Pretend I'm Yours (Pretend 1)

It was definitely January. It’s April now. If she is pregnant, there is no way it’s mine.

I open my eyes calmly. My body has been calm this entire time in fact. Hearing a woman say she’s pregnant would send most men’s balls straight up inside their body. It would stop their hearts along with their breathing. It would shatter their world so they couldn’t think straight or fuck another woman for months, even after the baby was confirmed not to be theirs.

Hearing a woman say she is pregnant doesn’t have the same effect on me. Not because I want a baby. I sure as hell am not ready to be a father. But because I’ve heard the line used too many times. Women think they can trap a King if they say they are pregnant. I don’t fuck without protection. I don’t knock up women. And if she were pregnant, all my money and prestige would go to the baby, not her. I don’t want a relationship. That’s not who I am.

I turn away from her, not bothering to give her another second of my attention. I need to find Sebastian before he ruins the King name, again.

“Well? You’re really going to walk out on the mother of your child?” she says, grabbing my arm.

I exhale to keep from pummeling her. I’m so tired of this shit.

I turn and look at her with a glare, my nostrils flare, and my frown burrows. She takes a step back, her hand falling from my arm.

“My lawyer will go with you to your next appointment to confirm you are pregnant.”

She smiles brightly. She’s pregnant, or she wouldn’t be so smug about it.

“And to take a paternity test.”

Her smile drops, and fear flickers in her eyes. The baby isn’t mine. I don’t know if she can take a paternity test at this point, or if we’d need to wait until the baby is born. But I don’t have to wait. Her eyes confirmed what she wouldn’t tell me.

In some weird way, I wish she was pregnant. Not because I want to deal with Harlow Hill for the rest of my life, but because if I had a child, an heir to my inheritance, maybe it would stop other women from trying so hard to make me theirs. If they realized Harlow was getting nothing, and I planned on turning my entire empire over to my first born, maybe the harassment would stop.

I could put out in every interview I don’t want a sibling for my child. I don’t want children fighting over running my company the way Sebastian and I fought over my father’s. Maybe all this chaos would stop. Maybe having a child wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world?

My eyes bulge thinking about it. I’ve gone mad. Having a child would destroy everything I’ve worked to build on my own.

I leave Harlow speechless, and I start jogging toward the garage, leaving my unfinished beer with a waiter on my way.

Th

e Jaguar is gone. Shit.

Every. Fucking. Time.

I shake my head and run to my Aston Martin. My blood is boiling as I start the car up and zip out of the garage, dodging drunk college kids as I drive as fast as I can in the direction I know Sebastian drove.

He’s predictable; I’ll give him that. Why can’t he be predictably responsible? The kind of kid who can throw a party without one issue. Where he fucks the women in his bedroom and passes out afterward. Like normal college students.

The lawyer I hired shouldn’t have fought to scrub Sebastian’s last DUI from his record. Sebastian should have lost his driver’s license. Although, I doubt that would have stopped him. I should take his cars away, but he’d buy a new one.

I’m installing one of those breathalyzer tests on his cars so his cars won’t start without him being sober. And since there are no sober people at his parties, he would never be able to leave.

My face burns red, and I grip the wheel tighter when I spot his red Jag on Highway 101, leading toward his favorite cliffside spot overlooking the beach. Naomi is in the passenger seat, and he has his arm draped around her back.

Why he thinks he needs to bring women here, I’ll never understand. He’s a King. Any woman at his party would fuck him. He doesn’t need to be charming or sober. He can be sloppy drunk, barely able to get his dick up, and any woman at his party would praise him for how great the sex was.

I don’t think he does this to impress the woman. He does this to piss me off. He hates me trying to control his life, and this is his fucked up way of trying to fight back. That, and he likes his fast cars almost as much as he likes his women.

I sigh.

I don’t know how I’m going to let him take over any of my clubs. I want to give him one club. One single club. The one here in Santa Barbara. So there is no reason for me ever to return to this fucking town. And he can prove he is capable of doing more than finding trouble.

Then, I might let him run a few more parts of the business. Maybe. Or he’ll decide he hates running a business and will live off his trust fund and name our father left us.

I stick my hand out the window, the chilly air cooling my warm skin. I try to calm myself down so when I beat Sebastian’s ass when he stops, I don’t break his nose like last time. Though he deserves worse.

Squealing breaks bring me back to reality.