Playboy Pilot

“The baby’s not mine. He’s not mine, Kendall! A DNA test confirmed it. She was trying to trap me.”

“Whose is it?”

“Fuck if I know.”

Thinking about that whole situation was making me incredibly angry all of a sudden.

She lifted her hand to her mouth. “Oh my God.” We were quiet for about a minute straight as a woman’s voice rang out over the intercom to announce that someone was lost.

When the noise stopped, I continued, “All this time we could have been together. I could have been the one to share in it with you. Where is it?”

> “Where is what?”

“The baby! Did you do it? Did you go through with it?”

She shook her head slowly and whispered, “No.”

A headache split through my head. “No?”

“No.”

“You mean to tell me, that all of this…” I paused to compose myself. “Happened…for nothing?” Rubbing my temples, I said, “I don’t even know what to say to you. I’m numb.” I looked down at the floor incredulously before meeting her gaze again. “You couldn’t get pregnant, or you couldn’t go through with it?”

“Can we go somewhere else to talk about this, away from all these people?”

“Where do you want to go?”

“I have a car parked in the garage.”

“Alright.” Grabbing my travel bag, I followed Kendall to the spot where her older Ford Explorer SUV was parked.

We got in and sat in silence until she started talking.

“I went to Germany, spent some time with Hans and Stephen after I left you at the airport lounge. I was supposed to go home, get my things and go back. I did end up going back to Dallas and packing some stuff. I had a return ticket to Germany, but while I was at the airport, I just decided that I couldn’t go through with it, couldn’t bring a baby into this world for the wrong reasons. Moreover, I couldn’t bring a baby into this world and give it up. The money stopped mattering long before that point, I think. The inheritance didn’t mean anything anymore.”

“Why didn’t you come to me at that point?”

“I was afraid. I didn’t think I could handle what I thought was happening with you and that woman. It was just so devastating.”

I’d chosen not to tell her I visited the ranch in Texas. I didn’t want to divert from the issue at hand, which was finding out what the hell she’d been doing for the past eleven months.

“So, you didn’t go to Germany. Where did you go?”

“I was feeling so lost. It felt like it was the lowest point of my entire life. The only place I felt like going was back to that beach in Rio.”

My heart started to beat faster. “You went to Rio?”

“Yes. I stayed with Maria Rosa.”

What?

“What?”

“Yeah.”

“She never told me.”

“I know. I made her swear to never tell you I was there. There was a boarder who spoke English who was translating for me the entire time. Even though it scared the shit out of me, I asked Maria to read me, to tell me what I should do with the rest of my life.”