Never Have A Baller's Baby: A Bad Boy Pregnancy Romance (10 page)

“You look good,” Eva told her as they sat down. “I think most pregnant women do, but certainly not all of them. You’re doing all right?” she asked, looking at Naomi with some concern.

Naomi nodded. “I’m okay. The sickness I have been feeling has been mild, and it seems to be going away a little bit.”

“Well, that’s good. So what’s going on? What’s the latest with all of it? Did you wind up telling Scott that you were pregnant with his baby?” Eva eyed her suspiciously.

Naomi sighed and her shoulders slumped. “That’s such a mess. I did wind up telling him, and he said he wanted to talk with me and work things out, so I went over to his house to do that, and things just got worse.”

Eva frowned. “Worse? How could they get worse?”

With a disgusted sigh, Naomi continued. “Well, we were sitting there talking and his agent, Harold… oh, what’s his name…is Harold Klein showed up, and walked right in on us while we were talking. He started getting mad at Scott, and he told him that he was being irresponsible for getting two women pregnant—”

Holding her hand up, Eva stopped Naomi mid-sentence. “Wait… what? Did you just say…?”

“Yeah. I did. Harold was chewing him out for getting two women pregnant. So of course I got mad and I left. I told Scott that I didn’t want to see him or talk to him again, which seems to be all I’ve been saying to him every time I see him and talk to him. It’s ridiculous. Anyway, I left. He decided that he was going to show up at the design firm, and he did, and we went into the kitchen to talk privately.” Naomi remembered every moment of it as she shared it with Eva.

“He told me that he had this one night stand with this woman at a party. He said he didn’t even want to sleep with her, but he got drunk, as in really drunk, and she begged a ride home with him. He had a limo that night, and so they were in the back of it and…” Naomi couldn’t say it. It made bile rise up in the back of her throat.

“…and now she’s pregnant. Well, he said that he was seeing me by then… if you can call sleeping with him in his house seeing him. He won’t date me. He doesn’t want anyone to know about me. Anyway, we had just started, and he was all wrapped up in me, and she called him out of the blue and told him that she was pregnant.

He said he was kind of trapped by then, because by then he wanted me, and he didn’t want anything to do with her, but she’s having his kid. So there’s that.” Naomi scowled and sipped her ice water, and Eva glared.

“That snake. What a lying bastard. He found out that she was pregnant after he started seeing you and he never said one word about it to you? He just kept it all hush-hush?” Eva asked, already knowing the answer.

“Yeah… he did. Just like he keeps our affair all hush-hush. He doesn’t want anyone to know he’s sleeping with me… or was. He doesn’t want anyone to know that he got me pregnant. No one can think that the great Scott Thompson of the Los Angeles Waves could be with anyone who wasn’t a megastar. So you told me that he was seeing Jennifer Jones, the singer, right? Well, I thought that he was, and I confronted him about it, and he told me that they aren’t seeing each other, that it’s just a front.” Naomi shook her head with a sigh.

“He’s lying,” Eva said in a low voice.

“That’s what I thought, too. Then Jennifer was over at his house and she saw the decorating job that I did over there, and she loved it and asked him who his decorator was and he told her that it was me. So I get this call at the office and I didn’t know who it was… all I had was a huge estate address in Beverly Hills, and a first name, Jen, and so I go rushing over there because we need the job. I went in and bam… it’s her.

It’s Jennifer Jones right there. I just about died. I nearly got sick on her floor when I saw her.” Naomi thought back to it and was surprised at how much she had disliked Jen when she got there, and how much she had grown to like her in the short time that they had spent together.

“You should have,” Eva interjected.

“Well… she and I spent some time together that day, and we talked about a lot of things, and it turns out that she is actually a really amazing woman. I really like her.” Naomi couldn’t help but smile, and Eva’s mouth fell open.

“You must be kidding me!” she insisted, leaning forward and slapping her hand down on the table top.

Naomi shook her head. “No, I’m not. She’s a really great lady. Anyway, I asked her if she was seeing Scott, and she told me that they were just friends. She said that they were never together and that they never could be. The media just paints them as a couple, and neither of them ever bothers to correct the media. So it turned out that Scott wasn’t lying to me; he was telling me the truth, but I wasn’t about to hear it from him because I was too jealous, and I was mad that he refuses to date me in public. I feel like I’m being used.”

“You are being used, and he’s a bastard for using you,” Eva grumbled, lifting her coffee to her lips as the man at the next table over scribbled furiously in his notebook.

“So when I found out about Scott getting this other woman pregnant… this blonde that he met at the party and went home in the limo with… I walked out on him again. Well, he came down to the office as I said, and he told me all about her and how she doesn’t mean anything to him. He also said that Harold, his agent, wants me to get a paternity test to prove that the baby I’m carrying is his. Can you believe that?” she scoffed.

Eva gasped. “Now I know you’re pulling my leg. He did not say that, did he? What a total jackass! How could he do that? He’s the one who has been running around sleeping with other women and causing trouble everywhere, and now he wants you to get a paternity test? My god. What kind of man is he?” She was horrified, and it couldn’t have been more obvious.

“That’s kind of how I feel about it, but he said that Harold is suspicious about the women that Scott has been sleeping with and he wants to make sure that it’s Scott’s kid before he starts paying for everything and taking care of his responsibility. I know it’s Scott’s; I haven’t been with anyone else, but he said he’ll pay for the test.

So,  we’re going to go together, I’ll take the test, Harold will get the results, and then Scott won’t have any problem stepping up to his obligations as the father to this baby.” Naomi thought that it sounded much simpler when she said it all out loud. It had felt much more complicated when it was rattling around in her heart and in her head.

Eva shook her head and whistled low. “That man is too much trouble, honey. I don’t know why you’re even still talking to him. You ought to just walk away from him and let him go. We’ll all help you raise that baby, and you know that. What in the world do you need a man like that for?”

Naomi frowned and looked earnestly at Eva. “You know, I thought exactly the same thing so many times, but then… every time I’ve thought that he was so horrible, it turns out that it was just a misunderstanding, and this is his kid and he deserves at least a chance to try to do right by the baby, and to try to do right by me, at least in taking care of us both. And…” she sighed heavily, “I love him. I do. There, I said it. He’s a huge pain in my ass, but I love him.”

Eva groaned. “Oh no… you do love him. Look at your face. Well honey, there’s no getting out of that. It’s too late now. I guess you go on and get that paternity test and prove to Harold Whatshisname that you’re carrying Scott Thompson’s baby, and then we’ll see how well things go after that. I’ll tell you right now, I’m not going to hold my breath, and if I ever meet him, he’s going to get a big piece of my mind. No one treats you the way that he has and gets away with it.”

Naomi smiled and chuckled a little. “That’s why I love you, Eva; you don’t put up with anything from anyone. You’re a good woman.”

“So are you, Naomi, and you deserve a good man,” Eva told her sternly.

Naomi hoped that she was right.

They finished their coffee, and neither of them noticed that the man at the table next to them didn’t leave until they both did, and Naomi didn’t notice that he followed her car when she drove away, just as he had been doing since the first time he had overheard them in the coffee shop.

Naomi was sitting in her office the next morning, sipping her coffee, when Keisha burst in and came rushing to her, waving a newspaper in her hand. Malaika walked in the door just behind her, and looked over at Keisha in surprise as she saw the younger woman excitedly talking to Naomi.

“Oh, my gawd. You are not going to believe this! I wouldn’t have believed it, except that it’s in the
Times
… look at this! Did you see this? Did you know about this? How on earth did this happen? Is it true? Oh please… tell me it isn’t true…” Keisha pushed the newspaper onto Naomi’s desktop and sank down into one of the chairs set before Naomi’s desk.

Malaika followed her, and sat down in the other chair beside Keisha, as she looked onto the desktop at the newspaper. Both Malaika and Naomi had not seen it, and neither one of them knew what Keisha was talking about.

There in the celebrity section, was a photograph of Naomi. It was clear to her that it had been taken the day before. She was wearing the light pink silk blouse and cream-colored skirt that she had been wearing on the prior day, and she was seated at what she knew to be the café table where she and Eva had been talking, although Eva wasn’t in the photograph.

Next to the photograph was a full article about everything that they had talked about. From her affair with Scott Thompson, to her pregnancy, to him requesting a paternity test from her, and even the one night stand with the other woman, and her pregnancy. Everything that they had said was in the article. Naomi gasped and held her hand to her mouth as her wide eyes took in every word again and again, wishing and hoping that what she was seeing wasn’t true, and knowing as she read it all over and over, that it was true, and it was there for the whole world to see.

Tears flooded her eyes and she tried to swallow, but there was a knot in her throat.

“Well that lying snake! How could he print such lies about you! My god! It sounds like a soap opera! That’s horrible! Why, you haven’t done any such a thing with Scott, and what a bad light to put him in! It’s unthinkable!” Malaika came right to her defense.

Naomi sat back slowly in her chair and raised her eyes to meet both Malaika’s and Keisha’s. “It’s true. Every word of it is true. I just… I don’t know how he got it all… I mean… I know that he took that photo while I was sitting in the café with Eva last night, and she and I were talking about all of this, but I just… I don’t know how he got it all and put it in this article for the paper today. I can’t believe this.”

Keisha and Malaika both stared at her, speechless. Naomi shrugged and nodded at them. “Yes, I had an affair with Scott. Yes, I am pregnant with his baby. Yes, he wants a paternity test and yes, he got some other woman pregnant. My life is a wreck right now. All of that is true.” She admitted miserably.

Keisha gulped. “Um… Naomi… that’s not all of it.”

Naomi looked at her in confusion. “What do you mean, that’s not all of it?”

Keisha turned the page and all three of them saw that the article continued on the next page. In explicit detail, the reporter went on to say how Naomi was an interior designer now, and that she had worked on both Scott Thompson and Jennifer Jones’ houses, but that she had started out as a stripper in college, dancing without her clothes on as she worked her way toward graduation.

There was another photo that the reporter had somehow managed to dig up. It was an image of her in her sequined bikini costume on the stage at the strip club. Her leg was wrapped around the pole and she was giving the camera a suggestive look in a sensual way. It was her promo shot from the strip club.

Naomi wished that the floor could open up right there and then and swallow her completely. “Oh my god,” she barely managed to get out. “I can’t believe he did that.”

“Is that true too?” Keisha asked, ignoring the photograph on the page beside the article.

“Yes… Keisha. It’s true. I was a stripper in college so I could pay my way through and not have any debt when I graduated. I did it for the money, and as soon as the debt was gone, so were my days as a dancer. Long gone. I would never do that now. I’m dedicated to my business and my future, and that was just a means to an end.” She wiped at the tears in her eyes. “I’m never going to be able to hold my head up in the business world again.”

Malaika was just finishing reading the article. “It says here that he’s looking for information on the mother of the other baby. The one night stand woman. He’s offering money to anyone who can give him her name.”

“He’s like a blood hound. I can’t believe he found all of that out and printed it. Is he trying to ruin my life?” Naomi asked, leaning back in her chair and staring upward to the ceiling.

“You could sue him…” Keisha offered helpfully.

Naomi shook her head. “No, I can’t sue him. Everything that he printed is the truth. I just can’t do anything about it.” She leaned forward and laid her arms on the desk, burying her face in them as she began to cry in earnest.

Keisha and Malaika both went around the desk to her and hugged her tightly, comforting her.

“It might be true, but you’re not going to go through it alone. We are here for you, and we’ll be here for you no matter what happens. Don’t you worry on it too much. You’re not alone,” Malaika said lovingly.

Naomi wished that none of it was true, and that she could wipe it all away, but there was no way to do that. All she could do was hide in the arms of her friends until the storm passed, if it ever did.