His Pretend Baby Page 11

  I’ve never seen or expected I would see Go look as emotional as he does right now.

  “You continue to make me want things, and not just on paper. A marriage. A honeymoon. Children. A life with you and our children in my home. You’re the plan. You’ve been the plan all along. From the moment I met you, I’ve been long-planning you.”

  “Oh, my God,” I say again, suddenly understanding, “That’s what Marco was really talking about the morning after we slept together. He kept saying he should have stuck to the plan.”

  A shadow crosses Go’s face. “Yes, he should have. I wanted to give you an appropriate amount of time to get over him. Also, I needed time to not only set up a non-profit division of GoBotics, but also to develop The Restraining Order tech. I planned to make you an offer in the coming year, and then give you a few more months to get used to the idea of dating me. But then Marco called and left me a message about a snag in the Nyla Plan. And by the time I called him back, he was dead.”

  Go looks down as if he is both remembering and confessing.

  “I think he was calling to tell me you were pregnant. He knew how much work I put into the Nyla Plan. So much work, he might not ever have told me you slept together on Halloween, because he wouldn’t have wanted to upset me. But the baby changed everything…”

  Go shakes his head, as if still try to process everything. “I don’t have the emotional skills to fully understand why he went off the plan. Why he slept with you just a few months before we entered phase two of the Nyla Plan…”

  “We were drunk,” I find myself explaining, just so I can get to the part where I ask, “So this was all some kind of crazy scheme you and your family came up with?”

  “No! Not a scheme, Nyla, a plan. A plan for us to be together. I don’t know why Marco would even risk getting drunk with you…”

  “Because he was human!” I stop pacing and stare at him with mounting frustration. “A human being, not a robot. And he was probably more than a little jealous of you because when you came home to Indiana that Thanksgiving, you made it rain shares, houses, and Teslas on your family. And then, to top it off, you told him he needed to give up his girlfriend, so you could have her, and your whole family had the nerve to agree with you! I mean, let’s face it. Marco may have been a nice guy—and I have every reason to believe he’d have dumped me at some point, regardless—but he was also human and flawed. Not some programmable robot in the Go script!”

  Go frowns, processes my words, and then looks back up to somberly inform me, “This is why we’re a good match, Nyla. I never would have understood Marco’s actions if not for you. Thank you. You should return to Portland with me now.”

  “Oh my God, Go! No! I’m not a robot either. The fact that you’ve been long-planning me from the beginning—that’s so out of line! And then, even worse, you roped me into this scheme to trick your family...”

  “I know this is alarming, Nyla. I’m aware of that,” he answers, shifting from foot to foot. “That’s why I took my family’s advice and chose not to share anything about the Nyla Plan with you. But at the same time, I didn’t want them to think less of Marco for going off plan and getting you pregnant, so I came up with this revised plan. It was the only way.”

  “No,” I say after a long pause. “That wasn’t the only way, Go. You could have left me the fuck alone. You could have taken your plans and your distrust back with you to Portland, and left me here to raise this baby on my own. But you didn’t. You lied to me—”

  “Only because I knew you would react this way—!”

  “You lied to me all along, and then accused me of being a liar and kicked me out of your house! And now you’re here saying you want me back?!”

  “I kicked you out because you’re a disruption, Nyla!” he yells at me from the other side of the gate. “Because I didn’t—I couldn’t trust myself where you were concerned. I’m well aware how crazy I sound. How crazy this all looks—Nyla, what are you doing?”

  I don’t realize I’m backing away until he asks that question. But I don’t stop. Don’t even pause.

  “You kicked me out,” I say again. “You didn’t believe me and you kicked me out.”

  “I wanted to believe you, Nyla, please know that!” He stares at me mournfully through the bars. “All the evidence against you, and my heart kept pushing me to believe you. But I knew I wasn’t in my right mind when it came to you. I mean, I took a vacation.” He says the word “vacation” like it’s a clear sign of lunacy.

  “I didn’t think I could trust my feelings—not when it came to you. So I pushed you away. Not because I didn’t trust you. I do, Nyla, with all my heart. Especially now. It was because I didn’t trust myself. But fuck that, Nyla…”

  He regards me, the look on his face so plaintive, it reaches out to me, begging me to believe him.

  “I love you, Nyla Weathers-Gutierrez. You disrupt everything, but I can’t sleep without you. Sometimes it feels like I’m barely breathing without you. You’re the only person who has ever made me feel like I’m not a robot. I need that. I need you. Please come back to me! I promise, whatever life throws at us, I will never make the mistake of pushing you away again. Just come back. Please—fuck, Nyla…stop walking away! Come back! Let me fix this! Let me fix this! I’m begging you!”

  As fast as my heart was beating before, it has come to a complete halt in my chest. But I don’t stop backing away. I can’t. This is crazy. He’s crazy. I have a degree in mental health, for God’s sake!

  As in love with him as I thought I was, I can’t—cannot—do this with him. I turn and run back toward the house.

  “No, Nyla!” he shouts after me. The bars rattle violently, and I hear him yell, “Nyla!” again. “Don’t leave me. Don’t. Please, we can work this out! Nyla, come back!”

  It sounds like his whole world is falling apart, his voice is so raw with emotion. But I don’t turn back. I don’t so much as allow myself to even glance back. And I definitely do not allow myself to think too hard about everything he just said.

  15

  Nikolai is still at the intercom box when I return to the house, and I imagine he saw the whole thing play out from the huge front window.

  “Nyla, is everything okay?” he asks when I slam the door behind me, gasping heavily like a horror movie actress trying to escape a monster.

  I don’t respond. I can’t. I run up the stairs, keeping it all inside. Because I’m so tough. I’ve always been so tough. I have to be.

  I refuse to let myself fall apart over this like I did in Portland. Instead, I lie there in the dark of my room, holding my leather heart closed with nothing but will and power.

  I don’t cry. Not even when the door opens and I hear Nikolai say, “Go to her, girl, go on!”

  The next thing I know, Sam’s sweet pittie, Back-Up, is on the bed next to me, nudging my hand as if to say, “You know what would help with all that heartbreak? Me.”

  Even then, I don’t cry. I stay put on the bed. Trying not to think about what I now know. About billionaires who decide they want you in an instant. About ex-boyfriends who agree to hand you over to their brothers—after discussing it first with their entire family, of course. About the telenovela I had no idea was unfolding behind the scenes since two Thanksgivings ago, starring a robot hero.

  You’re the only person who has ever made me feel like I’m not a robot, and I want that. I need that. I need you.

  I try not to think about him saying those words to me. I lie there for hours and hours, and then some more hours, trying not to replay every single thing he said.

  My phone rings all night. And then it stops. Then it rings some more. And then it stops again. Back-Up is let out and then sent back in a few times. The sun comes out. And then the room gets dark again. I start thinking about staying here in this bed, where I’m safe from heartbreak and pain, forever.

  But shortly after the sun sets for the second time in a row, Nikolai strides into the room and sets a chair down in
front of the bed. He says something in Russian to Back-Up and the dog climbs off the bed and lopes out of the room, like a child sent away so the adults can talk in private.

  After closing the door behind Back-Up, Nikolai takes a seat in the chair he placed with a heavy sigh, like the most reluctant visitor ever.

  “Sam says I must talk with you. ‘Try to make her talk’ she says to me. So I will talk with you. Come, Nyla. Sit up. Right here.”

  From what I’ve heard, Mount Nik used to be a really good hockey player, but I can tell he’s probably an even better team owner. I find myself sitting up in bed, following his command without a thought of protest.

  “I do not like gossip,” he says quietly. “But in order to understand, I think I must ask: is this baby Go’s or Marco’s?”

  “Marco’s,” I answer, looking away guiltily. “I didn’t lie to Sam or anyone else, but I let them believe what Go told the world.”

  “I see,” Nikolai says, a pitying expression overtaking his face. “You are still in love with Marco. But he is dead.”

  “No,” I answer, shaking my head. “I’m sorry he’s dead. I’d never have wanted his life to end so soon. But I never loved him, at least not like that, and we broke up for some really good reasons. The pregnancy… it was because of a stupid one-night-stand.”

  After a moment of confusion, Nikolai posits, “So Marco’s brother is one you really love?”

  I nod, miserable as hell.

  “Have you told him?”

  I nod again. “Yes, but he didn’t believe me. And then he accused me of leaking that the baby was really his brother’s to some rich family in Japan. And then he…he kicked me out of his house. And I had nowhere to go, so I came here.”

  A fierce look overtakes Nikolai’s expression then. “You are always welcome here, you know this, Nyla,” Nikolai tells me in that overly emphatic Russian way of his. “Sam loves you like sister. Do not ever think you have nowhere to go.”

  “Thank you,” I tell him with what I imagine is a pretty pathetic smile. “I really appreciate it.”

  But Nikolai sneers, like I’ve seriously insulted him. “I do not accept your thank you. This is fact. Requires no thank you.” Then before I can respond, he continues with his dissection of my situation. “So he kicks you out of his house. Then three days later, he is at my gate? Why?”

  “He found proof that I didn’t do the things he thinks I did, and he wants me to come back to Portland. He wants us to stick with the plan to be husband and wife and raise the baby together, even though everyone now knows it’s not really his.”

  “I understand,” Nikolai says with a grave nod. “And you said no because he does not love you. My cousin’s wife had similar concern. You do not want to be in relationship with man who does not love you. That is your reason for telling him no at gate. Because he does not say ‘I love you’ back.”

  “No! I mean yes! I mean, not exactly. He said he loves me. He said he’s loved me from the moment he first met me. But he knew it was crazy, because he always has a plan and I wasn’t part of the plan. And then he didn’t think he could trust his heart when he got all this evidence that I was the one who leaked the baby story to his enemies. And so he kicked me out of his house.”

  “He kicked you out of his house. This is not good thing to do, nyet, but how would my Sam say about this? You seem very caught up in it.”

  I shake my head at him, “What?”

  “You say he kicked you out of his house. That makes you angry because of something that happens before maybe?”

  I stop, realizing… “Yeah. I was kicked out of a few homes when I was a foster kid. And there was this one family—well, I thought it was going to work out with them. I tried so hard, and then it all went to hell.”

  “So when he kicks you out, he triggered you, as my Sam would say, and this is why you cannot say yes when he comes to my home to get you back?”

  I nod.

  And it feels like Nikolai is speaking my soul when he says, “You are afraid. Afraid you will love him, and he will kick you out again.”

  I nod again, my heart cringing at just the thought of setting myself up like that once more.

  “But tell me, Nyla, the families who made you leave their homes—did they come back for you? Did they say they loved you and ask for your forgiveness?”

  I shake my head. “No,” I answer. “Not one of them ever did.”

  “But he comes back for you. He says sorry and tells you he loves you like you love him. What do you think about that?”

  “I…I…”

  I start crying again. But this time, for a much different reason. “I think maybe I’m just as bad as him. Too afraid to trust my emotions when it comes to him.”

  “I understand, Nyla. I, too, am scared of this love. When it is really love, it feels right and very, very scary. Like best dream and worst nightmare. Sam made me miserable during our beginning days because of misunderstanding, but we talk, and now she makes me happiest man on Earth. The question is, do you think this man can make you happy? If you let him, do you think you could be happy with him?”

  I think of our wedding night. Of our unexpected honeymoon. Of him holding me so tight I’d felt safe for the first time in my life. I thought of that last morning on the island. How I couldn’t stop smiling because my heart was so full and content. How it had felt like anything was possible, even a long, happy marriage between a Freak and a Geek.

  “You love him, and he loves you,” Nikolai says as if giving voice to all of those thoughts. “Nothing else matters.”

  I think about his words. Sniffle. And think some more. Then I pull out my phone.

  “Da, call him. Tell him how you feel.”

  “No, I’m not calling him,” I say to Nikolai, opening up a new browser on my phone. “I’m definitely, definitely not calling him.”

  Thanks to my sudden urgent need to stop crying and start being happy… and a favor called in to Nikolai’s cousin in Texas who magically made a private jet appear almost as soon as I decided to return to Oregon—my cab pulls up in front of Go’s house less than four hours later.

  As I approach the house, I review what I’m going to say, again and again. And it still doesn’t feel very well planned out. Basically, it consists of: “I’m sorry for not listening to you. I have some baggage. You have some issues. But yeah, okay, let’s try again.”

  The gates open for me as soon as the taxi drops me off outside, filling my heart with hope, because at least he hasn’t removed me from the visual and audio recognition systems. That’s a good sign, I think, as I walk up the driveway with my roller bag.

  The front door opens seamlessly for me, too, sliding open on a whisper as soon as my boots touch the stone porch. Another good sign, I think, dragging my roller bag up the steps.

  However, both me and my little roller bag came to a screeching halt as soon as we step across the threshold.

  “Nyla Weathers-Gutierrez has entered the house,” the overhead system announces as I watch Go and Sophia passionately kiss in the middle of his foyer.

  16

  Go immediately pushes Sophia away as soon as he sees me standing there.

  “No! Nyla, this isn’t what it looks like,” he tells me.

  His voice, which is usually so dispassionate, is now racked with something that sounds an awful lot like panic. And he holds out both hands, as if to block my incoming judgment as he says, “The house announced you were here and when I came out of the living room to meet you, she followed me. She threw herself at me right before you came in. I think she was trying to make you believe something was going on between us.”

  “No, that’s not what happened,” Sophia insists. “He flew me out here, and then he kissed me on the couch.”

  I look at Go, and he crooks his head and looks to the side, before admitting, “Yes, that’s true. I was testing to see if she’d kiss me back.”

  “What? Why?” I ask him on a horrified whisper. “Why would you do that?”


  He pushes his glasses up on his nose and says, “Because I think she’s the one who went to RoTeku and that she set you up to take the fall.”

  “What?” Sophia says, her voice squeaking with disbelief. She shakes her head at Go. “Okay, yes, I admit I came out here and I kissed you—mainly because I was lonely and feeling a little sorry for myself after finding out Marco got Nyla pregnant. But I had no idea you two were still together! Or about any bank accounts. I mean, how would I have even done that anyway?”

  “Easy,” he answers, folding his arms to tuck his hands under his pits. “You work in the financial aid department at the university, so you have access to all of Nyla’s records—”

  Sophia gasps somewhat dramatically as if he’s just accused her of high treason. “I would never abuse my position in that way—!”

  “You have access to all her records…her personal information,” Go repeats, rolling right over her protest, “and you have a cousin who works at the same bank where Nyla opened her original account.”

  “Christi!” I say, remembering how I’d only vaguely recognized the woman I’d met at a few of the Perezes extended family gatherings when I’d opened my account. She hadn’t been my teller, but I’d felt her eyes on me, silently judging.

  “This is crazy. You’re crazy!” Sophia goes over to the living room’s couch and comes back into the foyer with a large designer overnight bag now tucked underneath her arm.

  But she didn’t leave. Instead she demanded, “Why would I do any of the things you’re accusing me of? I had no idea Marco got her pregnant until that story broke! You know that!”

  “No, I don’t know that,” Go points out, his voice becoming more and dispassionate by the moment. “The only thing I know for sure is you had no idea Marco had an engagement ring in his pocket. Your surprised reaction in my office was genuine. So genuine, I made the false assumption that it meant you also knew nothing about the baby. But the more I thought about who could have set Nyla up, the more I became convinced it was you. The only thing missing was motive. At least I thought it was the only thing missing. But then I reflected a bit more about that night. And I thought about the Marco I knew. He wouldn’t have…”