His Sugar Baby

“I didn’t tell my mother. I just left. I called when I landed in Boston but she never answered. I never talked to her again, a week later she killed herself. She called her sister to tell her the why, and where to find her body.”

“Why did she do it?” What I want to ask is how could a mother do something so cruel to her son.

“My aunt said it was because she was depressed and she never got the help she needed and that’s all I needed to know. I went through her computer and found about a dozen half-written suicide letters. Basically, she felt with me gone she had no one and nothing to care about anymore.

“This, us, it wasn’t supposed to happen but it did. It never crossed my mind to fight it. This would be different because he didn’t love her. I love you, so we were going to be different. Only you... I don’t know Anne. You tell me. Can you not love anyone or is it just me?”

The pain in his eyes cuts me deep almost as deeply as when he told me he couldn’t marry me. I don’t know what to say, all I know is pain right now. I need time to make sense of the jumble of emotions I’m feeling. Grant says my name. I look up.

“If you ever run, it will never be far enough. I’ll find you.” His blue eyes are as cold as ice.

It’s a vow that sends a shiver up my spine. This time when he turns to leave I don’t stop him. The door to the suite slams closed so hard the room shakes with the force.

Chapter Seventeen

I have no memory of getting to Marshall’s room. I have no idea how long I’ve been standing outside it when the door opens. The minute he sees me he swears. “For fucksake, you didn’t listen to a word I said, did you?”

“I listene

d to you. I listened and I knew I couldn’t go through with it if she couldn’t recognize she loved me, too.”

“No, you’re being a fucking female feeling all aggrieved because she didn’t tell you she loved you, too. I’m not feeling a huge amount of affection for this woman because of how she’s turned you inside out, but she does love you.

“If I hadn’t seen it I wouldn’t still be here now. Okay, yeah I’d be here but I’d be trying to talk you out of it, not telling you that you’re a fucking idiot for thinking of calling it off.”

“I’m not thinking of calling it off. I called it off. I told her I couldn’t go through with it.” My voice breaks as I say it, then I remember the way she fainted, hitting the floor before I could reach her.

“She acted like it was no big deal, then she fainted. My fucking life flashed before my eyes when I saw her hit the floor. I couldn’t reach her in time.”

Marshall pours me a scotch and I take it, throwing it back, needing the burn so I can feel something other than what I’m feeling right now. I hand him my glass for another, with a sigh he fills it again.

“The doctor thinks she and the baby are okay. He was worried at first about a concussion but he didn’t think she had one after checking her over. I wanted to take her to the hospital to be sure, but she wouldn’t go, told me to fuck off. She threw her ring at me and told me to get the fuck out.” I swallow hard, barely able to get the words out.

Marshall nods, “That’s good, she should have told you to fuck off a long time ago. I tell you to talk to her, have a fucking discussion with her about her feelings and yours. You do not talk to her, instead you tell her you are not going through with the wedding you planned. The wedding you wanted, that you went through all this trouble to plan.

“Grant, you know I love you like a brother, but you are fucking lucky the only thing she threw at you was a ring. Right now, if you didn’t look like shit, I’d throw a punch at your dumbass for putting a pregnant, emotionally vulnerable woman through all this shit.”

Aw fuck, listening to him list it out I want him to take the punch. I hand him my glass. He shakes his head. “No fucking way. You drunk isn’t going to fix this.”

“I can’t fix this, damn it. She can’t do it. She can’t let go and love me. If she can’t do that, then I can’t trap us in a marriage where she has a foot outside the entire time. I can’t do that to our kid. As much as it hurts now, it’s just me hurting.

“I don’t want my kids going through this. Anne was quick to call it quits, telling me she never believed we’d make it this far. If she’s always going to be looking for a way out she’ll find one and take it.”

“Are you seriously telling me you don’t have the guts to wait her out? Which, by the way, is what you should have done. Give her more than a month or two to go from I love you to we need to get married.

“I get with the baby there would have been an instinct to go there, but you still should have given her a few months to give her time to trust in you. You bought her way into school and you bought a big-ass ring. What you needed to do was put in more time where the focus is on just the two of you.”

“More time? A month in Italy isn’t more time?”

“Yeah, but this trip wasn’t really about her. It was to get what you wanted.”

I shake my head, it wasn’t like that. The room spins. Marshall, pushes me down onto a wide very comfortable couch. “It wasn’t like that.”

“Shut up and get some sleep.”

“Call the mayor, cancel the wedding for me. Can you do that?”

“Yeah, I’ll take care of it.”