The Billionaire's Illicit Twins - Holly Rayner Page 0,18

to force you into anything. No blackmail, nothing underhanded.”

I forced out a laugh at that one, hoping he would see it for the joke it was—but knowing there was a chance he’d heard this sort of thing before, from gold diggers trying to pin him down. I had to make him see that I wasn’t one of those girls. I had to make him see that I was going to do this on my own.

“I just thought it was the right thing to do to let you know,” I finished lamely. “I didn’t… I don’t need anything from you. But I do need you to know that you’re going to have a child.”

And then I hung up before he could respond. Before he could say anything to make me feel even more flustered than I already was.

Chapter 11

Bella

Only a few seconds passed between me ending the call and my phone ringing in my hand.

I jumped so hard that I almost dropped my phone, and then, glancing at the number and realizing that I didn’t recognize it, I slid my finger across the bottom of the screen to take the call. I always answered numbers I didn’t know. You could just never tell when it was going to be someone important—or someone who needed me for something to do with the firm.

And if I couldn’t afford to be late any day of the week, then I certainly couldn’t afford to miss a call that might be important. Even on a Saturday. Even in the middle of the night on Sunday. Even if I was on vacation.

Even if I’d just told the guy I slept with two months ago that I was pregnant with his baby, and was still trying to remember how to breathe.

“Hello?” I asked, trying to control the shaking in my voice.

“Bella,” Ethan said. “Don’t hang up on me. We obviously need to talk, and you hanging up is going to make that really difficult.”

Okay, I hadn’t expected him to call back. But I guessed that answered the question of how much he was really going to care about this. Because a guy who heard the news and was already running for the hills probably wouldn’t take the time to call and tell me that I didn’t need to worry about ever hearing from him again.

“How did you even get my number?” I asked, trying to give myself a moment to get my brain in order.

“I don’t have your number. I had the receptionist ping back to the number you were calling from, from my personal office phone.”

“And you called back because…” I continued.

“Well, because you hung up on me, first of all,” he said, a smile in his voice. “But also because I think this is something we actually need to talk about. Don’t you?” His voice was more serious now, though I could hear a shadow of doubt creeping in on that last line.

“We don’t need to talk about it if you don’t want to talk about it,” I replied. “I was serious when I said that you don’t need to be involved. I’m doing this with or without you, and I don’t expect any help. I’m not asking for any help. I’m not expecting it.”

“Yeah, you said that,” he noted. “Twice. Don’t worry, I won’t force help on you. I’m not going to shoulder in on the whole thing and try to play daddy to your mommy. The thing is, though…”

When he didn’t go on, I started to get jumpy. Because this was a conversation I’d never in a million years thought I’d be having with anyone, much less Ethan Parker. I was on the phone with one of the richest men in the world. One of the most successful businessmen in New York. A billionaire at the age of thirty-four. An extremely eligible bachelor.

And I’d slept with him. I knew what it was like to have his hands all over my body, his eyes staring into mine like I was the only person in the entire world. I remembered what he’d done to me, how he’d set my skin on fire with his touch. I remembered how he’d reacted when I had touched him.

And I was having his freaking kid.

All of which still had me so numb and scattered that it hardly touched me, at first, when he said what he said.

“Did you hear me?” Ethan asked. “Bella, are you there? Are you still on the line?”

“I’m here,” I said, pulling myself out of my