “More than anything.”

She blinks. More tears. A smile. “And you… you love me?”

“Yes. A hundred percent. A thousand percent. I’m sorry I’ve been such a –”

Caroline cuts me off, embracing me tightly to her, tucking her head into my neck. God, I’ve missed her so much.

“I just don’t know,” she whispers.

I can’t make her do anything. It’s her body. I can tell her that I’d make a good father. That I’d make a good husband. To hell with her family and what they say. We can be a power couple and a loving family unit around the dinner table. I close my eyes, a wave of nostalgia for a life I haven’t experienced yet, seeing a bouncing baby in a high chair pulled up to my kitchen table while Caroline and I eat breakfast.

“It doesn’t feel fair to you,” Caroline goes on. “When everything still feels so unsettled.”

I sigh, holding her tighter. “I trust you to do what’s right for you, Caroline. And I love you.”

Maybe if I say it enough, she’ll finally believe me.

I love you, I love you, I love you .

That night, alone in my room, I say one single prayer, not to God, but to my dad, wherever he is, that if I am to step up and be a father, that I will be a good one. Please help me be a good one.