Charles and Ben call a truce.
1311 Words
Please let me talk to my husband Jo, we are still married you know.
I started to type quickly using both of my thumbs at once.
" f**k you..." I was getting into a diatribe of names to call her when she shut me totally down.
" I'm pregnant."
I put my phone down and just looked at it frowning as if it was a snake with three heads.
" Liar." I knew it was a lie. It had to be. Charles told me they tried everything to get pregnant, but Lana was apparently infertile.
He knew he was able to make a baby, he had done so with me.
She sent me an ultra sound picture.
Arturo grabbed my phone and stared at it.
" Could be something she found on the internet." He said, looking up at me.
Next she sent her pregnancy test from the doctors office. It looked pretty legit.
I couldn't help it, but I thought of my own baby, my miscarriage and I began to get weepy.
Arturo picked me up and took me to my bed. He sat me on his big lap and held me like a baby.
" Will this never end?" I said, sniffling.
"She's ruined my life. She took my job, she ruined my reputation, tried to get rid of me to the tall guy, I can't say his name right now." I wiped my eyes on Arturo's sweatshirt.
" Now...NOW she's having HIS baby!" I cried.
I was so tired of Lana Hill.
" I am not telling Charles anything about this baby. No way!" I said, my fist balling up.
" Yeah, that would be a distraction for sure Jo. I agree."
I lay with Arturo as my big teddy bear for a while, until I drifted off.
I woke up to his rumbling snore as my head was against his big chest.
I slowly snuck off the bed and into the bathroom.
I had to talk to someone.
I sent Lavender a message to tell her about Lana, asking her what I should do. Should I tell Charles.
Lavender looked at the message from me, yawning as she tried to read the message in the dim hotel light.
" Oh shit." She said to herself, then quickly did a google search.
Can intersex people get a girl pregnant?
She bit her lip.
Rare but not unheard of.
She swallowed hard, wondering....could this baby be Blue's? She began to type furiously.
" No Jo don't tell him anything, things are very tense now, we can't let him lose focus now."
" Thanks Lav, sorry to wake you. Night."
I went back to bed, Arturo was lying across the bed. I crawled up into his arms and snuggled back in with his warm body.
He hugged me.
" You ok?" he said with a thickness in his voice.
I nodded.
**********
Benedict Campbell
I looked at my phone, trying hard to keep it turned off. I had messaged Arturo earlier in the day, he told me that everything was fine and going as planned.
But my heart ached for my ex wife. I was thinking of her sweet smile. I wanted to tell her I loved her and was sorry I told her that stuff to try and push her away.
I held back my true feelings...I wanted to fix everything I had messed up when I bought my wife, all my mistakes.
Angelina was also leary of me now. She no longer called me Papa. She hung close to Lavender.
That broke my heart in two.
I love that girl as my own. But I understand her pain, she's been hurt so much already.
We had breakfast and prepared for our journey to my estate in Costa Maya.
We all decided to hide Angelina there for now.
Besides the young girl that I had bid on at the auction before I was kidnapped is there.
Ian's operatives were able to find her wandering the streets.
I looked forward to seeing her again. I think it will be good for her and Angelina to be friends.
Lavender told me she went by Adriana. She was living with my grounds keeper.
The big house was torn down after the storm, the pain of Phina leaving me and all the memories...I could never rebuild that home.
But the property was still mine and the outlying buildings were intact.
I placed my hand on my chest, feeling the scars from Grislan as I moved my palm down to my groin.
Though I didn't have the physical pain of Grislan's teeth on me, my mind often drew my hand there, protectively I suppose.
I adjusted myself and looked in the mirror. I had grown a good week of stubble and my hair was cut short now, trimmed at the edges, longer on top.
I wore designer glasses that gave me a sophisticated look.
I needed to be as strong as ever. Manuel did not take any s**t from anyone, especially a scum sucking lawyer.
I would assess the situation and make a good bargain, my lands in Mexico, my businesses, my savings...and I keep the girl.
Lawyers are notorious for valuing money over all else, Armani is no different.
But first, Sanchez. I had jabbed my knife deep in his gut the last time I saw him.
This time I wouldn't stop there.
I pulled up my white shirt collar around my neck. Putting heavy gold chains and my new Rolex, I was ready.
Charles met me in the bathroom. "Wow, you clean up nice Ben."
I wasn't sure why he was treating me so good, maybe he was grateful to me for giving Phina the divorce before I left her.
" I'm doing this for her. I want her happy. She told me she never had a chance to love you, I want her to have that chance Hudson.
Please tell me that you will marry her and give her the life she always dreamed of. I...may not make it back and I am counting on you to uphold our bargain."
" I'm going in with you Ben." He said as he combed his perfect blond hair. He was a good looking guy, I'll give him that.
" I'm your new lawyer." He smiled at my reflection in the mirror.
" The hell you are Hudson!" I grabbed his shirt front and towered over him, my face inches from his own.
I might have been deconditioned, but I was still a few inches taller than the playboy.
" Nice breath." He grinned, sniffing my cologne now.
" What is that coconut oil, and...sandlewood?" He was right upon my neck now.
I pushed him back.
" Jo likes it." I smiled.
To his credit he just nodded.
" Yeah, she has simple tastes, that's what I like about her, she's not pretentious. Infact when I first met her in grade school, she had brought her lunch from home.
We were all sporting our fancy metal lunch boxes, you know the ones with TV logos on them.
But not Josephine, nope. She always used a brown bag and the same lunch everyday, PBJ.
Well, now I know it had to do with her folks fighting. Brea and Jo had basically fended for themselves most days."
I turned my head to the side and imagined a small Phina making a sloppy, messy sandwich all by herself.
I put my shoulder next to Charles, bumping him.
" Ok, we go together, and we come home together. Only, you get the girl in the end. I get my kids safe and my life, I hope." I said quietly.
" Ben, what of she loves you, wants you as her love, not me. What then? Maybe you could make her life happy." Charles surprised me with that.
- Writer
