Page 17 of Heartthrob

“What the hell, Linc? Why would you try to start a family with her? I always thought we would get back together eventually!”

Oh my God! This is not happening. All the color drains out of my face - if any was still there from the condom question and I feel like I might faint.

I can tell the moment Linc loses his temper. I’ve been around him enough to know when he snaps. “Why am I trying to knock my girlfriend up? Oh I don’t know, because she’s my woman -mine! And I know when I dump my seed in her it’s the only one in there. My woman, my sperm, my baby! And you are nothing but a delusional freak.”

The room is deathly quiet at first and then more lights flash in front of us. I pull from Linc’s hold and go running from the room. I’m either going to make my escape or find somewhere to be sick.

“Shit!” Linc catches up to me and leads me quickly outside and into an already waiting limo.

Once inside and the privacy screen fully raised I take Linc in. He’s got his hand up to the bridge of his nose and his jaw is set in a hard line.

“Why?” it’s the only word I can push out around the lump in my throat. “Why would you?”

“Because,” he looks over at me and I can tell he is searching for the right words, “Because I’m not getting any younger and…,”

He goes on but I shut out the rest of his words. They are all excuses for why he would do what he did. The first part of my question is painfully clear. He wasn’t looking for a girlfriend or a fake relationship. He was looking for a fucking surrogate. That’s why he’s alright with me changing what I want to with the house, giving me the run of the place. Got to keep the baby holder happy after all.

I spend the rest of the ride home planning my escape. There is no way in hell that I can stay here and just keep pretending ignorance. I would never let go of my child, not after losing my parents the way I did. I have to leave. Tonight. If I stay, Linc will be able to sweet-talk me into doing whatever he wants me to do and the last place I will be safe is in his bed.

Once we're home and Linc helps me out of the back I walk past him without looking at him. “I have a headache. I’m going to take a shower and lay down.”

“I’ll be up in a minute.”

Once in the bedroom, I change back into the clothes I was wearing the night I broke in and grab my bag from the closet. It was never unpacked. I don’t take anything else just money to pay for a room for a couple of days and I plan to pay him back as soon as I find a job. And a place to stay. I finger the gold necklace around my neck, wanting to leave it too but there’s no way for me to take it off so instead I push it under my shirt and make my way out of the upstairs sliding glass windows and walk away!

It takes me a night and day to cry it out and try to think of some way to go on with my life. I even think about taking the train or bus out of town and starting all over again somewhere else but I won’t be able to outrun the hurt or the feeling of betrayal…or the fact that I love Linc.

Turning the tv on does no good. All that seems to be on are segments about Linc’s secret heartache and his struggle to start a family. They've even spun it so that Angel was making fun of our inability to conceive. It makes me sick and I haven’t really had a chance to sleep so when I dose off for about an hour only to be woken by a knock on the door from housekeeping I just put it down to my damned luck that she would show up now.

I roll over just as the door pops open and instead of a maid in a uniform holding towels I see…Linc. “You’ve been a very bad girl!” Oh shit! “A very bad girl!”

Chapter Twelve

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Linc

I take in the sight of the woman I’ve been looking for. She’s not taking care of herself. I can tell by the dark circles under her eyes and the tiredness I see in them when they look back at me. I step into the room and hear the door close behind me, the female security guard I paid to keep an eye on my little thief knows what’s up. She’s the one who tracked my little run-away down.

I may have pulled strings and made promises to hunt Esme down but I regret none of it. Not when my god damned heart stopped when I went upstairs to talk about what was said at the party only to find the room empty and her little backpack gone from the closet. I think I lost a few years in that short period. My world stopped turning as soon as I realized she had left me.

Andy is having a small heart attack doing damage control. So far he’s not had to do much. The media pretty much took the story and made up what they didn’t know. They’ve even gone so far as to have doctors on shows talking about when to start worrying and what can be done for couples having a hard time.

The entire time Andy’s phone is blowing up with questions and people demanding a comment be made. Meanwhile, I have been slowly dying, going out of my mind with worry.

“Why are you here? How did you find me?”

She’s sitting in the middle of the bed wearing nothing but a thin t-shirt and simple panties and has never looked so fucking sexy. I have to fight the urge to prove to myself that she is here with me and that I’m not imagining it all.

“I’m here…,” I put emphasis on the word ‘here’, “because instead of being in our bed for the past two nights you decided to run away from me…again!”

I am trying to hang onto my temper, to my patience, and to my promise to myself not to take my sweet love in a seedy motel room on a bed that’s not our own. Because right now, all I want is to show her how much I’ve missed her.

“Linc…I can’t. I can’t do what you want me to do. There are plenty of women…,” I hold up my hand to stop her.“Don’t start. Not until we’re in the car.”

I reach down and all but drag her to the waiting SUV outside barely giving her time to find shorts to throw on over her panties.

“My bag!”

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