Chapter 231

I stare at the cell in my hands for the hundredth time and sigh. My mother’s name is on the screen
staring at me and I’ve contemplated pressing dial a million times. I should tell her about the baby and
our engagement. She’s my mother and yet something inside of me is holding back. It’s been days since
the restaurant and here I am sitting in the huge, empty garden of Sylvana’s home agonizing over what
to do.

Jake comes strolling out to me, carrying a blanket and a hot drink, coming level to my face with a look
of adoration in his eyes. He drapes the blanket around my shoulders carefully and slides the mug in
front of me kissing me on the temple.

“Still undecided?” he asks gently, slipping onto the bench beside me and sits with it between his legs so
he can face me and pull me close in between them, nuzzling me against him, cradling my head with his
palm. His fingers thread themselves into my hair in the way he always does. I close my eyes at the feel
of him, surrounded by his unique smell, driving away anything but a feeling of serenity.

“How we left things. What I feel about her now. It’s all so confusing.” I sigh against his chest, completely
confused.

“I can’t make this choice for you, baby.” Jake pulls my head up while he angles down to look at me, my
head nestling into the crook of his neck, automatically his hand smooths over my abdomen and I get
that inner swell of warm emotion. I’ve been thinking about little tadpole more as of late, more frequently
and more affectionately; no longer hit with the tremors of despair that I had in the beginning.

We had an appointment with the OBGYN yesterday, making everything real. Jake was his usual
domineering self and tried to intimidate the poor doctor when he realized my specialist is a male. The
unamused look on Jake’s face at finding out Dr. Sandy Jones wasn’t the female he’d expected was
hilarious, for me anyway. His posture grew by about a foot and Boss Carrero appeared in full fury in all
his glory.



Jake went into feral jealous mode and glowered any time the poor man put his hands on me. Temper
bristling as he held my hand in a deathly grip and watched with gritted teeth as the doctor listened to
my heart and took my blood pressure. Jake still has this no touching rule when it comes to men and as
much as I wanted to be mad and tell him it was ridiculous I found myself giggling instead; which only
made his brow furrow more prominently and therefore give me more amusement in the process. He
was trying so hard to be good, sit still and say nothing but his face said it all.

When the doctor suggested an internal test, called a sonogram, I thought Jake would rip his head off
his shoulders.

“No. No fucking way is anyone sticking anything anywhere near Emma until that baby comes out!” Jake
was in full aggressive mode and the poor guy could only raise his hands in defense trying to sooth
Jake’s very angry feathers. No sonogram, and no more touching of any kind. I was rapidly pulled into
his lap and encircled protectively like a wolf guarding it’s kill with an expression that clearly said, if you
touch her again, I’ll actually kill you with my bare hands.

Poor Jake. I didn’t help make anything better, falling into a giggling fit, finding the whole situation
hilarious, the poor doctor. I couldn’t answer any questions without tears filling my eyes anytime I caught
sight of Jake’s violent glare. In the end my demeanor softened Jake enough for the doctor to get within
five feet of me and finish our appointment.

I know I’ll probably never see that poor man again. Jake was on the phone as soon as he ushered me
out of the office in his very tight embrace. He barked orders at whatever poor soul was on the other end
of the phone, bidding them to find a list of the top female obstetricians in New York.

* * *

It reminds me of the Jake I miss like crazy. The one I have yet to seduce. If only I could get my head to
calm down over these confused emotions about my mother, so I can concentrate on seducing Jake



back to his former glorious

self. The lack of sex is starting to show on both of us. He

isn’t himself without it and I’m not myself without him being that way. His over-sexed and kinky nature is
a huge part of the man I fell in love with and it’s really starting to take its toll on my emotions.

He jogs like a maniac, daily, hitting the gym, and has a new trainer putting him through boxing training
three times a week, trying to kill the excess frustration not being able to have sex has given him. He’s
burying his head in work and when he’s frustrated the poor employees on the phone are often yelled at.
He’s mean and short with everyone except me, acting like a bear with a sore head most of the time.

He has tried to pleasure me in other ways. Jake’s got many tricks and methods in his armory that don’t
require full-on sex, but I stopped him. Until he gives me himself fully, I don’t want any substitutes at all.
It’s not the same. This means I am also severely grouchy and sexually frustrated while living with a
man who is the walking breathing epitome of sexiness and it’s killing me.

I bring my head back to my cell, and my mother, in hopes of finding some sort of solution to at least one
of my problems today.

“If I don’t tell her then this will just keep bugging me every day until I do.” I sigh heavily, curling up into
him, wishing life could be as simple as it feels anytime I snuggle up in his embrace. Nothing can touch
me here and nothing can infiltrate those arms and that aggressive demeanor when he’s in protector
mode. I just want to stay inside my Jake bubble. Jake is my home in every way.

“How do you think she’ll react? Are you afraid she won’t take the news well?” Jake is trying to figure out
what’s holding me back. It’s hard for him to understand a mother who wouldn’t want to know that her
only child is engaged and pregnant but then, his mother is Sylvana and he has no way to compare. His
mother is the walking definition of motherhood, no wonder she produced such amazing sons.



“I honestly don’t think there will be a reaction, maybe she won’t acknowledge it at all.” I shrug and as
his arm moves further around me, planting a kiss on the top of my head as an attempt to sooth me.
How can anyone not feel loved when they have someone like Jake? He’s the walking and breathing
perfection of my life. He knows what I need as effortlessly as breathing and never fails to deliver.

“It’s her grandchild, surely that will push some kind of emotion?” Jake sounds unsure but I’m not. My
mother only cares about things that pertain to her and her life. Getting married and having a child,
cementing the fact that I’m

never come home to take care of her again is not something she’d want to hear. These revelations
won’t enhance her life, so I don’t have any hope of stirring up some long forgotten maternal warmth
from her. I need to once and for all realize, I’m chasing the love of a woman incapable of giving it. For
whatever reason, my mother has never been able to give me what I deserved and I’m certainly not
going to get it now. Maybe some women just miss that essential gene; and I hope I’m not going to be
one of them. The fierceness of that thought has me cradling my stomach protectively.

My mother’s never spoken of her own childhood, her parents died before I was born, and I never knew
them. Her past is a closed book and I only know the life she put me through. Maybe there’s some
deeper cause that created Jocelyn Anderson but one thing I know for certain, I am not going to be the
mother that she is.

I stare down at my stomach, a swelling sensation in my chest and an ache in my throat as I trail my
fingertips across the flat expanse. I will be a mother who gives a shit; a mother who cuddles her child,
kisses them, and tells them that she loves them. A mother who picks up her child and walks out of
Jake’s life if he ever dares to hurt either of us no matter how much I love him. Because that’s what a
mother is supposed to do; put her child above anyone and everything and fight like hell to protect it.
That’s the mother Sylvana is and the type Leila’s adoptive mother is too.



A surge inside of me swells at an alarming rate, an anger bubbling forth at the thought of what has
been denied me my whole life; a given right to any child. I sit up suddenly and lift my chin defiantly,
immediately so sure about what I need to do.

“I want to look her in the eye when I tell her, Jake. I want to see how she reacts because when I tell her,
I’ll also say goodbye; once and for all. No child of mine is ever going to know the pain of rejection that
woman can inflict, and I won’t give her a chance to try with our baby. I want her to know but not give
her a chance to change because she never will, but to give myself some closure and knowing that she
found out from me.” My revelation comes from nowhere, the dots connecting in my mind, and now the
words are there between us it’s as clear as day to me.

If I let that women linger in my life the way I always did, this to and fro thing I used to allow, I will be
inflicting her on my baby. I will be hurting my child by letting that kind of poison linger in its life, and I’m
not about to do that. I am the protector now, the nurturer and the mother, and I’ll be damned if that
woman, with her toxic love, is going to poison my baby’s life. There’s no doubt in my decision and as
Jake’s eyes scrutinize me, I know one thing for sure.

“Jake, I need to do this on my own. You can come to Chicago with me, but I need to face her alone for
one last time.” It’s just something I need to do; this has always been between her and I. I’m going back
to see her, in the way that I left her so long ago, with my mind made up about the direction of my life
without her in it.


62fb1bb41dcb31934bd49bda