She came into work on the seventh of February, a day she originally had off and another date with Austin. Except, the new girl, Laura, had called in sick, and since Nat wanted to replenish the money she had to give her brother, she told Grant she’d take the early shift.
Natasha wanted to blame her illness on her nerves. She and Austin had only gone out a couple of times, and they had only kissed. She was worried about tonight! She had never made dinner in her home for anyone else except her family. And here she was going to make Austin dinner at her new place before watching a movie. She didn’t know if perhaps it was too soon in their courtship to be inviting a man into her home. This was a big step for her, and she didn’t want to mess it up.
The part that bothered, and made Natasha apprehensive with Austin coming over, was the fact she had only slept with Damon. Would Austin be expecting her to have sex with him after the movie?
Natasha knew Damon was above and beyond her league. It wasn’t like Damon had to try really hard to bed her, since she had made the first move. The only thing that had made her nervous about that date was being with someone whose status was superior to hers. Even when Natasha was middle class and wearing designer clothes back in Australia, Damon would still be in a more distinguished class than she.
Austin might be her future, but it didn’t mean that Natasha had to have sex with him. Even if Austin was equal to her than Damon had been, she didn’t have to put herself out there. Calming her nerves, she decided she would just see where the night led them. There was no need to rush into anything.
While at work, Natasha could smell the new, rich chocolate mousse pie which Grant had picked up. He had asked her to put something together for Valentine’s Day. And so far, with sweets and rich smells making her stomach roll, Natasha had only come up with ideas, but nothing concrete. She couldn’t stomach working on the actual sample.
Just walking past the chocolate mousse pie made Natasha want to wretch. She dashed off to the bathroom, with Janet following. This was becoming annoying! Natasha finished up in the stall, and then went to wash her face and mouth out. Maybe she should cancel her date?
“Yup, you’re pregnant for sure.”
“I am not,” Natasha told her annoying friend.
“Have you had a period?” Janet asked, like a mother hen.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nat evaded the question, before leaving the bathroom, troubled with her thoughts.
Janet was a great lady, but sometimes people just didn’t want to be bothered. Or hear the truth.
Natasha got off work at three p.m. and Austin picked Nat up at her place at five p.m. They then went to a nearby grocery store, which was actually within a reasonable distance of Damon’s bachelor pad. Natasha didn’t realize it at first until they drove closer to the store. There were some familiar landmarks she’d seen on the cab ride home from Damon’s.
It didn’t seem to matter whether she was with someone or not. She was being constantly reminded of Damon and the few memories they had shared. Of course, leaving his bachelor’s pad wasn’t a good memory! Her stomach turned, and her heart dropped. Damon’s penthouse wasn’t too far from her new apartment. Oh, great! She truly had no reason why she couldn’t pop over and thank him for the bursary. What if they ran into each other? Though, she doubted very much that he did his own personal shopping. He most likely had people do that for him. Since he had sent over a personal shopper to assist Nat with getting the proper clothes she had needed for their weekend away.
Here it was February seventh, and Valentine’s Day was in a week. Natasha was still thinking of Damon while her heart was breaking. She’d rather be with Damon than with Austin. This wasn’t fair to Austin, since he was a great guy in his own right!
*****
Damon was all caught up with work and had no desire to be out in public, eating at a restaurant, or entertaining anyone. Lately, he’d become more grumpy. Even though he had a maid to clean his place and restock anything he needed, he still preferred to go shopping for food himself. Heading to the nearby grocery store, he locked his car and headed in to shop.
Damon was almost at the end of the cereal aisle, which was near the tills and front door, when he thought he saw Natasha enter the grocery store. He rapidly blinked his eyes and then had to move, as another customer wanted to pass him. He then looked back at that location, but he didn’t see her. He shook his head to get the cobwebs out. He had to be losing it. He just wasn’t himself lately.
He wasn’t sleeping right, he was snappy at the office, and he was deprived of sex. Since the getaway with the Murdochs, he hadn’t been able to sleep with another woman. There was something about Natasha Romeo that his mind wouldn’t drop. His heartbeat would always speed up when he thought of her.
When he thought back to the woman who’d resembled Nat, he realized he had seen her with a gentleman.
Since it couldn’t be Natasha, he carried on with his shopping. Natasha didn’t even live in this part of town. However, he wasn’t too sure where Natasha had moved to... His mind was really playing tricks on him.
Damon then saw that lady—who he thought looked similar to Natasha—run past him and throw up in a garbage can not too far away. He looked in the direction she had come from, and it was the bakery. Damon thought that was quite odd, considering Natasha loved baking, and wouldn’t be getting sick from that smell. Looking back to the woman, she stood and the gentleman was right beside her. The man was comforting her. He didn’t normally stare at people, but...
Damon then realized it truly was Natasha. She had just gotten sick. He turned angrily on his heel and went in the opposite direction. He was suddenly so confused, angry and jealous. She couldn’t call him to thank him for the gifts he’d given her lately, and now she was dating? Maybe that man was her brother, but why would he be comforting her like a lover? He carried on, walking quickly while lost in thought.
Natasha had just been sick near the bakery section of the grocery store. She had a glow orbiting around her like his sister did. Yet, Nat was with another man. Had she slept with someone else right after their getaway? What was going on? Damon was suddenly angrier than he’d been in a long time. The last time he was this angry was when he had kicked his ex-girlfriend out of his place after he’d caught her cheating on him!
He was aimlessly walking down an aisle and not paying attention to where he was. Lost in thought he finally realized that he was in the pharmaceutical department when he saw condoms on display.
He didn’t need any.
Damon had worn condoms with Natasha, but then he didn’t remember if he had worn them on their first time together, as it had happened so fast. He did the mental math. It had been just under two months since they had first made love. They had also slept together a week after their first time. He knew it was typical for pregnant women to have a glow around them. They also got fatigue and morning sickness.
Damon looked back to the shelves, and he saw a row of pregnancy tests. His heart stopped. Could she be pregnant? Condoms weren’t one hundred percent effective. Now she was getting sick near pastries. That wasn’t a good thing for a baker because they loved sweets. They had to or else why bake?
Damon grabbed a pregnancy test. There was only one way to find out. He’d have her take the test! Natasha either was pregnant, or she wasn’t. Walking toward her, he started thinking. Was Natasha not planning to tell him whether she was pregnant? Had she known all along, or was Natasha expecting the gentleman she was with to be the baby’s father? Had they even slept together? If Natasha were pregnant, was it that man’s baby? Damon didn’t like that idea at all! It bothered him immensely!
Was she even on birth control? They’d never talked in-depth about preventative measures because he didn’t care if she was or wasn’t protected, as he always wore a condom. Had Natasha deliberately slept with him to get pregnant, or had she thought of this while he apologized to her? Was she looking to get more money out of him by going away with him and then getting pregnant? She’d raised the amount of money for their getaway, after all.
His father had once told him, ‘Women are not to be trusted, son. They are always out for themselves, and will say and do whatever they have to do to get what they want. Once they dig their claws into a rich man, it’s hard to shake them.’ His dad hadn’t fathered anymore children with his other wives after Damon’s mother. However, they sure did love the clothes and jewels that were provided for them.
Natasha clearly had moved homes since she had received the money. Nat looked much nicer than when he’d first met her at the diner. In all fairness, she had sold her house.
By time he caught up to Natasha and the man she was with, Damon was furious! He wanted to beat up the man and have him disappear. Damon also wanted a great many questions answered!
Damon caught up to Natasha, and gave her a paralyzing glare. “Natasha!” he growled.
The man Nat was with looked at him almost challenging. “Hi, I don’t believe I’ve met you. I’m Austin, her boyfriend.” Then Austin took a step closer to Natasha.
Damon glared at Austin, Natasha’s sudden ‘boyfriend’. He didn’t believe the man, especially when Nat couldn’t look him directly in the eyes, thus indicating a lie. “Well, I am her boyfriend!”
*****
Natasha was shocked, flustered, and embarrassed all at once. She didn’t know what to do or say, and Natasha was afraid Damon already suspected that she was pregnant. This was what Janet was bugging her about all the time. “Da...mon what are yo-ou...do-doing here?” Natasha stuttered with fear.
Damon grabbed Natasha’s right wrist, and she could feel the sizzle coming from him as Damon held it firmly, yet tenderly. “We’re leaving! You’re done here,” he commanded before looking at Austin next. “Austin, you and Nat are done! She and I have a test to take!”
She could see Austin looked confused. Here they were shopping for the dinner date he’d arranged with Natasha. Then Damon had interrupted them right after she had gotten sick. Austin was only trying to comfort her while she was unwell, and she wasn’t going to reprimand him for it. Now Damon was claiming to be her real boyfriend. She suddenly looked and felt guilty.
“Damon, what do you want?” Natasha angrily shouted at him.
*****
It seemed she had gotten over her shock of seeing him and was back to the spit fire woman he so loved. Damon curled one corner of his lip and showed them the pregnancy test in his hand before shoving it into Natasha’s chest.
Damon pulled Natasha toward him so she was right up against his chest, then looked at Austin. “If you haven’t slept with her, then you’ve got nothing to worry about. But if you have, then you can deal with her after I do!” Damon said firmly.
*****
Damon held her wrist while he walked them to the checkout counter and then to his Benz. Natasha couldn’t believe she had run into Damon at a grocery store. For one thing, she assumed he went out to eat. For another, his maid did the shopping. Didn’t he once say...he had a maid?
Sitting beside Damon in the car, Natasha could feel the fire of his anger blazing from him. Why was he so mad?
Since she had been planning to spend the evening cooking and watching a movie with Austin at home, she was hungry. Natasha’s stomach was growling, and she was starting to feel weak. She thought back to the look on Austin’s face when he saw the pregnancy test. Then when Austin said what he had to say...and how he walked out on her with a look of disgust on his face. That was enough to tell her that he was sickened by her and thought she was a two timing tramp. If Natasha wasn’t pregnant, she probably wouldn’t be seeing him ever again. If she was pregnant, what would that mean for her and Damon? Would he just walk out of her life, like he had walked into it today?
He dropped by your place of work the other day, she suddenly remembered. She had a feeling—pregnant or not—it was time to confront Damon, and admit her feelings toward him.
Natasha led the way into her apartment complex, and once inside her place. “Wow, you’ve put my money to good use,” Damon remarked snidely.
“That was cold!”
Oh great! Damon had slipped back into his ‘arrogant asshole’ self. Where it was all about money and she was out to get him. However, she wasn’t a poor little bumpkin anymore. They were more even on the playing field, although Natasha still had less money than Damon. It seemed that he now thought he could be a jerk to her again.
He might have given her the boost that she’d needed, but Natasha wasn’t a deprived diner girl just because her parents had died. Natasha had been an average middle-class citizen even before that had happened. Damon’s money had helped rebuild her confidence.
Natasha didn’t know whether she wanted to take the test or not. Deep down, Nat already knew she was pregnant. Natasha had had a minor period on the day she got back from the mountains. It also didn’t help that Janet had caught Natasha getting sick a couple of times. And kept pointing out that she must be pregnant because of her new found glow and the fact Nat wasn’t feeling well in the mornings.
She already assumed that it could be fairly possible. She was just waiting for another period, but it hadn’t arrived. Natasha didn’t want to admit the truth: that she might be pregnant and carrying Damon Cullen’s baby. If she was, this wasn’t how she would have even broken the news to him. She didn’t think she’d run into Damon, much less that he’d thrust a pregnancy test at her. She wasn’t sure how Damon would respond, and obviously this was what she already feared would be his reaction to the news.
It would have been nice to have had more time to prepare herself for the sight of Damon again. It would also have been nice to tell him, “We only made love a handful of times, but now I’m pregnant.” She hadn’t wanted to have him see her ill in a grocery store with another man beside her. Looking up at him, she could see the anger radiating from him. He was like an enraged bull, and she felt it was wise to avoid him. He needed to cool down. Not see red!
*****
Damon was looking around Nat’s apartment, and saw that Natasha and her sister were living more comfortably. He also noticed she was dressed more nicely. Yet he still wondered if Nat had deliberately gotten pregnant so she could use him as her meal ticket. Damon didn’t want to think ill of her. He didn’t want to think that she was just like so many other women, and deliberately going out of her way in finding herself a meal ticket. Damon being that meal ticket! The thought made him sick, especially given that Natasha dropped out of university to raise her sister when their parents died. Surely Natasha didn’t want to throw her life away by having a baby at twenty-two. Nat was just a year older than his baby sister. Damon didn’t quite approve of Donna keeping the pregnancy from John, even if he was going to be a deadbeat father. In the grocery store, it had looked like Natasha had had no intentions of informing him, either.
Here he had thought that Natasha was this morally pure and innocent young woman. However, to do such a thing to him...hurt! It just didn’t make sense to him. His first love interest had dumped him for another man so she could have the lifestyle she desired. So it made sense that a woman would do something selfish...but Natasha?
Looking around her modern apartment, Damon was surprised to see that Natasha had taste. The furniture had probably belonged to her parents. It was still old, but looked nicer in this place. Natasha was dressed nicely, and this was probably for the date which he’d interrupted. She had done well with the money he’d paid her, and the money she had made from the sale of her parents’ home. Damon found it comical how she was actually closer to him, in a better section of town. Had she known that she’d actually moved nearer to where he was? Since she’d run into him today at the store...she might now realize that they lived close to each other.
Natasha wasn’t living like a welfare case as he had first thought when he saw the inside of her house. And that was impressive. Damon wasn’t sure whether he’d ever really known Natasha. He didn’t want to think she was going straight for his money, and also didn’t like the idea that Natasha might not have been going to tell him about being pregnant.
At least the one maid that his family had hired back when he was a teenager had told his father that she was going to have a baby. Though, his father had cast her out, after paying her to have an abortion. He'd almost forgotten it had been so many years ago.
When he was fourteen years of age and spending the summer at home with his father, Damon had overheard his father talking in an aggressive manner to one of the maids before firing her. Since his mother had moved out with Donna when his sister was about two-years-old, his father had enrolled him into a boys’ private school. His father wasn’t the best example of how to be a man since he was always courting many different women, and Damon had been shipped off when he was old enough, and too much to handle. That would have been about the time that his father had gotten serious with Damon’s first stepmother.
When his mother had moved out, Damon was often left in the care of a maid. A tutor had briefly taken care of him after the accident that cost him his memory. He’d been hit by a car as a young child, and for the life of him, he still had no memories of the time when he’d grown up with both his parents. It would seem that whatever the reason for Damon being hit by a car had something to do with his parents. Because once he was healed, he did not remember his mother or father being happy with one another. They seemed to keep a distance between them, and there was always tension in the air. However, the accident that took away his childhood memories had happened a month after his sister was conceived. Neither one of his parents ever told him why he’d been hit by a car, or why an eight-year-old would be playing in traffic off the property. Since his mother and sister moved out two years afterwards, he often wondered if he had something to do with his mother leaving...
Damon was casually strolling down the hall when he overheard his father talking to a young maid. He wasn’t afraid of his father, or when his father got angry. When he heard the cries of the maid pleading to talk to his father, he stopped walking and eavesdropped.
Tucking himself behind a marble pillar, he could see his father trying to leave with Damon’s second stepmother—although she wasn’t ready yet. His dad was in the distance while the young maid was closing in on her employer. Damon hadn’t met this maid because he’d been away in private school for the year. She had a pale complexion, platinum-blond hair, and deep red-rose lips. While he watched her begging to speak to his father, her lips looked rough. He stood there quietly, focusing on his breathing. He’d just returned back to the house from school a couple of days ago, and from what he could see, things weren’t looking well at home.
She finally managed to get his father to agree to listen to her. They then headed for his father’s study, which wasn’t too far away. As there was no one around, Damon snuck up to a section of the house where he would be able to listen in on the conversation. He wanted to hear more about what the maid wanted, since she was now crying.
Listening in, he heard his father say, “We have nothing to talk about. You know this...”
“I’m pregnant,” the young maid squeaked.
“You’re not pregnant by me.” Damon’s father then closed the door to his study to have a private conversation.
Since his father had closed the door, Damon could only hear muffled words. Changing his position, he moved closer to his father’s office, and put his ear up against a wall to listen in.
“I’m telling you! It’s yours. I never slept with anyone but you!”
“You shouldn’t be in my home, and you shouldn’t be saying these things!” Owen Cullen paced. “They’re not true. I’ll have you escorted off the property,” his father said with authority.
“It’s true, Owen. I’m telling you! This baby is yours, and you need to do what’s right,” she pleaded.
“I need to marry you?” he laughed.
“No. I understand you have a—” She didn’t get to finish because his father cut her off.
“Look, if you truly are pregnant...”
Damon heard his father’s voice really clearly, but everything suddenly was quiet. He tried to get closer to the window to hear what his father was telling the maid.
Breathing quietly, Damon soon heard his father say, “Here! Deal with it.”
“You’re kidding, right?” she asked hysterically.
“I just paid you to deal with it! I will not hear of anything more beyond this! I will NOT acknowledge what you speak of if you do not deal with it.” Opening the door to his study, he glared at her with venom. “Good riddance!” his father said before slamming the door, leaving the maid in the study.
Damon was still hiding. His heart lodged in his throat. He was shocked at his father’s behavior. After Damon’s father had left the study, he immediately hollered to his third wife, “We’re late for the meeting! Hurry up!”
Damon’s father and stepmother soon left the house. Damon just stood in the hallway, wondering what his father had demanded of the maid. Had his father truly paid the maid to have an abortion?
About five minutes after his father had gone, he was still standing there. And when the maid finally left the study, Damon was still pondering many things. Since he’d been lost in thought, he hadn’t heard the young lady speak to him. Damon looked at her. He could see her eyes were blood-shot from crying, and she looked scared. However, she had the most brilliant green eyes he’d ever seen.
“You weren’t standing there the whole time, were you?” she asked nervously.
He could see she was afraid of something, but he didn’t know what. He shook his head no before speaking. “I was just about to head out. Did you need anything?” He hadn’t known why he asked the question, but it seemed like the right thing to ask.
She composed herself before standing tall and proud. “I’m fine. I was just collecting my stuff.” He frowned at her because he heard her voice break. “I gave your father my notice.”
He just stood there, unsure what to say. He had thought to ask her more, but then, he wasn’t supposed to be listening in. As Damon stared at her, he did wonder if she was going to do what his father suggested. He hadn’t experienced the opposite sex yet, but he was curious... He didn’t stand around much longer after that. Instead, he went outside and took a walk along the property.
The sound of the bathroom door opening brought Damon out of his thoughts. He looked at Natasha after she came out of the bathroom from taking the test. She looked tired. He just had to know. “So, are you pregnant?”
Natasha looked at the test results in the small window. “Yes.” Then she curled her fingers around the tester, and closed her eyes.