Chapter 9

“As I said, getting a woman pregnant isn’t a crime, Derek. I’ve done it twice and I’m not in jail right now.”

“You are married.”

“And you could be too.”

“Never! I’ve told you many times already that I will never get married. I will never give up my freedom and sanity for a piece of paper that will have me giving half of my fortune to some woman if she eventually decides to leave me.”

“Marriage is more than just a piece of paper, Derek. It’s a union of heart, body, and souls,” said Jonah, seriously.

“Miss me with that BS, Jonah. I’m not interested and that’s that. If Rachel thinks she can trap me with a pregnancy that isn’t mine, then she better think again because I’m not falling for it. I’m smarter than that.”

“That’s her name? Rachel?”

“Yeah, and don’t ask me her last name because I don’t remember and I don’t want to. What a shameless liar she is.”

“Don’t be so quick to call her names. You could be wrong.”

“I don’t think so.”

“All right, what’s the plan then?”

“Nothing. I’ll do nothing. I’m just going to wait and see what stunt she tries to pull next. I want to see what kind of stuff she’s really made of.”

“I still think you should give her the benefit of a doubt. Give her a few more weeks and see if the pregnancy progresses.”

“And then what?”

“Ask for a DNA test to be carried out on the fetus.”

Derek shook his head as if his friend could see him through the phone. “I’m not going to be a part of that. Requesting for a DNA test is like low-key accepting her story that I am the father of her baby, and I don’t want to do that because I know I’m not the one.”

Jonah sighed. “Since your mind is already made up about the situation, why did you call me?”

“To vent, because that’s what best friends are for.”

His friend laughed heartily. “I didn’t sign up to be a dumpsite for your emotional baggage and sexual exploits.”

“It’s too late for you to complain now,” Derek laughed.

“Are we gonna see you this Saturday?” Jonah asked light-heartedly, changing the subject.

“Uh, I guess so. What’s happening?”

“Michelle’s birthday.”

“Oh, yeah. She told me she wanted a pony,” said Derek, remembering the pricey request from Jonah’s soon-to-be 4-year-old daughter.

“Don’t do it, unless it’s a stuffed pony. Our home is like a zoo already with all the animals she has acquired in the last two years. I can’t take it anymore.”

Derek laughed. “Not my problem. If Michelle wants a pony, Michelle gets a pony. End of discussion.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was your daughter,” Jonah mused. “You’d make a great dad, you know?”

“Stop it. I’m the fun uncle and that’s all I’ll always be. Never a dad.”

“If you say so.”

“I do. I better call my assistant to start shopping for a pony. I’ll get her one with honey-brown coat and golden mane.”

Jonah groaned dramatically on the other end of the line. “You know what, you’re disinvited.”

“You wish.”

“Please, I am on my knees right now, Derek. Get her a stuffed pony instead.”

“No will do, my dear friend. Now go away. I have work to do.”

“I hate you,” said Jonah, flatly.

“The feeling is mutual,” replied Derek with a laugh before hanging up.

He felt much better after the phone call. He could always count on Jonah to put his mind at ease, no matter how troubled he was. They were childhood friends who had gone to the same Ivy League schools and have kept in touch over the years through thick and thin. Derek considered Jonah to be the brother he never had.
Feeling relieved, he immediately deleted all thoughts of Rachel and her fake pregnancy from his mind and focused his attention on work. He was about to negotiate the terms of a new merger between one of his companies and a wildly successful consumer goods company that is trying to expand its market beyond the shores of America. This was what he lived for – new business ventures that allowed him to conquer new challenges, provide lasting economic solutions and add more proverbial fathers to his cap.

He lifted the top of his laptop and tapped the space bar. “Let’s do this,” he said to himself, feeling invigorated.

Before long, he was completely immersed in his work, reading and editing the content of a contract sent to him by one of his lawyers. His office phone began to ring and he tapped the speaker button to answer the call. A few minutes later, he was on his way to a strategy meeting with the marketing department on the 11th floor. Yep, his life was back to normal.

********

Rachel was miserable, she felt as if her life was crumbling and there was nothing she could do to stop the devastation. How could she have been so careless? What was she going to do now? How was she going to break this news to her family, especially her mother? How would her friends react?

Her body shook violently as she sobbed on her bed. She wasn’t surprised that Derek had refused to entertain the possibility that he was the father of her child, but his insults had crushed her. Why was he so cruel to her? Hadn’t that night they spent making love meant nothing to him? Of course, she didn’t expect him to fall in love with her after that, but couldn’t he just try and be nice to her?

She grabbed a piece of tissue and blew her nose loudly, then she tossed it at the trash can but missed by a hair’s breadth. The missed shot sent her into another fit of crying and she squeezed her eyes shut, wishing she could press the rewind button and go back to that night at The Black Hat. She wanted a do-over and she wanted it now. How was she going to survive this new phase of her life? How was she going to raise a baby all by herself? How would she explain this to her subscribers when her belly began to grow? What was the rest of her life going to be like now?

Someone knocked loudly on her front door followed by, “Open the door, Rachel. I know you’re in there!”

She groaned. “Go away, Rob!”

“Don’t make me break this door down,” Rob threatened. “Open up!”

“Leave me alone!”

“I mean it, Rachel. This door is coming down any minute now if you don’t open it. You’ve been in there for more than a week, nobody’s seen you and we’re all worried. You haven’t hosted your dance classes this week and you didn’t offer any explanation to your students. Have you seen the comments on your YouTube channel? Your subscribers want to know why you stopped uploading content and I want to know why you’re hiding in there.”

Rachel said nothing but continued to sob quietly. She didn’t have the energy to offer her brother the explanation he was seeking.

“Rachel?”

She sighed in defeat and finally dragged herself out of bed. “I’m coming,” she called out. She tripped on an empty tub of ice cream that she’d left on the floor last night. “Ouch,” she yelped when she stubbed her big toe on an upturned stool in front of the door. She kicked it aside and unlocked her door.

When Rob saw her, he gasped in shock. “Oh my gosh, Rachel. What happened to you?”

Her hair was disheveled, her hair was a mess, her face was streaked with tears and her eyes were bloodshot from crying non-stop. Her oversized T-shirt was rumpled and stained with drops of chocolate ice cream and her legs were unshaven.

Her apartment looked like a war zone; magazines everywhere, furniture askew, dirty plates and cutlery everywhere, floors littered with snack wrappers, and the whole place stank.

“Geez, Rachel. What’s this? Are you doing drugs?”

She ignored his question and continued her slow walk back to her bedroom where she landed heavily on the bed, exhausted from the short walk.

Rob was not surprised to see that her bedroom was even in worse shape than her living room. “Are you going to tell me what is going on, or do I have to squeeze it out of you?”

“I messed up, Rob,” she said softly and her chin began to wobble. She couldn’t believe that she still had any tears left in her eyes, but her tear duct did its job and two fat tears rolled down her cheeks. “I messed up, big time.”

Rob pulled up a nearby stool and sat on it, then he held her hands in his and gave them a gentle squeeze. “Come on, my love. You know me well enough to know that I don’t have a single judgemental bone in my body. You know you can tell me whatever it is that you’ve done and I won’t judge you. Come on, Raych. You know you can trust me with your secret.”
The Billionaire's Unexpected Fatherly Fate: Derek and Rachel's Stormy Saga
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