“Nothing.” Jennifer rested her head on the door staring out of the window.
“Nothing? How can you being pregnant be nothing?” Linda asked. “I tell you everything, Jen. We’re best friends, and we don’t keep secrets. We made a pact.”
“That was when we were ten years old. We’re twenty-six now. That pact doesn’t count.”
“It does. I’ve told you everything. We live in the same apartment, and you know everything about me. I’ve not seen one guy call on you in all the years we’ve lived there.” Linda argued with her.
“That’s because a guy has never come for me.”
“I don’t know why. You’re a hot woman when you’re not throwing up over seafood.”
The mention of seafood turned her stomach. “Please stop talking about food. I think I’m going to throw up again.”
“If you do you’re so paying for this to be cleaned.”
Jennifer sat back and watched the city pass them by.
“Come on, who else are you going to tell?”
“Oh all right,” she said, caving into her friend’s pout. “You can’t tell anyone. Not even your big brother.”
“I won’t tell. If you’re pregnant, though, you’re going to have to tell someone.”
Jennifer groaned thinking of the dirty looks from her family. They already disapproved of her living with Linda. They thought her friend was a bad influence. They didn’t want bad blood in the family. Her parents wanted her to go and find a man who was worthy of the Dixon name.
“It was only the one time, and he doesn’t even know who I am. I don’t even know if I’m pregnant. Wow, this is all one huge mistake.” Jennifer pressed a hand to her temple in an attempt to stop the throbbing pain of a headache.
“When did you meet a guy and have sex? Not only that, why didn’t you tell me? I’ve been your best friend, Jen. I thought you’d tell me everything,” Linda said.
Her friend had a point.
“I don’t know why I didn’t tell you. I was hiding away when he walked into the library.”
Linda shot her a glance. “No, no way. You had sex with a complete stranger in your parents’ library?”
Jennifer blushed. “No, we didn’t do it in my parents’ library.”
“Whew. That is not something you’re going to be able to hold down.”
“We did it in his,” Jennifer said.
Linda pulled up at the first available parking spot. She turned towards her. Jennifer would have laughed at the situation, only her stomach was doing flip flops and her nerves were getting the better of her.
“What?”
Jennifer licked her lips and turned to her friend. “We met in his library and had sex in his garden. My parents forced me to go to his party and celebrate something. I had to go, and I hid away in the library. You know how my parents are at those things. They try to advertise my single status.”
“I know this man, don’t I?”
Jennifer nodded.
“Spill. What’s his name?”
“Patrick Thompson.”
Her friend’s eyes widened in shock, dismay, and then total horror. “The Patrick Thompson?”
She jerked her head in response. “Yep, the multi-millionaire playboy who has just won a court battle from another woman claiming to be pregnant with his child.”
Not only was Jennifer pregnant with his child, how was she going to convince the father of her child that she was telling the truth?
“He’s a bad one, Jen. You know his reputation with women. Why did you sleep with him?” Linda asked.
She heard the concern in her friend’s voice. They’d connected, and there was more to Patrick than met the eye. She’d seen it inside him. Shaking her head in confusion, Jennifer got out of the car and walked toward the nearest pharmacy. She needed to know the truth before she continued forward.
****
Several days later
Patrick Thompson downed the last of his coffee in one gulp. He was tired of being brought in front of his father like some recalcitrant child. His bad boy reputation was the bane of his existence. He liked to party and fuck women. What guy didn’t? Even though his days of fucking faceless women seemed to be non-existent recently.
“So, you’re not the father,” Robert Thompson said.
“I told you I wasn’t the father. She was just another woman trying to get a piece of the pie. I handled it.”
His father slammed his fist on the table. “This is not some game you can play, Patrick. I’ve put up with your crap for long enough.”
“What crap? I work hard and play hard. Didn’t you do the same when you were my age? I’m not a child anymore. I’m a full-grown man.” He was thirty-two years old and a millionaire in his own right. He’d made his first million before he turned eighteen through a website, and now he did whatever the hell he wanted to do. His father ran his own international business, and Patrick did what he wanted. Patrick had proven himself on more than one occasion. He wasn’t some dumbass looking for a free ride. He worked when he needed to.
“Don’t you see that your playing hard affects our good name?” Robert threw the morning papers in front of him. There was a picture of him at a party several nights ago. “Another kiss and tell story about the infamous Patrick Thompson.”
Patrick rubbed the back of his neck as he looked at the photos. The woman in the picture was fabricating the story. He’d not slept with a woman in months. Apart from the little brown-haired woman at a party his father set up. Patrick thought of the other woman. Jennifer her name was. He didn’t know if it was her real name or one she’d fabricated one. No one knew anything about her, and he’d figured she was part of the waiting staff who’d been trying to catch a free break.
“This is all lies. I’ve never slept with that woman.” He put the paper on the table. The newspaper underneath caught his attention.
“It doesn’t matter. People believe what they read because you’ve slept with numerous women before her. People who hope to invest in my company. The very people who will be looking at my son who’ll inherit my company one day. Are you listening to me?”
“Who’s this?” he asked, picking out a newspaper and pointing at the woman on the front page.
Robert snatched the paper off him and stared at the front page. “That’s the Dixons’ youngest daughter. They’ve been trying to get her married off I think. They were at that party I organised at your house. They’re hoping to invest in one of our plans. What’s the matter, Patrick?”