Twice the Malone by Laylah Roberts

11

“Ican’t be. I’m forty for God’s sake.” Scarlett pulled at her hair in agitation.

“So? Women have babies at forty, Scar,” Margo said calmly. After making sure Scarlett was okay, she’d taken off to grab her a test, racing out in the freezing rain to get it.

But the thing is, Scarlett was anything but okay. She was freaking the fuck out.

Pregnant?

Nope. Not happening.

“I . . . I . . . but they used condoms.”

“Condoms aren’t fully effective.”

“It shouldn’t just happen from one night.”

“How much sex did you have that night? And by that, I mean how many times did they come inside you?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Just saying maybe that one night is a normal person’s month worth of sex.”

Shit. She wasn’t wrong.

“Don’t freak. Just take the test. Then we’ll know.”

“Right. Silly to freak out over something that probably isn’t even true.”

Although now a part of her was disappointed at the thought that maybe she wasn’t pregnant.

Oh, you’re an idiot.

Moving into the bathroom, she peed on the stick, setting it to the side. “Start timing.”

“On it,” Margo called back through the door. Scarlett pulled up her pants and washed her hands. Then she opened the door.

Margo stood there, staring at the timer on her watch.

“What am I going to do if I am?”

“It will be all right, Scarlett. I’ll help you.”

But Margo wasn’t even here half the time. Oh, Lord. What would she do?

“Okay, time.”

Scarlett turned back and picked up the stick. The edges of her vision went black.

Pregnant. She was pregnant.

With a baby.

Of course with a baby, you idiot. That’s what being pregnant means.

“Scar! Scarlett, stop freaking out.” Margo took hold of her upper arms and shook her sharply. “Stop it!”

It was then that Scarlett realized she was practically hyperventilating.

“Breathe, damn it.”

“I . . . I . . . I . . .”

“Yes?”

“I’m pregnant.”

“I know, baby,” Margo said gently, steering her into the living room and helping her sit. She took the stick and handed her a glass of water. Her hands shook.

“But . . . but . . . how did this happen?”

“Well, when a man sticks his penis—”

“Margo! This is serious.”

“I know, but you’re freaking out, and you don’t have to.”

“Why wouldn’t I freak out? I’m going to be a mother. I know nothing about being a mother. I’m on my own. How will I support my baby? I have barely any savings. Babies are expensive. I can’t . . . I can’t do this . . .”

“Of course you can. You’re the most capable person I know. And you’re not alone. You have me. Even if the baby daddy doesn’t want to help, I’ll be here for you. Always.”

Something else occurred to her.

“Scar, it will be all right. You have this. We’ll start making plans. You can cut back in some areas, save money for when the baby comes. Also, the baby daddy, whoever he is, has to help, right?”

“Yeah. Right. But the question is, who the hell is the baby daddy?”

Margo’s mouth dropped open. “Well. Fuck.”

Scarlett couldn’t have put it better herself. She groaned, leaning her head in her hands. “What am I going to do?”

Margo sighed. “Make an appointment with your lady doctor first. You probably need special vitamins and an ultrsound and stuff. How far along could you be?”

“About eight weeks.”

“Right. She might be able to do something about the nausea too.”

“No needles,” she said, freaking at the thought.

“I’ll go with you, okay? But Scar, you really need to get in contact with those cowboys, they need to know.”

She rubbed her hands over her face. Damn, she was so tired. And stressed. That couldn’t be good for the baby.

“I’ll tell them but first . . .” She bit her lip, thinking it all through.

“First, what?”

“If Richard was talking about Maddox then I have to warn him.”

“Right, so you can do that when telling him about the baby.”

“But he won’t believe me without proof.”

Margo shook her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Scar.”

“You were all for it before.”

“Before I knew you were pregnant.”

Well, Scarlett didn’t see what difference that made, other than to make it more important that she convince Maddox and Beau that she could be trusted.

No, this was the best plan she had. First, she’d find out what Richard was up to. Then, she’d tell them about the baby.

* * *

This was her chance.

Richard had just left to go out of town for the night. And she had the offices to herself. Of course, she ran the risk of someone catching her, but most people had already left for the day.

If someone looked on the security cameras, they’d see her, but she figured being Richard’s assistant, she could just claim that he’d called her and asked her to grab something for him. Plus, Charlie liked to sneak off for a smoke break about this time.

She’d wing it. It would be fine. Nothing would go wrong.

Nothing could go wrong.

Oh, Lord. Nausea bubbled in her stomach.

She crept into the office and started searching through his drawers. Nothing. She turned on his computer. She didn’t think there would be anything there that would immediately stand out. She searched through the different folders. Nothing. Nothing.

Then she saw one that just had some initials.

Fuck, there was a passcode.

She put in one. Rejected.

Nerves had her shaking. Another code. Nope.

The third code was his birthday. It worked. Fucking hell. What an idiot. She searched through the files, a growing feeling of dread developing in her stomach.

Holy. Fuck.

What kind of idiot would keep this all on his work computer?

The sort of idiot who was an egomaniac and thought he’d never get caught. He had photos on here, images she didn’t even begin to understand, although she recognized a couple of people. One of them a very prominent politician getting head from a woman she guessed wasn’t his wife.

Realizing she didn’t have time to go through all of this, she brought up her personal email and sent the file to herself.

It was so huge though, it was taking forever.

Come on. She knew that Charlie would be back soon and she had to get this done.

Finally, it showed that it had loaded, and she hit send closed everything down. Shoving the chair back, she stepped into her office right as the door opened. Freezing, she stared as Richard walked in.

Oh, God. He’d caught her. Charlie had seen her and called him.

She was dead. So dead.

“Forgot a file I needed,” he said.

Shit, had she turned off the computer? Why couldn’t she remember? She needed to stall him until the monitor went to sleep, or he’d go in there and notice.

“Um, Richard, I . . .”

“I’m in a hurry here, Scarlett,” he said impatiently. “Could you please move away from the door?”

“I’m pregnant.”

She winced. That wasn’t the way she’d intended to tell her boss.

Way to go, Scar. You couldn’t have come up with something else to stall him with?

Apparently not.

He froze. “What?”

“I’m pregnant. Nearly eight weeks. I’ll, um, tell HR of course. I’ll need a bit of time off when the baby comes so we’ll need to find someone I can train. I, um, yeah.”

“Who the fuck got you pregnant?” he snapped.

Well, that was rude. The insinuation being that no one would want to sleep with her. Two people had, actually.

“I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

He narrowed his gaze. “I can’t afford for you to have time off.”

Her mouth opened then closed.

“Aren’t you too old to get pregnant?”

She glared at him. “Clearly not.”

He let out an impatient breath. “I need that file. We’ll talk about this Monday.”

“Sure, have a nice weekend.” She attempted to be cheerful when she felt anything but. When he left, she sunk into her chair. That was too close.

* * *

Richard was as crookedas the day was long.

It was Sunday evening, she’d spent the whole weekend going through all the stuff she’d taken from his computer. And it was bad. She wasn’t even sure how bad, but she was pretty sure he was blackmailing a whole lot of important people. And if he wasn’t, he was holding onto evidence to blackmail them at a later date.

And that wasn’t the only thing. There was evidence here of illegal business tactics. Of ways that he’d managed to damage the reputation and worth of businesses before he’d snapped them up at a bargain price to turn them around for a profit.

She was sitting on a pile of evidence but had no idea how to use it. And unfortunately, there was nothing on Maddox.

She couldn’t even send it to him since she didn’t have his email address.

Shit. She could send it to the cops, but he probably had most of them on his payroll.

Yawning, she signed into her work email. She always liked to check it on Sunday evening so she hit the ground running Monday morning. Then she saw it. The email.

He couldn’t do this. That bastard! How was this legal?

With hands that shook she called Margo.

“You’re not getting out of the doctor’s appointment,” she said straight away. “You already canceled twice. No more. You’re going.”

“It’s not that,” she told her.

“What is it? What did you do? Please don’t tell me you did anything stupid, I don’t have any bail money.”

“Margo, stop. Listen. That’s not it. Although, yeah, I did something stupid. I told him I was pregnant.”

“Told who? Your cowboy hotties? If they were mean to you, I’m gonna go psycho on their asses.”

“No, not them. Richard.”

“Richard? He was mean to you? Oh, he’s going down.”

“Margo, he fired me.”

“What? What do you mean he fired you?” Margo demanded.

“I have an email saying that I’ve been fired and that my stuff will be ready to collect from security in the morning. What am I going to do?” She barely had any savings. She’d been planning on doing some serious saving from now until the baby was born. But now . . . she’d need a new job.

“Why would he fire you? You do the work of two employees.”

“It must be because I told him I was pregnant.”

“Well, he can’t do that. We’ll sue.”

“With what money?”

“There has to be a way to fight back,” Margo protested.

“He’ll just say it’s my word against his. I didn’t put it in writing and there was no one else around when I told him.”

Margo groaned. “Why’d you tell him? We haven’t even had your doctor’s appointment.”

“I needed to stall him.”

“Stall him?”

“I didn’t want him going back into his office too quickly in case I hadn’t powered down his computer. Margo, I have stuff on him. Bad stuff.”

“Shit. I’ll come over.”

“No, don’t do that. You’re already doing enough for me. But Margo, what am I going to do? I can’t afford this apartment without that job.” She couldn’t afford anything without that job.

“You’ll get another one. And you can move in here if you have to.”

Margo lived in a tiny studio apartment close to the airport. There was barely enough room for her, let alone Scarlett and a baby.

“Thanks, but I can’t do that. I’ll figure something out.”

“I’m here for you, Scar. Whatever you need.”

“I know.” She was the only person that Scarlett could rely on.

And that terrified her.