Ripe: A Stepbrother Pregnancy Romance (19 page)

Isaiah emerged when he heard Jesse’s voice and rushed over to give him a hug, oblivious to the scene that was unfolding around him. Elise pulled him away, instructing him to go gather his things. When he refused, she turned her attention to Deanna. “Would you go wait with him outside?” she questioned as calmly as she could manage.

“What’s going on?” Isabella spoke up from the hall, entering the room at the sound of commotion. Deanna had made it clear to Elise on more than one occasion that she was the nosy type. She didn’t have a clue as to what was going on, but that sure didn’t stop her from sticking her nose in it. “Oh my god!” she exclaimed in a thick accent, glancing back and fourth between Jesse and Isaiah. “Dee, you were so right. He really does look exactly like his dad!”

“He’s
not
his dad!” Elise yelled, causing Isabella to jump where she was standing.

“Yes I am!” Jesse yelled back

Elise stared at Jesse in horror. After a few moments of shocked silence, Deanna took Isaiah into the backyard, grabbing Isabella’s hand along the way and pulling her out with them.

“Get out!” Elise yelled when she and Jesse were finally alone, pointing at the front door. “I just knew you wouldn’t be able to keep your mouth shut! Just get out! I don’t want to see you ever again!”

“Elise,” Jesse said, taking a step towards her. “Please…just let me explain what happened.”

“No,” Elise spat. “I’m done talking to you, Jesse. Enough is enough. I knew this was a bad idea from the beginning. I should have trusted my instincts and had nothing to do with you. And I swear to god, if you take another step towards me, you’re going to regret it.”

“Elise, just slow down!” Jesse said, grabbing her by the arm despite her threat. “I know this looks bad, trust me I do, but you need to understand that I didn’t have anything to do with is this. I swear to you.”

Before Jesse could get out another word, Elise reached up to slap him across the face, but he moved and the rings on her knuckles made hard contact with his nose.

“FUCK, Elise!” Jesse kneeled over and covered his face with his hands, but a few drops of blood seeped its way through his fingers.

Isabella overheard the commotion and alerted Deanna, who proceeded to open the sliding glass door and yell for Elise to come get Isaiah.

“Sorry,” Jesse said, nodding at the few drops of blood that made it onto the carpet. Deanna tossed him a towel when she noticed it. “That’s some arm she’s got, huh?”

Deanna smirked and turned her back to him. “I don’t have any ice,” she noted. “But I could get you some frozen vegetables or something to help with the swelling.”

“That’s not necessary,” Jesse said. Deanna’s sympathetic behavior was a far cry from the way she’d been acting before, and quite frankly, it made him uneasy. “Thanks, but I should really get going.”

Jesse started for the door, pausing with his hand on the knob. “Deanna?” he said after a few seconds, turning to face her. “You know I didn’t do this, don’t you?”

“Jesse, please,” Deanna said, refusing to make eye contact with him. “I can’t have this conversation with you. All I know is that Elise was doing fine until you showed up, and now she has nothing. If you want to make this right, then you need to start by getting her job back.”

“I can fix this, but I can’t do that. I almost lost my job trying.”

“So what?” Deanna bit back. “It’s time for you to be a man and decide what’s most important here. If getting back into Elise’s good graces matters so much to you, then you wouldn’t care about losing your job in order to do it. Besides, aren’t you supposed to be the CEO? It’s high time you start acting like it.”

“Yeah, but the board can vote to have me replaced. My father put a clause in his will saying so. Even from the grave, the asshole found a way to control me. You don’t understand, Deanna. I can’t just walk away from Stone. I won’t be any good to Elise and Isaiah without a job.”

“Then I guess you have some thinking to do, now don’t you?” Deanna opened her front door, nodding for Jesse to leave. He tried to establish eye contact with her as he stepped outside, but she wouldn’t look at him. When he was finally gone, she closed the door behind him and turned to find Isabella looking at her disapprovingly. She took a step forward and pulled into a tight embrace, pressing a fleeting kiss against her cheek.

“What was that all about?” Isabella questioned.

“Oh nothing,” Deanna said, pulling away from her long enough to lock the door. “Just a lovers quarrel.”

Chapter Thirty

Elise walked straight into the management office of her apartment complex and explained her situation, giving the woman behind the desk a handwritten notice of her departure. She was nice enough, but they were firm in their policy, and Elise was informed that she would have to pay for the leftover two months in her lease as per her rental agreement.

This day just kept getting better and better.

Elise’s cell phone rang incessantly that night, and she knew who was calling without having to look. She proceeded to put it on vibrate and considered turning it off entirely, but she decided not to just in case someone from Stone called to inform her that this was all just one big joke on her behalf.

“Isaiah, mommy is exhausted today,” Elise announced, hoping he’d be cooperative. “So it’s going to be an early night okay? Dinner, then bath time, then bed.”

Isaiah whined at the notion of an earlier bedtime, but to Elise’s surprise, he didn’t put up that much of a fight. He could tell that his mother was distracted and that he wasn’t going to get much in the way of attention that night. After his bath, he managed to coax a story out of her before she finally called it quits and got up to leave his room, switching off the light on her way out.

“Mommy?”

“Yeah buddy?”

“How come Aunt Deanna’s friend said that Jesse is my daddy?”

Elise sighed. She’d been holding tight to the hope that Isaiah hadn’t caught wind of that little exchange, but with the way her day had unfolded, she wasn’t even the least bit surprised that he had. Still, she certainly didn’t want to tell Isaiah the truth now that he was likely to never see Jesse again.

Elise looked over at Isaiah and felt guilty for the lie lingering on the tip of her tongue. She could picture him asking the same question as a teenager, and she knew she wouldn’t be anymore ready to answer it then than she was now.

“Isaiah…it’s time for bed, okay?” Elise said, changing the subject. “We’ll talk more tomorrow.”

Elise proceeded to do her nightly check, making sure everything was off and locked. She noticed her cell phone buzzing on the kitchen table, alerting her to the fact that she had a new voicemail. Upon closer inspection, she was able to see that she had ten, all of which were from Jesse. She pressed play and rolled her eyes, allowing his deep voice to engulf her.

“Elise, It was Davis, okay? That asshole was telling Robert about his date with you…and he said some really derogatory things about you and Isaiah. I lost my temper and I confronted him. It just slipped out. I didn’t say anything to you about it because I was hoping—well I guess I was hoping it just wouldn’t come up again. I was going to say something that night we… that night I was over at your place, but I didn’t want to mess things up. Everything was going so well. Elise…I’m sorry, all right? Please let me make it right. I love…just let me help. Please.”

It continued that way for the next few messages, until Elise finally got tired of listening. She erased them all and retreated into her bedroom, collapsing in bed as she began to mull over her options. So far, she didn’t have that many, and the ones she did have weren’t all that desirable. She could take the job in Albany, but she didn’t have any idea how she would make it there, let alone find a place to stay and someone to watch Isaiah full-time. Her other option was to call her father and ask for money, but then she’d be forced to admit that he was right, and she knew her pride wouldn’t allow that.

Elise exhaled a deep sigh. Her options were slim, and she knew things would only get worse from here. As she turned on her side and laid her head on her pillow with the intention of sleeping, a rumpled up item on the ground caught her attention, and when she focused in on it, her eyes filled with tears.

It was Jesse’s discarded t-shirt.

Chapter Thirty-One

Jesse was more than a little on edge. Elise had yet to call him back, he’d threatened the trust of the board by failing to inform them about Isaiah, and he was about to move into a house that was far too big for one person. To add insult to injury, it also happened to be a Tuesday, and more than anything else, he was dying to see his son.

Jesse showed up at Elise’s apartment that evening after work, bumping heads with her just as she was walking out to her car.

“What are you doing here?” Elise questioned, setting down the box in her arms.

“It’s my night with Isaiah.”

“Are you kidding?” Elise laughed and shook her head. “What makes you think that would still be happening?”

“Elise, come on. You can’t use Isaiah to punish me.”

“Punishing you? Wrong again, Jesse. See, if you were even half the parent I was, you’d know that all I’m trying to do here is protect him from you. You’re a conduit for misery. You ruin lives like it’s nothing, and you always come out of it unscathed.”

Elise noticed the bruising along the edge of Jesse’s nose and smirked. He had it coming. Besides, she hadn't hurt him even half as badly as he’d hurt her.

Isaiah bounded towards the front of the apartment when he heard his mother talking to someone. When he saw Jesse, he let out a high-pitched cry of joy and jumped into his waiting arms.

Elise felt powerless as she watched them hug. Her problems had left her with very little attention to give to her son, and she knew that it would be wrong of her to deprive him of it from his father. Regardless of how she felt about Jesse, he was here, and she could certainly use a few hours to pack without Isaiah nagging her.

Isaiah tried to lead Jesse towards his room, but he remained still, glancing over at Elise for approval.

Elise changed her mind when she saw the hopeful expression on Jesse's face. The last thing she was going to do is give him what he wanted after all the damage he’d caused.

“Actually...Isaiah has to go to bed a little earlier tonight.”

“MOMMY!” Isaiah whined, slamming his foot against the ground and poking out his bottom lip. He looked up at Elise with his best puppy-dog eyes.

Elise looked over at Jesse skeptically, feeling more than a little irritated that she was in this position. “One hour,” she finally agreed, exhaling a deep sigh.

“YAY!” Isaiah exclaimed, pulling Jesse down the hall.

Jesse noticed right away that Isaiah’s room was almost completely empty. All of his toys were packed away in boxes. The only things left now were his furniture and a few of his favorite books.

Jesse was distracted as he interacted with Isaiah. He couldn’t stop thinking about whether or not Elise would take off without telling him. He definitely wasn’t anxious to revisit the tension of bringing up joint custody, but if she did this, he wouldn’t have any other choice.

When Isaiah heard Elise running his bath, he immediately began disrobing. Becoming immediately uncomfortable, Jesse guided him towards the bathroom where he would be in plain view of his mother.

“Isaiah, get in the bathtub,” Elise ordered, feeling too exhausted to address the fact that he’d broken her most coveted rule: no undressing in front of strangers.

Once Isaiah was in the tub, Elise walked back into the kitchen and Jesse turned to follow her.

“So you’re moving?”

“Oh please. It’s not like I really have any other choice, you know, now that I no longer have any way to keep paying my rent.”