“And speaking of parents,” Kimberly continued, “how is your mother taking all this?”
“Badly. She’s counting on me to model. But I don’t really want to anymore, and yeah, I’ll stick with it as long as I can. I don’t know what else to do.”
“I might have an idea for you. It’s not much right at the moment, but it could turn into something down the road.”
Sammi found herself intrigued. She could always count on Kimberly to offer great advice. She approached everything with a cool head and pragmatic attitude. Any suggestions she might have for Sammi’s future would be worth listening to.
“I’m all ears.”
“Brody is working with this company that is offering online tutorials and advice. They contract with experts to record lessons or workshops that they will then sell online.”
“What sort of things are they interested in?”
Kimberly shrugged. “It’s pretty open. They are reaching out to artists, models, actresses, musicians, stylists. Brody wants me to do a series on runway walking. I already suggested that you would be perfect for posing. You are brilliant at both editorial and commercial. You could explain the differences of each.” Kimberly cocked her head. “And I’ll bet you could do a whole series on your life as a child model. Or what it’s like to model overseas.”
“That sounds interesting,” Sammi said, but even as the idea captured her imagination, she wondered if she had all that much to offer.
“So can I tell him you’re in?”
“Sure.” Nothing ventured, nothing gained. If that was true, wouldn’t the same concept apply to her relationship with Oliver? “Why not.”
Six
There it was. Proof definitive that he was a father. The stark reality shut down Oliver’s brain and sent a tornado ripping through his awareness. He didn’t know which emotion to settle on. Panic seemed a good choice, but he pushed it down. It came as no surprise to Oliver that after all his criticism of his father, all the blame he’d heaped on Vernon’s head, every bout of self-righteous rage, when faced with actually proving his claim that he would be a better parent, Oliver was terrified that he’d fail.
Yet he was also excited that a child would be part of his life from now on. And that he would be forever connected to Sammi. Even if the sexual relationship he still wanted to pursue with her eventually fizzled out, he was confident they could remain civil for the sake of their child. After all, no matter how much damage Vernon’s wandering eye had caused his wife, they’d stayed married to keep the family together.
Surely he and Sammi could make something similar work. He was already preoccupied with her welfare and liked the idea that she would become a staple in his life. Even before he’d learned that she was pregnant, his determination to find her spoke to how strongly she affected him. His pursuit had been about more than a night of great sex. From the first moment he saw her, she’d captured his interest, and that feeling had only increased during the hours they’d spent together.
And now that he knew the baby was his, he welcomed that she was a permanent fixture in his life. The nature of their relationship might not be crystal clear, but when he contemplated that she might disappear again, he began thinking of ways to bind her to him, her and the baby. The three of them would become a unit. With Sammi and their baby he would achieve the belonging he’d never known as the extra son, the unwelcome third wheel of twins Jacob and Joshua, Vernon Lowell’s spare heir, or even his mother’s third born.
But what if that wasn’t how things played out? What if he let himself need Sammi and she had different ideas about how their relationship should go? It made perfect sense that they would agree to co-parent and coordinate to raise their child together. But she’d already insisted she was ready to raise the baby on her own. Would she resist his vision for them? She’d been raised by a single mother and had her own notion of family. And given the trouble brewing for the Lowell family, would she even want to connect herself and her child with them?
Anger flared as Oliver contemplated how the scandal surrounding Vernon’s reappearance was poised to disrupt his life once more. Why couldn’t his father have just stayed gone? Instead, the past was going to be dredged up again as if the last fifteen years hadn’t happened. Oliver had worked hard to overcome not only his family’s ruined reputation after the embezzlement scandal that rocked Black Crescent Hedge Fund but also his own bad behavior in the wake of his father’s villainy. The trial would revisit all the evil Vernon had done and keep Oliver and everyone close to him in the news. Sammi and their baby included.
Yet when his doorbell rang and he opened the door to see her standing in the hall, all worry vanished. Sammi squeaked in surprise as he swept her off her feet. His heart bumped as she wrapped her arms around his neck, her soft breath puffing across his cheek.
“Oliver,” she protested, soft laughter in her voice. “What are you doing?”
“Carrying the mother of my child anywhere she wants to go,” he replied.
“I take it the results appeared on the testing service portal?”
“Yes.”
With caution in her eyes, she scrutinized his expression as he carried her into his apartment. “So you’re okay?”
Her words struck him square in the diaphragm. His breath hitched. Had he really treated her with such skepticism? Maybe in the beginning he doubted her, but the second she agreed to a paternity test, he should’ve known that she couldn’t possibly be lying.
“I think I started to believe you when you researched the in vitro
