A Billionaire's Life Ch. 07

I smiled happily. My first instinct was simply happiness. How could I not be happy? A gorgeous woman who I was very, very fond of had told me she was falling in love with me. And I tilted my head so that we could come together for a beautifully tender kiss.

But then I remembered Taylor. And I remembered Cassandra. And Kate. And oh man, my love life was complicated. But I couldn't help it. Every time I got together with Ashlyn, whether having sex or just having a conversation, I felt such an incredible connection to her.

I was more confused than ever about my feelings for Ashlyn. I knew I would soon have to make a decision about her and about our relationship. She simply couldn't just stay a houseguest/renter/whatever. My feelings for her simply weren't stable.

Either I would find away to bring her closer to me, as a lover and as a girlfriend, or I would have to push her away and out of my life.

As it turned out, it wasn't a decision I would have to make. The two serious events that came during that last week before the New Year made my decision for me.

***

"Jonathan, we need to start putting together a press release for Taylor's pregnancy. Her baby bump is getting really hard to hide and the rumors are already flying on the streets." Cassandra fiddled with her tablet PC taking notes.

I squeezed my wife's hand and nodded while she smiled at me. "Let's do it for the New Year. Sound good?"

Both Cassandra and Taylor agreed.

"Speaking of which," Cassandra began. "Have you two decided on which New Year's Eve party to attend?"

Taylor sighed. "Do we have to? I'm getting too big to fit into a nice dress."

I looked over to my wife. "YOU were the one telling me I had to keep up my social appearances. But I don't want to go to the Bellini party. It's going to be mostly models and I don't want to be near that many party drugs."

Cassandra concurred while Taylor pouted, "But so many of my friends are going. Ashlyn and Kate want to go to that one."

"You were just saying you didn't want to go out," I arched an eyebrow at my wife. "Besides, I don't know that I want those two going either. I mean, I know I have no control over Ashlyn, but I'm seriously going to ask Kate not to go to that one."

"Imposing your boyfriend rights?"

"Shouldn't I be bothered by my girlfriend going off to a cocaine-orgy without me?"

Taylor shrugged. "Is Kate really your girlfriend? You're not public about that yet, and you have to make a more permanent decision about her soon. The telemags ran another segment on you and her from that visit to Vermont yesterday."

"They followed us to Vermont?" I asked with an arched eyebrow.

"No. Some kid with a camera phone sent in the pics," Cassandra corrected. "But with the rumors of Taylor's pregnancy, this thing with Kate could get ugly."

I sighed. "Well I'm not dumping her. It'd break her heart."

"Then just go public already," Taylor put her hand on mine. "I keep telling you, take her to a nice restaurant and get a few publicity photos and move on. If she's your girlfriend, you should treat her like one."

"But I'm married!"

"So? This is the 21st Century, Johnny." Taylor rubbed my hand. "Besides, it's counterproductive to tell Kate she's your girlfriend if you keeping hiding her away like a mistress. She's getting antsy and starting to worry that you don't really care about her."

I took a deep breath and rubbed my left hand over the lower half of my face.

"Come on, Johnny. You know I'm right. Really, what's the worst that could happen? I still love you. I'm still having your baby. And even more men around the world will be jealous of you." Taylor grinned. "Plus, you'll have a very excited Kate who will want to show you her gratitude."

I chuckled. I knew how much I liked people wanting to "thank" me. Even Cassandra cracked a smile when she saw the look on my face.

"You two are really okay with this?"

"We love you, Jonathan," my assistant put in first. "As long as we have that, everything else works out."

Taylor nodded.

I took a deep breath and then made my decision. "Okay, let's do this. I'll take Kate as my date to Alessandro's party. His guests will skew more TV than modeling, but it's a decent mix of business and the Manhattan culture crowd. There'll be plenty of paparazzi to confirm Kate as my date, and Taylor can stay home."

My two ladies looked at each other, communicated something without words, and then nodded to me.

"Okay. I'll go tell Kate."

***

Kate decided to enthusiastically celebrate the upcoming public announcement of our relationship. Even better, after my girlfriend drained me of two loads of semen, Kate was invited by Taylor to stay with us in the big bed, and you'd never seen a happier girl as the young blonde fell asleep in my arms.

***

The next day at breakfast, Kate was bubbly and cheery and oh-so-excited. By stark contrast, Ashlyn was quiet and reserved.

The young platinum blonde spent a minute trying to engage her best friend in conversation before asking. "What's eating you? Are you upset that we're not going to the Bellini party?"

"No, no. That's okay."

"Well, you've GOT to come with us to Alessandro's. I hear there's a young TV cop from CBS who's got a *serious* crush on you."

"Kate, will you stop trying to set me up?" Ashlyn sighed. Only her voice wasn't a tease. It seemed to be a quite sincere request to butt out.

"Fiiine." Kate rolled her eyes and started chatting up Charlotte. She was in too good a mood for it to be ruined by Ashlyn's momentary return to moroseness.

I briefly worried about Ashlyn's mood. After all, she had just recently come off a serious bout of depression and she was very confused about her feelings for me. I wanted to engage Ashlyn in conversation, but the beautiful redhead wouldn't meet my gaze. And then Cassandra was asking me to join her in the office to go over some prep work for the New Year, and I left to go attend to business.

That night would be the last night of peace I had for the year.

***

The next morning, I was awoken by the most agonizing scream I'd ever heard in my life. A second later, someone's hand was pounding against my shoulder and I felt like the entire bed was being lifted up and thrown over.

I rolled away from the pounding hand and managed to sit up, my eyes blinking rapidly as I tried to find the intruder in the room. Only I found that the only people in the room were me and Taylor.

Taylor was the source of the pounding hand. She was flailing left and right with both arms, punching at everything while she shrieked her head off. Her dark hair was a mess, flailing in every direction. Great waterfalls of tears were pouring down her cheeks and her mouth permanently gaped open as she howled her rage at the heavens. *"NO!!! NO!!! NO!!!"*

I moved to grab her. I wanted to physically hold my wife and do whatever I could to calm her down. But then I saw it.

Our sheets were a white linen, pure and clean and unbelievably comfortable. But between Taylor's legs I noticed some red spotting. There was blood on our sheets. And Taylor wailed in a voice so loud and so full of sorrow that I was certain the world was coming to an end. *"WHY???"* she screamed.

Just then, Cassandra and Charlotte both burst into the room with anxiety on their faces. I managed to wrap Taylor up in my arms, and immediately she collapsed against me, sobbing uncontrollably while she buried her face against my neck.

Charlotte was already on the phone.

A half-hour later, the doctor gave us the confirmation: Taylor had suffered a miscarriage.

***

At 9am, Taylor cried herself to sleep in my arms. She'd donned a pad for the bleeding, but the pain hadn't gone away and so she was still fitful. Sometime after she was asleep, Cassandra came and slid into the bed beside us.

As if reading my mind, Cassandra wrapped up Taylor in her arms and then head- nodded me towards the door. I took a deep breath, and then looked at my assistant with thanks before slipping off the bed. I went to the bathroom first to clean myself up, including the blood on my arms from where Taylor had grabbed me. My hair was a mess. My face was haggard. And my eyes were bloodshot.

I'd just lost my baby.

I closed my eyes and took a long few minutes just breathing heavily. My stomach gurgled and I decided to go downstairs and get something to eat as we'd missed breakfast time. Once I got some food in me I'd return to my bedroom to hold my wife.

Dorothy offered her sincere condolences with some toast and juice. I didn't eat much. I didn't have an appetite but I shoveled some stuff down just to quiet my stomach.

But when it came time to go back up the stairs, I found that I didn't want to return just yet. I wanted to be with my wife, but I didn't want to face the reality of my lost baby, either. So aimlessly, I walked through the rest of the house, just cruising down corridors for a few minutes.

Inevitably, I passed by the guest areas. Kate and Ashlyn were in Ashlyn's bedroom and Kate jumped to her feet when she saw me.

"John!" the young blonde exclaimed. She quickly ran up and hugged me, saying, "I'm so sorry. How's Taylor?"

"She's sleeping right now." I patted Kate's back and sagged into her embrace for a minute before pulling away. Then I looked over to Ashlyn, whom I was expecting to also offer her sympathies.

But Ashlyn just stared off into space, zombie-like. For a second I was upset. One of her best friends had just had a miscarriage and she couldn't even be bothered to comment? But then when Ashlyn turned to look at me, I saw the haunted look in the beautiful redhead's eyes. "What's going on?" I asked.

"Uh, uh," Kate stalled. "It can wait. Ashlyn's just feeling a bit under the weather today. You should go back to Taylor."

But there was something in Ashlyn's expression that gave me pause. Something serious was going on and if nothing else but a desperate need to not think about my lost baby, I firmly but gently pushed Kate aside and went to the bed where Ashlyn was sitting. I crouched before her and looked up into her face. Ashlyn's brilliant blue eyes were a dull sheen, but she held my gaze.

"Ashlyn? Are you okay?"

Kate interjected, "This isn't the time. It can wait until tomorrow."

"What can wait?" I turned to Kate with a puzzled but insistent expression on my face. Then I looked back to Ashlyn. Whatever else was going on around me, a woman I cared about looked upset and I wanted to do whatever I could to make things better.

Ashlyn glanced just once at Kate before saying in a quiet voice, "I'm late."

I didn't understand immediately.

"I'm late. My period's late." She took a deep breath. "I was due a week ago. I've been late before, but not this late."

I gulped and reached my arms up to Ashlyn's shoulders. "Are you sure?"

She opened up her hands, which until now had been pressed together palm to palm. And in between them was a home pregnancy test. There were two clear pink lines, bold and almost red. I'd seen it before, when Taylor had picture messaged me her own pregnancy test. Ashlyn said in a soft voice, "You're the only man I've been with."

I gasped and stared at the wand in disbelief. After all, Kaitlyn's pregnancy test had been a false positive back when she was eighteen. "How?" I asked. "Aren't you on the pill?"

She nodded.

"Then how?" Could I really see two false positives in my life from women on the pill?

"It must have been that first time, after I showed myself to you in the pool."

I looked at her uncomprehendingly. Kate moved up and started rubbing Ashlyn's shoulders. The redhead scrunched up her face and looked down, on the verge of tears.

Kate started in. "She was depressed for weeks, John. She completely stopped taking care of herself. She wouldn't shower unless Taylor or I physically pushed her into it. She wasn't brushing her teeth or changing her clothes..."

Kate took a deep breath. "Or taking her pills."

I remembered that first night. I was lost to the delirium of the greatest sex of my life and for the first time in years, I'd cum inside the pussy of a woman other than Taylor or Cassandra. At the time, I hadn't worried. I considered it a minor betrayal to my loves, but I felt passionately for Ashlyn and I wasn't worried about pregnancy. I knew Ashlyn had been quite sexually active and it never occurred to me that she'd stopped taking her pills, however briefly. Her period had probably started almost immediately. And I would have made love to her right smack in the middle of her fertile time two weeks later.

My hand went and covered my gasping mouth as my eyes went wide as the implications sunk into me. I stood up then and Ashlyn just started crying. So for the second time that day, I stepped forward and embraced a sobbing woman. And I held Ashlyn in my arms until she got herself under control.

"Johnny, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I love you. I'm so sorry," she whimpered against my chest.

But when she was done, I couldn't speak to her. There were just too many emotions and too many thoughts going through my head. I had just lost my baby. I had a new baby. I wasn't going to be a father anymore. Now I was GOING to be a father again. My wife was in pain for losing her baby. Ashlyn was in pain for finding out she was going to have a baby. It was all just too much.

Pinching my own eyes and put both hands on my head, threatening to tear out my own hair. I staggered out of the room and raced out onto the back patio. And then, in a throat-tearing roar that rivaled any howl Taylor had raged against the heavens, I screamed.

***

I woke up the next morning with Taylor resting her head on my chest. When she realized I was awake, she turned and then slid high enough to press her lips against mine.

I wrapped my arms around my wife's back and head, pulling her more closely to me. And then we lost ourselves to the passion of our kiss.

Love. I loved my wife. I loved her with every fiber of my being. And I knew that no matter what, we would go on, despite the miscarriage. There would be other children, other chances. I didn't know yet what I was going to do about the Ashlyn situation, but I truly believed that Taylor and I would figure it out.

After several long minutes, I was resting on my back with Taylor pillowing her head on my chest again. Idly, I stroked her hair while she rubbed her fingers on my belly.

Eventually, she sat up and gave me a hopeful expression, her dark blue eyes opened wide. "Well, I've been DYING for a Cosmo." Taylor smiled shakily with her attempt at humor. I just reached out and stroked her cheek with the back of my hand.

Yesterday, Taylor had been completely despondent. Now, she was merely morose, and that faint emotion of hope was growing.

Cassandra knocked shortly after and entered with a maid, who brought us breakfast in bed. Cassandra then took a deep breath and glanced out the door. "Jonathan, Taylor, there are some friends who'd like to see you." Cassandra gave me a LOOK with her eyes, and then a warning to Taylor as well.

Taylor's initial gladness at the idea of her friends coming up was tempered by Cassandra's look. And then something non-verbal passed between my loves before Taylor steeled herself and nodded.

Ashlyn and Kate came in dressed casually. It was the first time either of them was seeing Taylor since two nights prior.

"How are you Taylor?" Kate asked as she approached the bed and then sat down at the foot of it. Ashlyn took the opposite side towards my feet.

"I'm okay. I'm far from happy, but I'll be alright."

"I'm so sorry," Kate said softly.

"I know. Me, too," Taylor shrugged, trying to put up a brave front.

"I'm sorry," Ashlyn said sincerely to Taylor. Then she took a deep breath, glanced at me, then returned to Taylor to say much more emphatically, "I'm *sorry*."

Taylor seemed prepared for SOME upsetting news, most likely from Cassandra's warning. Our food was forgotten as Taylor focused in on the redhead. "I'm guessing you've got something to tell me. Something I'm not going to like hearing?"

Ashlyn looked down. "I would have told you yesterday as soon as I found out. But yesterday was kind of a bad day for you."

"Found out what?"

Ashlyn took a deep breath and then glanced at me again. When she looked back to Taylor, her eyes lasered in. "I'm pregnant, Taylor. It's Johnny's."

Taylor's jaw dropped and then she looked back and forth between me and her friend. My jaw was clenched and I wasn't sure how to react. I certainly wanted to support Ashlyn as the mother of my child, but at the same time Taylor was my wife and there was no question she was my priority. As attracted to Ashlyn as I felt and as much as I cared for her well-being, I LOVED Taylor.

"Are you sure?" Taylor asked with the same fierce intensity I'd asked yesterday morning.

Ashlyn nodded. "We visited the doctor yesterday. It's confirmed."

"How?" Taylor asked. So Kate and Ashlyn told the whole story. For me, hearing it a second time just rammed every detail home.

And when the girls finished, Ashlyn started crying again.

Taylor was just stunned. I knew how she felt. One minute, she was mourning the loss of her own child. The next minute, she was finding out her husband had impregnated one of her best friends.

She'd steeled herself for some bad news. She'd seen the warnings and she'd done her best to calm herself. But for certain kinds of news, there simply is no way to be prepared. And now, Taylor's face was ghost white.

Kate and Ashlyn had finished their recap and we were all now waiting for Taylor to respond. A minute passed in silence, then two. You could feel the tension in the air and I found that I was partially holding my breath, waiting to see how my wife eventually reacted.

"Get out." Taylor blinked twice and a tear squeezed out to form a line down her cheek.

Ashlyn blanched immediately and took on a pleading expression.

Taylor's eyes sharpened and a look of murderous rage came over her face. "GET. OUT."

In tears, Ashlyn fled the room. Kate quickly followed after her.

"Taylor..." I said soothingly and reached for her arm.

My wife spun, the murderous gaze now focused on me. "You CAME in her?"

I winced. Then, with deliberately slowness, I nodded.

"Get out," my wife said coldly. She indicated with her head towards the door.

"Taylor," I pleaded.

"You knocked up one of my best friends. SHE'S going to have your baby before ME, your WIFE. Now get OUT of my *SIGHT*!" Taylor said shrilly, but without raising her voice. I think I would have been less afraid if she'd started yelling. The quiet intensity of Taylor's voice spooked the hell out of me.

Cassandra looked at me with concern, but I couldn't meet her eyes. Silently, I got off the bed and left the room.

***

I stood just outside my bedroom door with my head hanging. How had I managed to so completely fuck things up? Would Taylor forgive me for this? For the first time in our marriage, I had a sliver of doubt whether Taylor and I would last forever.

A couple minutes into my ruminations, the door opened again and Cassandra came out, her face grave. Automatically, I turned to her for support and we came together for a fierce hug.

"She kicked me out, too," Cassandra lamented.

"What's going to happen?" I whimpered as I felt the first tears starting to come to my face.

"I don't know," Cassandra sighed and rubbed my back. "But no matter what, I'll always be with you."

There was an ominous undercurrent in Cassandra's voice and I blinked twice while pulling away to look at her face. "What are you saying?"

Cassandra's eyebrows canted to the sides and her jaw quivered. "I'm not sure. I can usually read both of you pretty well. You have your fights and your spats, but this is just so much bigger."