Elizabeth’s hands flew to her hips, and she squared her shoulders. “Exactly. You have a house, but I’m sure it’s not a home. How many months is this tour this time? Can you imagine what it would be like to have a child with a touring rock star? Because I can’t. I’d be having babies to raise them as a single mom. I didn’t want to sign up for that.”
“You would’ve been raising them in one hell of a house, into one hell of a life,” I retorted, though even I had to admit that the picture she painted was kind of bleak.
“I don’t think a hell of life is something that’s quite fit for a baby. I used to love you, Caleb. While I’m happy for you and your success, I also pity you a little now. Is anything in your life real anymore?”
“Yes,” I replied immediately, thinking first of my band. Jared and the guys were real. They were always there, annoying as fuck sometimes, but the constant reminder that we were all just people after all. They kept me grounded and reminded me to pull my head out of my ass from time to time.
Like Elizabeth was reading my mind, she said, “Not Destitute. Anything else?”
I wanted to tell her how real my money was, how real the girls were that threw themselves at me every night. But that just wasn’t me. Besides, there was something else now. “I’m with someone now. Someone real. It’s not just a one-night stand.”
She smiled sadly, almost ruefully. “I wish I could say something different to you, but I can’t. It’ll end eventually. You know that, right? All women crave stability from their men in the long run, and you, Mr. Larsen, will never be able to provide that.”
I grunted, searching for an answer when she held up a hand and hugged her purse to her. “Again, Caleb, I’m really sorry for cheating on you. You didn’t deserve that, but that was the only mistake I made back then. It was good to see you.”
“Good to see you too,” I lied. It hadn’t been. All she’d done was brought up feelings that I never had to deal with anymore. Feelings like self-doubt and a lack of confidence. It sucked balls.
Elizabeth walked to the door of the suite, pulling it open and turning to face me before she left. “Please, never contact me again. Have a good life, Caleb Larsen.”
Then she was gone.
Elizabeth was out of my life. For good. She’d made sure of that. Again.
What she’d left behind, again, were all the negative emotions and dark thoughts that she’d stirred up. She’d seemed so sure that I was fucked, that she was right, and I would never have a lasting relationship because of my lifestyle.
Her words didn’t leave my mind, echoing as if they’d been planted there. Was she right? Was any relationship that I even tried having just completely doomed? Clouds started rolling in over the bay, and they seemed to bring my answer. It was yes.
As long as I lived the life I did, there was no way any relationship I even tried having was anything but doomed. As far as the world was concerned, I was living a charmed life. But they were wrong. It wasn’t charmed. It was cursed.
Chapter 24
Kelly
It was time to own up to my relationship with Caleb. It’d been part of my plan since my last conversation with Alicia to let my managing editor know that I’d slept with a subject, and my plans remained the same.
More than twenty-four hours had passed since I’d taken those little tests that would irrevocably change the course of my life, and while I was still shaken all the way to my bones, it was time to start planning. I had to take control of the situation, or as much control as I could, at least.
That started with the dial tone humming in the emptiness of my room, waiting for me to place the call to my employer and face my fate. Mentally crossing my fingers and toes, I punched in the office line and then the private extension for the editor’s office.
“Go for Hannah,” she barked into the phone. My heart stammered and skipped a beat or two, but then I found my voice.
“Hannah, this is Kelly.” My voice was slightly shaky, but it was loud enough to be heard.
“Kelly, is everything okay with the Imperial Inspection tour?” she asked in a much more relaxed tone than she’d answered with.
“Everything’s fine with the tour,” I told her, steeling myself for the moment when I had to tell her the purpose of my call. It took every ounce of courage I didn’t even know I could muster, but I finally managed to relay the nutshell version of the story.
Hannah was quiet for a long time after I finished, finally making an annoyed clicking sound with her tongue. “You say this has been going on for weeks?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I gulped, walking over to my hotel windows to open them for some desperately needed fresh air, only to remember that they didn’t open. Crap. I jabbed the button of the air conditioning remote instead, turning the temperature all the way down.
“And you’re only telling me now?” Hannah snapped, clearly impatient and frustrated.
“It didn’t seem necessary before,” I answered, not really knowing why that was relevant.
Hannah sighed deeply. “It’s always necessary. Next time, you’re to tell me the second you find yourself in a compromising position, okay?”
Next time? I definitely wasn’t planning on there being a next time, so my answer was really a no-brainer. “No problem. Definitely.”
“We’ll have to make a public statement, but I think the nature of your coverage on this assignment is such that I don’t think it’ll ultimately be a very big deal this time round. Next time though, if you don’t tell me right away, it will end up costing you your job. Understood?”
“I do. I understand.” Immense relief rolled through me that this conversation hadn’t cost me my job. I’d survived the first hurdle. It wasn’t going to make one lick of difference in how Caleb was going to handle the news, but at least it was step one.
Telling him about my pregnancy was a problem I had yet to resolve, but I intended to get it done sooner rather than later. These kinds of secrets had a way of getting out to bite you in the ass if you didn’t deal with them correctly. I’d seen the movie and read the book too many times to think it would end any differently for me.
No. There would be no secret pregnancy or secret baby. This baby’s daddy was going to be told, and if he flipped out, well then, so be it. I still would’ve respected him enough to have told him the truth.
Besides, I didn’t know how Caleb felt about children, but maybe after the initial shock, it wouldn’t be so bad. With that thought in mind, I punched in the next number of my to-do list.
Caleb answered with a quiet, gruff, “Hello?”
“Hey. It’s me. Kelly.” Holy moly. It felt like someone had poured all the sand in the desert down my throat.
Unfortunately, Caleb didn’t sound excited to hear from me either. Instead, he sounded flat and maybe even a little pissed. “Hey, Kelly. What’s up?”
“Not much,” I answered hurriedly, unless you count me growing your baby at this exact moment in time—though I didn’t add that bit. “I was wondering, could I come over to your suite later?”
Given how enthusiastically he’d tried to keep me there the other night, I wasn’t expecting the hesitant tone that I got. “Uh. Sure. Okay, what time?”