Twin Babies with the Billionaire for Christmas

22. Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Two

Tristan

My phone rings, and I glance at it before I silence it.

I’m in the middle of an important meeting with the marketing team who are going to handle the rollout of our latest app right before Christmas. I don’t have time to entertain Jay at the moment.

But then it rings again. And again.

Cursing, I step out of the conference room quickly to grab the next call.

“What?” I ask in a loud whisper as I stand in the hallway. “I’m in a meeting with the marketing company.”

“Have you looked at social media today at all?” Jay asks me, his voice grim.

“No,” I say with confusion. “Why?”

“Just do it,” he says and hangs up.

I stare at my phone in confusion, then open a couple of apps as Jay had suggested. I suck in a breath in dismay as I see Rachel and I splashed all over the tabloid news, kissing, holding the Christmas tree, and walking hand in hand.

“Dammit,” I mutter. This is going to be a huge problem for her. She had already said she didn’t want anyone to know about us because she might lose her ongoing relationship with her publisher and her agent.

I hadn’t really believed that there would be any trouble since we don’t go out in public together that often.

In my mind, we had conducted the whole of our little situationship behind closed doors, but I see now that we weren’t quite as careful as I had thought.

I run a hand over the back of my neck, trying to think about what to do. I don’t want her to have to scrap the book, or worse, move away because she can’t afford to be here.

What can I do to help stop this scandal in its tracks before her reputation is ruined?

“Everything okay?” Ali asks, poking her head out into the hallway.

I shake myself a little and manage to nod. “Just something personal that came up. Say, can you handle the rest of the meeting for me?” I ask her. “I really should go take care of this.”

She nods and shoos me away. “Sure, no worries at all. Let us know if you need anything else.”

“Thanks,” I tell her, hurrying off toward my office with my mind spinning. I need to think of a plan to help Rachel out, but I’m not even sure where to start.

Who on earth leaked all those pictures to the media? I can’t think of anyone in our inner circle who would do something like that, and they are the only people who knew that Rachel and I were sleeping together.

First things first, time to spin up the PR team. I actually don’t care about yet another scandal rag or two worrying over my personal life, but I know that this will be devastating for Rachel if we don’t nip it in the bud.

I realize as I’m calling, that it’s just a few days until Christmas. That might make the process of halting the scandal a little tougher.

“Hello? Jerry?” I say as I hear the voice of my lead PR manager come over the phone. “Yeah, that’s what I’m calling about,” I reply when he asks about the scandal news. “She’s…gosh, it’s so complicated, honestly, but she’s writing my biography. Yeah, I know that’s not very professional of us. That being said, we need to try and stop this before her career is destroyed. Suggestions?”

I sit down at my desk as Jerry and his team spitball with me for about twenty minutes. We come up with a plan to try and pay off a few of the smaller mags that just need the cash and a proactive plan to flood the media with other nonsense so that our story gets buried.

Jerry is also going to reach out to the two biggest magazines and see if he can pay to have the story killed. I know it will be expensive, but it’s worth it if I can do anything to keep her from suffering.

Once I’m done on the phone with the PR team, I try calling Rachel. The call goes to voicemail, but I leave a message asking her to call me back. I call Jay next, detailing the plan to squash the story and asking him to think of anything legal that we might need to explore as far as resolving the problem. Jay says he’ll chat with the legal team to help me out and then gets off the phone.

Alone with my thoughts and no real way to be helpful, I run a hand through my hair. I keep thinking that if I could just figure out who leaked the photos, I could help clear some of this up.

I decide to try calling Cara. She might have some ideas about what to do in this situation.

Cara picks up after the second ring. “Hey,” she says, her voice tight. She must already have seen the articles.

“Ideas?” I say without preamble. Why waste time if we all know why Rachel needs our help?

“Rachel’s publisher already released her from her contract,” Cara says sadly. “Her agent agreed to keep her on but was not pleased with her. She’s devastated.”

“Is she with you?” I ask.

“Yeah,” Cara says. “She didn’t want to be alone.”

“I can come pick her up,” I say, already rising to my feet to leave work. “I have the PR team working on this and I will talk to legal about it tomorrow.”

Cara is silent for a spell, and I stop in the doorway to my office.

“Cara?”

“She…um…she doesn’t want you to come get her,” Cara says quietly. Her tone is almost apologetic. “She says she just needs some time to…process…and figure out what’s next.”

“But I can help her out with this,” I insist, wondering why my heart feels like it’s going to beat out of my chest. “I’ve been through this kind of thing before and my team can…”

“Tristan,” Cara says, her voice very quiet, patient. “Just give her a day or two to figure out how she feels. She’s lost everything in a matter of a couple of hours.”

She hasn’t lost everything! I want to yell into the phone. She has me? Aren’t I enough?

I suddenly think of my father and his sneering critiques of my efforts to be good at sports, to be good at school, to please him. I always felt small, unloved, unseen when he treated me like that. The feeling of being rejected by Rachel when I’m only trying to help is the same, only much worse.

“I understand,” I say woodenly, even though I don’t. I don’t understand at all.

“Cara,” I say, then pause. I forge ahead anyhow after a moment. “Is there some kind of secret that you two are keeping from me? I just keep feeling like I’m missing…something.”

“Look,” Cara says, that patient note still in her voice. “She has to tell you in her own time. I can’t interfere. I’m sorry.”

I want to scream, kick over my chair, rage at the world, but I know it won’t do any good. Finally, I look out the window at the rain pattering down, and I say, “It’s almost Christmas. We had plans.”

Cara sighs heavily. “I know. I’m sorry, Tristan,” she says before she hangs up.

I stare at the cell phone in my hand, wishing that there was something I could do to reach her. Why is she shutting me out? Why won’t she talk to me?

I stumble across the room and sit down heavily in my chair. I rest my forehead on my hand and stare sightlessly across the room. Clearly, I’m no good at relationships. I’m apparently not even good a situationships.

It’s like every time we get close to one another, something that neither of us can control happens, and she pulls away.

There must be something that I’m missing, some crucial piece of information that would explain her reticence. I just can’t think of anything that would cause her to run so hot and cold like this all the time.

“Burning the midnight oil?”

I look up and see Ali hovering in the doorway to my office.

I sigh and realize that I’ve been sitting at my desk mulling things over for about an hour. I straighten up and wince at the kink in my neck.

“Not really,” I say to Ali with a sad smile. Clearly she hasn’t seen any social media recently. “Just have a situation going on that’s hard to deal with.”

Ali looks regretful and she nods. “Well, maybe you should call Rachel. She seems like she’s a really good listener.”

I almost burst out laughing at the ridiculousness of her advice. But of course, Ali and everyone who works here think that Rachel is just working on my biography.

Before today, they wouldn’t have had any idea that there was anything between us. If they hadn’t opened social media for a few hours, they wouldn’t have even seen the news articles about us.

However, I know that Ali means well, so I just nod at her. “That’s a great idea, thanks Ali.”

“Sure thing,” she says back with a chipper smile. “Well, I’m off until the New Year. See you after the holidays!”

I wave at her and then watch her walk away down the hallway, her stilettos clicking on the marble floor. I think about the beautiful Christmas tree standing in my living room next to the fireplace. I think about coming home alone, eating dinner alone at the dining table, and then going to bed alone.

All of that sounds terrible. I grab my phone and call Jay. Maybe he and Janet won’t mind having me over for dinner or something.

“Hey buddy,” I say when Jay picks up the call. “What are you up to tonight?”

“We’re headed over to Janet’s extended family’s place to do early Christmas Eve since we can’t all fit into one house these days,” he says ruefully, and I chuckle a little.

Jay’s wife’s family is positively enormous. She has more cousins and second cousins and nieces and nephews than anyone else I‘ve ever known.

“Never mind then,” I say, happy for Jay despite the aching void in my heart.

“What’s up?” Jay asks.

“Really, it’s nothing,” I tell him. “It can wait.”

“If you don’t have anyone to spend the holidays with, you know you’re always welcome to spend them with us,” Jay says to me. “You know I offer every year and you turn me down, but I just thought I would try again.”

I smile a little. “I appreciate that, Jay,” I tell him. “I just…I was hoping to avoid being alone tonight what with Rachel and the whole…thing. But it’s okay, truly.”

“Invitation still stands,” Jay says. “Think on it.”

“I will,” I reply before ending the call.

Grumbling a little to myself, I leave my office and wander down to the parking garage. I get in my sports car and start driving home to the apartment, my mind still preoccupied with the scandal, another Christmas spent alone, and a future that suddenly seemed very…lonely.

When I step out of the elevator, Nancy comes to meet me. She looks so empathetic that I can tell she has seen the news.

“Drink?” she asks me, her tone kind.

“Sure,” I say with a shrug.

“I made dinner,” Nancy says, gesturing for me to sit at the table.

I oblige her even though I can’t imagine eating. I feel numb, empty, bereft of purpose.

“Here,” she says, placing a delicious-looking plate of food in front of me and then handing me a glass of milky-white liquid with some kind of garnish on the top.

I eyeball it skeptically and she smiles at me. “Eggnog,” she supplies, before bustling off to the kitchen again.

I manage a small laugh and take a sip of the eggnog. It’s not bad. Maybe I should have been more willing to enjoy it in the past when it was offered to me.

I eat more of the food Nancy placed in front of me than I had expected.

I take another glass of eggnog and wander into the living room to stare at the tree standing proud and festive by the fireplace.

I think of Rachel and I spinning around dancing to Christmas carols, and then I think of her leaning back against me, riding my cock, screaming as she came. Everything in this room feels sad to me now. I expect it will always feel that way if this is the end.

I wander listlessly away from the fireplace, tired of being plagued by the memories of time spent with Rachel there. My feet take me to her room. Maybe she wants all of her clothing packed up and sent over to Cara’s place. I guess I had better ask that question in the morning. Thankfully, they are much the same size, so she can borrow from Cara for now.

I drift into the bathroom and decide I should check to make sure that she didn’t leave anything essential in there. I haven’t seen her taking any kind of daily medication or anything, but honestly, we don’t know one another that well yet. It’s something I could have missed.

I tug open the drawers, finding them all to be empty, which is what I had expected. I’m about to leave when I realize that the center drawer in front of the vanity mirror is poking out a little. It’s the kind of space where you could fit a small pill bottle, so I open it.

There are a couple of makeup products tucked into the drawer, but I hear something else rattling at the back of the drawer as I pull it open. Frowning a little, I reach back farther and curl my fingers around three plastic objects.

I freeze when I bring them out and can see them better. I flip them all over and stare at the positive symbols on all of them.

“Oh my God,” I say out loud, feeling dazed. “She’s pregnant?” How long had she known? Was I the father? Do I want to be the father?

I stumble back and sit down unceremoniously on the tile surrounding the soaking tub, my mind awhirl.

Pregnant.

Why hadn’t she told me? Did she really not trust me enough to let me know that she was having a baby?

I think of the way I was raised and I feel a little overwhelmed. Maybe I’m not cut out to be a father, and that’s why she hadn’t told me. But no, that’s not fair. I haven’t even had the chance to fuck things up yet.

I cradle my head in my hands as I try and process what I have just discovered.

She had said that she was coming down with something a few weeks ago, but that wasn’t the issue at all. She had probably known about this for more than a month now, and yet I was still in the dark.

Did Cara know? I felt a sharp sting of annoyance toward our mutual friend. This was something that I should have been told.

There was no way that I was going to let any child of mine be raised without a father.

I realize that even a few years ago, I would not have been ready to be a father. Heck, I still didn’t know that I am fit to be a father, but I am more than ready to try.

Rachel was younger than me, so she couldn’t totally appreciate the loneliness of being unable to share your achievements with people that you love.

Jay and Janet have always been like family, but they can’t take the place of my own child, or the woman that I love.

Woman that I love. The phrase keeps playing over and over in my mind.

I love her. I want us to do this together. Now all I have to do is convince her that she wants me too.