Billionaire Brothers 2 : Love Has A Name (55 page)

Marian sighed. “Axia, I think you’re just frightened and making this decision impetuously. I don’t know the graveness of the situation with the child’s father but —”

“I don’t want it. I don’t want it. I don’t want it,” I repeated, slapping my palms over my ears and slinking down to the floor from the sofa. The mantra repeated in my head as a profusion of scorching hot tears gushed from my eyes, dampening a tiny area of my Persian rug. The words whirled around in my head then poured out of my mouth. I tried in vain to stop myself from saying them. “I don’t want it. I don’t want it.”

I became vaguely aware of Marian crouching beside me, rubbing my shoulders. “It’s okay, Axia. Calm down. Breathe … breathe, Axia,” she crooned, trying to get me to stop my sputtering mantra and heavy heaving. “Breathe, Axia. I’m your doctor, and I’m here to fulfill your requests. I shouldn’t have tried to be your counselor, too … Breathe, sweetheart, breathe … shh … sit up.”

It took her all of ten minutes to get me out of my inexplicable breakdown. Marian reclaimed her position across from me, withdrawing a pad from her briefcase. “Okay, there are various methods of —”

“What’s the most expeditious and effective?”

“Well, medical. I insert a drug inside you vaginally. The termination is usually completed within four to eight hours — in very rare cases it takes up to twenty-four hours — but you will bleed heavily for roughly two weeks.”

“That one, then,” I muttered around the fingernail I was nibbling on.

“Because you are so far along, I suggest we do this as soon as possible if you want to use that method,” Marian said as she scribbled on her pad. “Eight in the morning sound good?”

I made a furious nod of my head.

“Would you prefer to come by my office or do you rather I come here?”

Glancing around the cold lifelessness of my penthouse, I suddenly felt lonelier than ever. I’d be sleeping at Crissida Cove tonight, for sure. I missed my home. And I missed Timo. “Your office sounds good.”

Marian scribbled that last bit on her pad, then tapped it with her pen. Lifting her head, she looked straight at me and said, “You know, of all the years I’ve known you, Blacksille, I’ve
never
seen you vulnerable. You’re always so tough and sure and final. Seeing you like this now, it kind of scares me.” Shaking her head, she picked up her briefcase and stuffed her notepad inside. “When there’s something in your life subverting you, debilitating you, nibbling away your strength at every turn, you don’t
run
from it. Because then you’ve allowed that thing to be the victor. Have allowed yourself to be conquered. And who likes to face defeatism? What you should do is stand up and face it. Stand valiantly in the face of fear, speak to it in its own language and fight back. Let fear be afraid of
you.”
Marian stood to her feet and bore her eyes into me. “If there’s even a
jot
of Axia Blacksille left inside this stranger I don’t know, convey my message to her that the world misses her.”

And with that, spine stiff, she stalked out of the house. Leaving me as the only patron at my pity party.

“Are you done?”

The question was directed at Marian, who’d been taking her precious little time in apprising me of the side effects I might face with this procedure.

Because I’d spent the majority of my night sitting up in the middle of the bed crying, worrying and driving myself into insanity, I’d gotten next to no sleep and had made it to Marian’s office half an hour earlier than our agreed time.

For heaven’s sake, I was
pregnant
.

First of all, I had not even an inkling about being a mother. Motherhood wasn’t for me. Second, the father of the child was no longer a part of my life, and I sure as hell wasn’t about to go through the whole ‘lawyer and court’ craziness to discuss financial issues, who gets to spend whatever amount of time with the child and when. No way. Third, I’d known the man under six months. Even if we were still together, having a child at this stage would be utterly fatuous. Fourth, he might not even believe that the child is his. Or even accuse me of using this pregnancy crap as a ploy to get him back.”

Inside my head was a horrible mess. It felt like a war zone with bombings and killings, dead bodies and inflamed debris littered everywhere. And with every explosion, a burst of tears gushed through my eye sockets. Yes, it was as loud as hell in there. So each time someone like Marian tried to persuade me from what my mind was set on, all I could do was shout at them, because their nagging voice only added to the chaos of the battlefield in my mind.

“Um, yeah. That’s it,” Marian said through a resigning sigh. It was evident she’d been hoping I’d have a different view this morning. “I guess we should get started, then. Come with me.”

She stood up from around her desk and led me into a room painted in pale green. Clinical, with stainless steel furniture crowded with a variety of scary-looking apparatuses. Frightening charts of sores and various kinds of diseases were pasted on the walls. Doctors’ offices are seriously creepy.

Marian pulled a white roll of paper over the narrow leather-covered bed, inclining the bed to her desire. Opening one of her stainless steel drawers, she retrieved one of those papery blue gowns and turned to me. “Here, change into this, then lie on the bed over there.”

When I took it and nodded, she walked towards the door. “I’ll give you a few minutes.”

A few damn minutes for
what
? Why this woman kept drawing out the process was beyond me.
I’m not going to change my mind
, I mentally yelled after her as she slipped through the door.

Gripping the gown, I trudged up to a square mirror on the wall opposite and stared back at the pale, bloodshot-eyed, frightened and craven woman who I didn’t recognize. There’s much to be said about being a bitch. Bitches like me did whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, however they wanted, without a care for anyone else. They regarded their own opinions and disregarded those of others. Friends’, family’s and associates’ opinions held no value or effect. This they knew, so they tended to keep their opinions to themselves. Because bitches like me jumped the deliberating process and acted instead.

That’s how I’ve always lived my life. Moratoriums and second guesses only leave room for remorse and disasters. I acted on instant. Drank my tea when it’s steaming hot. So in the end, all that can be said is, “what’s done is done”, then move on, geared and prepared to slay new obstacles.

The more I thought about this, the scarier it got, the harder I cried, and the more I
felt.
Which is why all I wanted to do was get this shit over with. There was no room for a baby in my life right now, and the sooner I trampled this obstacle, the sooner I could move on with my life.

I nimbly undid my shirt buttons and was just reaching for the zipper of my jeans, when I heard Marion shriek. “Listen, you can’t just barge in here like —”

“I don’t give a shit! That’s
my
child. No one sought my permission on this!”

At the unmistakable voice, my body went rigid. Holy shit! What’s
he
doing here? And how the hell did he know?

“Decisions like these don’t require the permission of the —” Marian squealed as a loud scraping of furniture sounded, followed by a clamor of tumbling paraphernalia.

The door burst open and I spun around on a gasp, backing up against the wall and clutching the papery gown to my chest.

Lovello Nelson stood like a Big Bad Wolf in the doorway, the tall build of a man that he was. Disheveled and shuffled, his suit jacket was missing, his tie loose around his neck, and his white shirtsleeves folded up to his elbows. Just short of steam blowing from his ears, his face was as red as beetroot, his nostrils flaring, his formidable chest heaving high then slamming heavily back down. This was one angry chunk of a man.

“How
dare
you, Axia,” he gritted out. “How. Dare. You.”

Seeing him standing before me like this, so gloriously beautiful — albeit trenchantly irate — added lust to my already complex amalgam of emotions. Making me more of a wreck inside and leaving me speechless. I silently sent an invocation to the Father above, begging him to make the wall behind me open up and swallow me whole. Pinching my eyes shut, I counted to ten and waited for the miracle to happen, but when I opened them again, Lovello was still standing there in the doorway.

Darn it.
Thanks a lot, Big Guy.

Lovello took three firm strides to close the distance between us. Ripping the gown from my hands, he tossed it to the floor and began redoing my shirt buttons. I kept my left hand pressed to the upper side of my shirt so that the tattoo wouldn’t show.

“You’re coming with me,” he said in a tone that left no room for rejoinders.

But I would not be dominated. The strength to slap his hand away came, somehow, with a resounding, “No.”

Lovello cocked his head to the side with a perfectly arched brow, his penetrating gaze conflagrant. “How typical of you, Axia, to think you have a say in the matter.”

“Yes, I do! It’s
my
body and —” the rest of the sentence was forced back down my throat when Lovello suddenly gripped my face, squeezing my jaws so painfully hard that I couldn’t speak.

He bent at the waist so his eyes were level with mine. “No, you
don’t
have a say. You have a
Nelson
growing inside you. Nelsons are too prized a gene to be aborted, you silly, silly girl. Now grab your stuff. You’re coming with me.”

I gave a garbled, incomprehensible version of “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

Releasing his grip on my face, Lovello sighed and slowly straightened up. He swept his gaze around the room, his eyes landing on every item. Then in the next second, I was being tossed over his shoulder in one easy move. He stalked over to the chair where I’d left my handbag, snatched it up and marched with me out of the room, breezing past an aghast Marian and straight out of the doors.

“Put me down, you odious man!” I yelled, pounding my fists on his back. “Put me
down
!”

But the detestable man ignored me, marching purposefully with me out of the building. As he descended the steps outside, I spied a wide-eyed Tish pacing on the sidewalk next to Lovello’s Bugatti. She was all but trembling, no doubt worried about the repercussions of what she’d done.

“Of all people, not you, Tish!” I barked at her from upside-down Lovello’s high shoulder. “I would’ve expected this from Trudy. Not
you
!”

Tish opened her beak to defend herself, but she was angrily shoved out of the way and I was being stuffed into the passenger side of the car. “You try to get out of this car, Axia, and I swear I’ll make today the worst day of your life … Or the
last
day of your life,” Lovello threatened. He slammed the door and rounded to the driver’s side, then stopped to glare at Tish. “Get in the goddamn car, Tish.”

“B-but where? It can only fit two people.”

Lovello regarded his Bugatti Veyron as if he’d never before considered this. “Squeeze in next to Axia. Her ass isn’t
that
big.”

When Tish hesitated, he grabbed her arm and hauled her around to the passenger side, stuffing her in next to me. Then folded his tall frame into the car and sped off like a madman down the main.

Tish awkwardly turned to me. “Axia, I’m so sorry. But I’m not the one who told him. He just came to the gym and demanded to know where your doctor’s office was. He already kn —”

“Tish, when you get back to the gym, you will cancel all Axia’s classes,” Lovello authorized, chopping through Tish’s apology. “Let her clients know that she’s physically unstable to instruct any classes for … a while. I suggest shopping for a new instructor to take over her classes.”

Tish raised her brows at me, not knowing how to respond to the man’s commands. But all I could do was remain as immobile as I’d been since he stuffed me into the car with his threat. Everything was happening so fast, it’s like I was having an out-of-body experience.