Ruthless_A Billionaire Secret Baby Romance Page 8

  It pissed her off to think that someone would make a bet at her expense, but at the same time, she did understand that they were two different people from two different worlds. Of course, they would make dumb bets like that. She wasn’t ignorant to the type of people that existed in that financial bracket. They were all jackasses—Chase himself admitted he could be one while he was with the guys. When it came down to it, she knew that he didn’t mean anything by the bet, and at the time, he probably didn’t think anything would come of it, either.

  But, at the same time, she had to argue with herself that he should treat her that way whether he thought something was going to come of it or not. It wasn’t his place to treat any woman that way, whether he was joking or not, or whether he thought she was going to find out about it.

  Sure, he had messed up, and he shouldn’t have told her that it was because of his tips that she was doing so well, either. There was so much about the situation that was messed up in so many ways, she didn’t know how to handle it. But she also didn’t want to go crawling back to him, either.

  She was a stubborn and proud kind of woman, and she wasn’t going to let her own insecurities and hurt feelings get in the way. She just wished that she could stop thinking about him. Then life could go back to the way it used to be.

  Her phone rang, and she looked down a little too quickly. She hadn’t been answering any of his calls, but it did make her feel good to see when he was still trying. At least, it made her feel as though he cared about her more than one would expect when a man made a bet about her, even if she did end it because of that.

  But her heart sank when she saw it was her mother. She had been hearing from Chase less frequently, and she knew the time was going to come when she wasn’t going to hear from him at all.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, dear, you didn’t call this morning, and I was getting worried. Did you still want to go to lunch?” her mother asked. She mentally kicked herself. Of course, her mother would get worried after not hearing from her. She always went to lunch or dinner with her parents on her day off.

  “Of course! Sorry, I’ve just had a lot on my mind lately and forgot. I’d love to go to lunch,” Penny said quickly. Her mother breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Oh, good. Your father is going to be working, but I would still love to see you,” she said with a smile in her voice. Penny rolled her eyes. She loved her mother, but her mother was often very overbearing when her father wasn’t around. But it would get her mind off things, which was just what she needed.

  “That sounds great,” she said. “Do you want to meet at the restaurant? It might be easier that way.”

  “Alright, honey. I’ll see you then,” her mother said. She had the same smile in her voice every time she spoke, and Penny sighed as she hung up the phone. Her parents didn’t know she had been seeing anyone, and she didn’t want to bring it up, especially now that things were over between them.

  They were always pushing her to find the special someone in her life, but that always ended poorly for her, and she didn’t like talking about where things had gone wrong and where she might have been able to do something different. The more she thought about it, the more she blamed herself for not being able to get herself into a relationship she could keep.

  She knew that her parents only wanted what was best for her, but they wouldn’t understand that her being alone was better than being in a relationship she didn’t want to be in. One that was based on lies.

  Penny gathered her things, suddenly feeling a wave of nausea wash over her. She hadn’t eaten anything yet that day—something that was strange for her. Come to think of it, a lot had been different for her over the past few days. She was tired and irritable. It felt like she was about to get her period, but she still hadn’t.

  When was the last time she had?

  She walked out the door, slinging her purse over her shoulder. She could worry about that sort of thing later. Right now, she needed to focus on clearing her mind and getting rid of her aching heart. It was going to take time, but Penny was no stranger to things taking time in her life. She would wait it out, hoping that she’d get better soon.

  She arrived at the restaurant and her mother smiled, gesturing at the seat across from her for her to sit down.

  “There’s my beautiful daughter!” she said, beaming. Penny shook her head, fighting the urge to roll her eyes.

  “You’re too kind to me, Mom,” she said with a reluctant smile. She lurched forward suddenly, and her mother looked at her with worry clearly written in her eyes.

  “Are you alright?” she asked, and Penny quickly assured her she was just fine.

  “I don’t know what it is, I’ve just not been feeling well the past few mornings,” she said with a shaky smile. She didn’t know how to explain it. It wasn’t that she was sick, but there was certainly something off in the way that she felt.

  Her mother laughed. “Sounds like me when I was pregnant with you! I had the worst nausea in the mornings, but it seemed to go away as the day worked on. Have you had any water today, dear?”

  Penny paused. She sat down across from her mother with a smile, but she couldn’t shake her words out of her mind. It hadn’t crossed her mind that she could be pregnant, and there was no way for her mother to have reason to make such a comment. She had no idea about her fling with Chase, and she didn’t bring up anything else about it to either of her parents.

  “Well, I’ll probably feel better after I eat something,” Penny said reassuringly. She settled in, but found it difficult to eat at all. Everything was staring back at her, and she felt as though she were going to be sick right there in the center of the restaurant. But she wasn’t going to say anything about it to her mother.

  She covered it up as best as she could by moving her food around on her plate, not wanting to go into the topic. As soon as they had finished with their lunch, she grabbed her things and slid them under her arm.

  “There are a few things I’ve got to do today,” she said with a smile, “but it was good to see you.”

  “Alright, honey. I hope you feel better,” her mother said, hugging her. Penny gave her a peck on the cheek and dashed out of the restaurant, eager to get down to the grocery store. She didn’t know what she was going to do if she was pregnant, but right now, it was the only thing that made any real sense to her.

  She grabbed a test and headed to the bathroom of the grocery store, not waiting to get home first. She had to know now.

  Within minutes, Penny found herself seated in the bathroom stall, her jeans down around her ankles, her hands shaking in front of her. It was a dim line, but it was an undeniable line nonetheless.

  She was pregnant.

  Chapter 17

  “You should all be very proud of what you’ve done, especially you, Chase. I don’t know how you manage to pull it off all the times you do, but this man is a natural, he’s a real natural!” Mr. Capone waved his hand around the room, and all the men applauded. That is, all the men except for Chase.

  He sat with his phone in his hand, staring at the screen in front of him. He had a blank expression on his face, but that was nothing new to the men who knew him, and none of them were concerned about it. He wasn’t the kind of man who was often very involved in the meetings he was part of, mostly showing up to listen to what the people had to say.

  Mr. Capone didn’t focus on him long, continuing to drone on with his dull voice and the club’s agenda for the week. Chase didn’t think he would be involved in any of it, and he was too distracted to give it much thought anyway.

  He had told himself that he didn’t care when Penny walked out on him. In fact, there was a part of him that really didn’t. He wasn’t the kind of man to chase down women, especially women who were threw ridiculous temper tantrums like she had. But he also couldn’t lie to himself.

  It wasn’t long after she left that he began to feel the emptiness of her absence, and he wanted her back. The only trouble was that h
e didn’t know how to get her back. He wasn’t the kind of guy to start following her and bothering her everywhere she went. No, he had gone about it in a less intrusive way, hoping that she would answer his phone calls or his text messages.

  But each one got either sent to voicemail or left on read, and he didn’t have the option of doing anything else about it. He wanted to. He wanted to pick up the phone and continue to call her until she gave him the time of day, but he respected her space, and he wasn’t going to push himself on her if that wasn’t what she wanted.

  He didn’t know what else he could do. He wanted desperately to make things right, but she clearly felt that the problem was too much for her to deal with, and she wasn’t going to respond to any of his messages. He wanted to hear her out. He wanted to sit her down and listen to how she felt about things, but he couldn’t force her to do that any more than he could force her to pick up the phone and answer him when he called.

  It was merely something he was going to have to wait out and something that was going to throw him into fits of agony while he did. He opened up her contact information, alone with his thoughts in the room. Sure, there were dozens of other men surrounding him, but none of them mattered to him. None of them caught his attention. It was just him and his phone, and no Penny.

  He debated for a few minutes, trying to think of whether or not he should send another message. He didn’t want to bother her, but at the same time, she did have the power to end all communication if she wanted to. She could block his number, and she could make him stop contacting her. He hadn’t done anything to warrant that, but he knew that if he wasn’t careful, it could happen.

  Chase thought about how it all stemmed from the stupid bet. The guys didn’t care about each other’s relationships with women. They only cared about how things were going with the club. But that didn’t change the fact that Chase liked to be different from the others. He wasn’t the kind of man who would use women like the rest of them did.

  Sure, he’d get involved in bets from time to time, but he didn’t actually see a woman as an object. Sure, the women he’d been with were one-night stands he took home and just had fun with for the night. But when he met Penny, all he wanted to do was get to know her. Before her, none of the girls had been worth the time to talk to; they mostly just wanted to be a trophy girlfriend and had nothing substantial to say. Penny was different. She was intelligent, ambitious, and beautiful. He could be himself around her and expect something more than just a good fuck.

  There had always been something about that girl that had his attention, and he couldn’t see himself ever changing his mind about her. But he didn’t want to be where he wasn’t wanted, so he wasn’t going to continue to push for something that wasn’t going to happen.

  He sighed, typing out a quick message and hitting send. The last thing he wanted was to cause more tension between them, but he couldn’t help himself. He promised that would be the last time that he would contact her, no matter how badly he wanted to text her in the future. It was time for him to let go and move on. She clearly had, and it wasn’t doing him any favors waiting around for her to come back when it truly didn’t look like she was going to.

  “Alright, everyone, unless someone has a question, I think that’ll conclude this meeting. Have a good night, and remember you are all valuable members of the Alabaster Club.” Mr. Capone wrapped up his speech with a smile around the room, and several of the men leapt to their feet. They would come to these meetings, but it was no secret among them that this wasn’t the favorite place for them to be.

  Chase was eager to get out of there and move on with his day. He didn’t care what else the other guys were doing with their time. While he didn’t hold it against them for spilling the beans about the bet, he wasn’t thrilled about it, either. He knew that they had been trying to cause some sort of drama, as all of them very often thrived on drama.

  At the same time, he knew that none of them meant any real harm by it. They were all very supportive of him and the shit that he got himself into most of the time. But that didn’t change the fact that he did want to have some space from them, and he wasn’t too eager to go out and do anything that they were fixing to go do.

  “Hey, Chase! You wanna head out to that nightclub?” Jax smiled over his shoulder as one of his friends slapped him on the back, a broad smile on his face. Chase wanted to punch that smile off his face, but instead, he smiled back pleasantly and shook his head.

  “Thanks, but not tonight. I’ve got enough things on my mind; I don’t feel like getting buzzed,” he said with a sigh. He didn’t want to share the problems he was having with any of them. Though he didn’t doubt that they cared for him, it didn’t change the fact that Chase was also a private individual, and he didn’t want to open up to those he didn’t trust with his most private affairs.

  “You sure? It might do you some good to get out and enjoy yourself. You’ve been so quiet for the past few days, we’ve missed you!” James said, but Chase shook his head once more.

  “I’m not feeling up to it, guys. You go on without me and have a good time. I’m going to go home and clear my head.” He gave them a look that told them he was serious, and the men backed off.

  Chase walked to his car, then sat for a moment, watching as the other men came pouring out of the club. They were laughing and talking, many of them acting as though they didn’t have a care in the world.

  He knew it wasn’t true. Most of them were dealing with their own problems in their own lives, but when they were together like this, they could all just have fun with each other. They didn’t have to be weighed down by their personal problems.

  Chase sighed. He knew he’d have a good time if he went out with his friends. Hell, it would probably be the first step he’d need to take to move on with his life. But the fact of the matter was that he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to move on from Penny, and he didn’t yet want to face what that meant.

  He’d make the decision one of these days and things would change for him, but until then, he was going to focus on himself and clearing his own mind. Penny meant the world to him, and the fact that she was now gone was more than he wanted to think about.

  He’d go home. He’d clear his mind.

  That would be the end of that.

  Chapter 18

  Penny sighed, leaning back on the couch. She had just called in sick to work, and she knew that it wasn’t going to go over well when Doug heard about it. There was no doubt in her mind he was going to call her back and let her know how he felt about it, but she didn’t have the time to worry about that.

  The fact of the matter was that she felt like shit, and she wasn’t going to spend her night walking around and trying to make as many tips as she could while she felt that way. Being around the stench of alcohol wasn’t going to help matters, either. She needed a few days to get back on her feet, and when she finally did, she would go let Doug know that she was expecting.

  Penny didn’t expect Doug to be understanding of her situation, but she wasn’t going to worry about that right now, either. Right now, she had other things on her mind—like feeling better. Penny was about to get off the couch when she suddenly realized she had received a new message.

  It was from Chase. She threw the phone across the couch, not wanting to talk to him or anyone else. But especially him. She threw her arm over her face with a sigh, lying back on the couch. Suddenly, her phone started ringing and she sat up.

  She shook her head when she realized it was Chase. Though she missed him, she still felt she had been used by him and didn’t want to talk to him about it. She didn’t know how she was going to tell him about the baby, and she still didn’t even know if she was going to keep it or not. She just wanted to be left alone, but she was also being driven insane with his incessant messages.

  Perhaps if she were to tell him enough was enough, he would finally get the hint.

  With a sigh, she brought the phone up to her ear. “What do you wan
t?”

  “I want to talk to you. Penny, I’ve got to tell you how sorry I am about everything. Really, I am. You didn’t deserve that, and I don’t want you to think that you were nothing more than a conquest to me.” Chase was speaking so quickly, she didn’t get the chance to interrupt.

  “Chase, listen,” she started, but he cut her off.

  “No, I need you to listen to me. Really. I have feelings for you, Penny. I can’t say that to very many women on this planet, but it’s true for you. I really do,” Chase said earnestly, and she nearly dropped her phone.

  “You don’t,” she said, but he cut her off once again.

  “Penny, please believe me. I have cared for you since the first day I met you, and it’s only grown since then,” he said. “The two weeks we spent together…that meant more than anything else.” She sighed.

  “Chase, I don’t know what to say to you,” she said quietly.

  “Tell me anything. Tell me everything. I don’t care what you say, just talk to me,” he said.

  Penny sat up. No one in her life had been this insistent on being with her, on truly getting to know her, and she could feel her resolve melting.

  “Tell you what?” she asked.

  “Tell me about you. I want to hear more about your hopes and dreams. I know you want to build a business in fashion, and you already told me a bit about it,” he said. “Tell me more.” She sighed as she sat back on the couch.

  “Well, you know I want to open a clothing store. I want to be a clothing designer, and I want to have my own line of clothing,” she said.

  “I think you would be great at that—so, what are you doing to make it happen?”