Craving Dahlia

9. Dahlia

9

DAHLIA

I think Evelyn planned to put me in a car that would take me back to my apartment, and then go back into the house to defuse things between Dimitri and Alek. But she takes one look at my face as the car pulls up to the steps of the estate, shakes her head, and slides in after me.

“I’m not marrying him.” I press my lips together, glaring at the doors of the house as if at any minute, Dimitri is going to come out and demand once more that Alek and I agree to his insane suggestion. “He can’t make me.”

“No, he can’t.” Evelyn rubs my shoulder reassuringly. “It’s Alek he’s upset with, not you. And I know he thinks Alek should do the right thing. He forgot, in all of that, that your agency in this matters, too. Men like Dimitri…” she laughs. “They can be high-handed, sometimes. I stand up to Dimitri, and he likes it. But he’s not used to it from everyone.”

“You don’t think I should marry Alek, do you?”

To my shock, Evelyn hesitates. “Is your father still threatening to cut you off if you don’t marry this man that he’s trying to arrange a match with?”

I nod shakily, biting my lip. “Yes. And not just financially, but from my family entirely. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I was in the middle of talking to Jude at the party when…”

I swallow hard, my throat tightening, and Evelyn moves her hand between my shoulder blades, still rubbing soothingly.

“Do you want to marry him? Jude, I mean.”

I shoot her a confused look. “Do you really need to ask?”

“Before all of this, no. But you went home, and you said you’re conflicted. With everything that’s happening…yes, actually. I want to hear what your answer would be.”

It’s nearly automatic. I shake my head before the words are even fully out of her mouth. “No. I don’t. I can’t imagine marrying him. Even if I hadn’t gotten sick at the party, I could barely get through a single conversation with him. I can’t imagine spending the rest of my life like that.”

“And once you tell your father that, you’re going to be on your own.” The words drop heavily into the air between us. “Dahlia, you know I’ll help in any way I can. If I thought I could get Dimitri to move you into the mansion, I would…and before this, maybe I could have talked him into breaking convention and doing that. But now, Alek is staying there. And Dimitri isn’t going to just give up the idea that it’s best if the two of you get married.”

“You still haven’t answered my question.” I look out of the window, feeling my stomach sink. “You think I should marry him?”

“You’re absolutely sure it’s his? Best friend to best friend, there’s no doubt in your mind?”

I shake my head, feeling my eyes burning again. “I wish there was,” I whisper. “I wish there was anyone else it might be. But I’m sure. It can’t be anyone else.”

“Then maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing,” Evelyn says hesitantly. “These men—men like Dimitri—they’re good men. Rough around the edges, and brutal, and sometimes difficult, but good. Honorable . And if you marry him, he has to take care of you. You and the baby?—”

“He said he wanted nothing to do with it. He basically implied that there’s no way I wasn’t sleeping around enough that I could know for sure it was his.” I shake my head. “He’s not good . And I don’t even know if I’m keeping it. I don’t know if I want the baby.”

Evelyn nods. “Fair enough. And you know I’ll support you no matter what. I’m just saying…being a part of this family isn’t the worst thing in the world. And you’d be taken care of. Protected.”

I swallow hard, nodding as I squeeze her hand. I know she’s looking out for me. Trying to find a way to make all of this easier—trying to find a way to help me.

But now it’s more complicated than ever.

“If I do want to keep it…” I bite my lip, the words sounding foreign as I say them out loud. “Maybe my father will help me. Jude won’t want to marry me, if I’m having someone else’s baby. But maybe my father will be willing to forget about that and help me out, if he knows about it. My mother will want me to keep it, and he probably will too, just for his public image.” I swallow hard. “I’m not going to have a baby just for that reason, but if that’s what I decide I want…”

“It’s worth a try,” Evelyn says encouragingly. “He’ll find out anyway, one way or another. So maybe he will help, if that’s what you choose.”

“Then I wouldn’t need to rely on Alek. I don’t want to rely on him anyway,” I add, bitterness lacing my voice as the driver pulls onto the street that leads to my apartment. “I don’t ever want to see him again.”

“That might be hard, since he’s Dimitri’s brother,” Evelyn says hesitantly. “I don’t know how long he’s staying for. But I’ll try to make sure he’s not around, if you come over. Or I’ll just come over here, with you, if you need me.”

I nod, my stomach tightening at the idea of Alek staying. At the thought that I might not be able to visit Evelyn again without him being there, just around the corner, like a bad memory that won’t stop lingering.

“Do you want me to come up with you?” Evelyn asks as the car pulls up to my apartment building, and I shake my head.

“No. Thank you. But I think I’m just going to go up. I need some time to process…all of this.”

Evelyn nods. “Okay. I’m just a text or call away if you need me. Any time of the day or night, you know that.”

“I do.”

I give her a hug, sliding out of the car into the chilly air. With every step, dread seems to press down harder on my shoulders, weighing me down. The obvious answer should be to end the pregnancy, do my best to forget about Alek, and figure out what I’m going to do about my father’s ultimatum. But every time I think about it, I can’t help but feel that I’m not sure if that’s what I really want to do.

I’m in no position to have a child. I’m arguably in one of the worst positions—I have emotional support from my friends, but I have no idea what my finances will look like soon, and the father of my child is refusing to even consider that I’m telling the truth.

There should logically be no but after that sentence. That should be the end of it—the easiest decision of all to make. All the same, there is. And when I imagine the possibility of actually holding the baby that I’ll have if I go through with this…

Something softens in my chest as I walk up to the apartment building with that thought in my head. It’s easier to imagine than I would have ever thought. Am I crazy to think that even if I want nothing more to do with Alek, that I might want the baby?

And then I step into my building, and all of the memories from that night come crashing back in.

They’re all cast in an entirely different light, now. Up until today, when I remembered him pinning me against the wall in the entryway, or sliding down to his knees in front of me in the elevator, it was with a racing heart and a flush of heat, a pleasant, aching arousal always drifting through me as I remembered what I was sure would be the best sex I’d ever have, the most memorable night.

Now, it’s something else. A passionate night spent with a man who hoped he’d never see me again—something that felt erotic and daring at the time, but now makes me feel tender and faintly raw inside, like a wound I didn’t realize I had. Alek is someone else now—not just a dangerous man in search of a night’s pleasure that I happily gave him, but someone with something dark lurking just under the surface. Something that makes him lash out the way he did today.

Or maybe he’s just an asshole . I lean my head back against the mirrored wall of the elevator, trying not to think about his mouth between my legs, his hand pressed over my mouth. I still feel that prickle of desire, but it’s mingled with that heavy dread now, a sick feeling of having made a mistake settling into the pit of my stomach. I wanted that night to be something daring and wonderful, but instead it’s upended my life completely.

Once inside my apartment, I flip all of the locks on the door and drop onto the couch in my living room, staring out at the view from my window as I hesitantly take out my phone. As expected, the moment I power it on, there’s a flurry of calls and texts from my mother. My phone buzzes as they come in for what feels like a near-endless amount of time, until it finally falls silent and I grit my teeth as I go to look at the messages.

None of it is surprising. She’s upset with me for leaving the party, which I assumed, and tells me that my father doesn’t believe I was really ill. She says she came upstairs to check on me and saw that I was already asleep, which makes me feel momentarily touched, but the messages that follow quickly make that feeling vanish.

She’s furious that I went back to New York and didn’t even wait to tell them in person, and apparently my father is, too. I let out a heavy sigh, closing my eyes as I drop the phone onto the couch next to me and bend forward, pressing my forehead against my knees. A wave of nausea washes over me, and I wait for it to pass before I slowly sit up again.

I look at the last few messages. She wants me to come back before the weekend is over, to talk to my father and not leave things the way they are right now. Technically, there’s no way I could get to D.C. and back again without missing at least one day of work right now, but I have plenty of sick days saved up. And if there was ever a time to use them, it might be now.

Even if I decide not to keep the baby, maybe going back and telling my parents about this might fix all of it, I rationalize. I know I’m grasping at straws, but I’m desperate for some solution that doesn’t involve Alek, and doesn’t involve me completely on my own, or married to a man I can’t stand—which now could mean one of two men. That all on its own feels insane.

If I go back and tell my father I’m pregnant and I’m not keeping the baby, I still think that Jude might not want to marry me any longer. The scandal of my father’s unwed daughter getting pregnant and not keeping the baby might mar Jude’s future political career if he married me. And if I do keep the baby, I can’t imagine Jude wanting me, either. But with that marriage off the table, maybe my father won’t feel inclined to force me back to D.C. any longer. Maybe things can go back to normal.

It’s the smallest fragment of hope, but it is a fragment. I cling to it with everything I have, because I need something right now. I need to feel like not everything is lost.

Quickly, I type out a message to my mother.

Dahlia: I’m sorry about all of this. I freaked out, and I wanted to see my own doctor here. What if I fly back tomorrow? I want to talk to you both. We’ll figure all of this out.

Several seconds pass before my phone chimes again, and I see my mother pop up.

Mom: Okay. I’ll try to keep your father mollified until then. Send me your flight info once you get the ticket. Xoxo.

I bite my lip, reading the message over again. The message seems fine, but I can hear it in my mother’s prim voice, the one she used with me before the party last night. I can only imagine the storm I’ll be walking into when I go home, one that will only be made worse by the news that I have to drop on them. But right now, it’s the best solution I can think of.

Even though once again, I still have no idea what I’m going to do.

—

My parents are already waiting in the living room for me as soon as I walk into the house. I can hear their voices down the hall, and I draw in a long, slow breath, trying to steady myself for the conversation that’s about to happen. I’m going to just have to come out with it before very long…my father isn’t going to sit around and wait for me to give him an answer any longer. Not after the debacle at the party.

My mother is sitting in the same place on the couch as last time, holding a cup of what looks like tea. My father is pacing, and I catch the end of his last sentence just as I walk in the door.

“...she knows what behavior like that could do. If rumors start…”

He stops at the sound of my footsteps, turning abruptly as his expression shutters. “Dahlia,” he says coolly. “I hope you’re back to explain, and give me the answer I’ve been waiting for.”

“What do you mean, rumors? Because I left a party?” I swallow hard, crossing my arms over my chest.

“She said she was sick, dear,” my mother cuts in. “And you look it too,” she adds, glancing back at me. “Dark circles, pale…what did your doctor say?”

“Thanks,” I mutter under my breath. “I ran to the bathroom rather than throwing up on Jude mid-conversation,” I tell my father, frowning. “I was trying not to cause a scene.”

“All the same, you running to the bathroom and then leaving the party abruptly could cause all kinds of rumors. Like, for instance, that you’re pregnant, and that we’re trying to get you married quickly to cover it up. Of course, that’s not true, but?—”

My heart thuds in my chest. I had planned to go about this as carefully as possible, to find some way to lead into it, to soften the blow. But much like Evelyn blurted out my secret to Alek out of anger, I end up blurting it out from shock that he’s hit the mark so closely.

“I am.” I tighten my arms around myself, my fingers digging into my biceps. “Pregnant. That’s why I was sick. I just found out yesterday.”

For a brief moment, it’s so completely silent I could hear a pin drop. My mother’s face has gone sheet-white, and my father is staring at me as if he’s never seen me before.

“Dahlia Elizabeth Kennedy,” he growls, in a voice that I haven’t heard since I was five and knocked over an antique vase in the hallway. “This isn’t funny. Whatever game you’re playing, I’m done with these childish antics…”

“It’s not a game.” I swallow hard. “I’m pregnant. And I haven’t decided what I’m going to do about it yet, but I assume that means marriage to Jude is off the table…”

“You cannot be serious.” The blood drains from my father’s face, until he’s nearly as pale as my mother. “Everything I’ve done for you, all of the work I’ve put in to arrange your life comfortably, and you go and…” He breaks off, shaking his head. “Who is it?”

“No one you know.” I press my lips together. “He wants nothing to do with it.”

“You don’t know his name?” Each word is sharp as a knife, edged with disbelief.

“He’s not important.” There’s no way in hell that I’m telling my father that I got knocked up by the New York Bratva pakhan ’s brother.

“Dahlia, surely you can’t think…” My mother starts to speak, but she’s instantly silenced by my father holding up a hand, his mouth set in a thin line as he looks at me.

“This is what’s going to happen.” He enunciates each word clearly, his voice hard and completely emotionless. “We will have this…taken care of, by a doctor that we can trust to be discreet. You will not say a word about it. I will see what I can do to ensure that Jude will still marry you, and the scandal will be kept?—”

“I haven’t decided yet if I want to keep the baby or not.”

My mother’s small gasp is the only sound in the room for a moment. A vein throbs in my father’s forehead, and I can see that he’s very close to losing his patience with me. And yet…

Some part of me that I’ve never known was there before doesn’t care. This is the second time in two days I’ve stood in a living room that wasn’t mine, with a man telling me what I’m going to do with my life and the baby that I haven’t yet decided if I want or not. And out of sheer rebellion, if nothing else, I hold my ground.

It will be difficult to do this all on my own, if that’s what it comes to. All but impossible, even. But in this moment, I realize that I’d rather do that than have someone telling me how to live my life. I’d rather struggle than have golden handcuffs on, forced to fall in line to keep my father from cutting me off. I never believed or imagined that he would do this, but maybe it’s time I found out.

“You cannot be serious,” my father repeats, and my jaw clenches.

“I haven’t decided.” I tip my chin up, looking directly at him with a bravado that I don’t really feel. “But that’s a decision I’m going to make.”

“Let me be very clear.” That vein is still throbbing angrily in his forehead. “If you do not accept what I’m offering you, Dahlia…if you insist on rebelling and doing things your way , then everything that I told you in regards to what would happen if you refused to marry Jude will still happen. You will be cut off, not just financially, but from this family. You will be completely on your own. And now you won’t just be on your own, you will have a child to care for. For God’s sake, Dahlia, think?—”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” my mother cuts in. “She’s not really considering…”

“I am.” I swallow hard. “And I’m also done with this. I’m not marrying Jude. I’m going home. And I’m keeping this baby.”

The last is flung out in a rush of emotion, words that I’m not entirely sure that I mean. But I do mean the first part of it. I won’t be shuttled off to a doctor’s office, all of this swept under the rug and Jude bribed to marry me. I won’t be anyone’s dirty little secret, and I’m done with being told what I will, or won’t do.

I turn on my heel and stalk out of the living room, ignoring my mother’s voice as she calls after me and the roaring sound of my father shouting my name for the first time in his life.

My hands are shaking as I rush outside, walking as fast as I can in the spring chill, frantically looking for an Uber. It takes me ten minutes to get one, and I’m halfway to the airport before I realize that I left my overnight bag with several of my things, including one of my favorite pairs of jeans and half of my toiletries, at my parents’ house.

I won’t be able to afford to replace any of those, but I’m not going back now. I won’t ever be going back there again, probably.

That thought hits me like a blow. Before I can stop myself, I burst into tears—big, hiccuping sobs that have the Uber driver looking back at me in the rear view mirror with alarm. I fumble in my purse for a tissue, but it can’t keep up with the flow of tears. I’ve gone through an entire pack by the time the Uber reaches the airport.

This time, I don’t call Evelyn when I get back. I don’t have the energy to explain how it all went right now, and for the first time that I can remember, I just want to be alone. I’ve always been a social butterfly, always loved having a circle of close friends, and always wanted them close and to be close to them when things were hard. But all I want right now is the silence of my apartment.

It’s not until I try to get a coffee on the way out of the airport, before getting a ride home, that the situation hits me yet again.

Without thinking about it, I go to swipe my debit card. Not even the credit card that my father pays for—the debit card that goes to one of my two bank accounts, one of which is mine alone, and one of which is joint with my father.

The card is declined.

Heat washes over my face, and my stomach flips. I swallow hard, giving the cashier a tight smile. “Sorry, I grabbed the wrong card,” I tell her quickly, reaching into my wallet for my personal card. It works fine, and I grab the coffee, hurrying out to where my Uber should be waiting. That, too, declines, and I have to quickly switch the account to my other card, shivering in the chilly air as I wait for a second Uber.

Once I’m in the car, I pull up my accounts. My stomach sinks again, a fresh wave of nausea washing over me as I see that the joint account is frozen. I’d expected my credit card to be immediately cut off—I hadn’t even tried to use it after I left my parents’ house, and I’d believed my father when he said there would be no more deposits to the joint account. But he hadn’t said anything about freezing it.

There’s fifteen thousand dollars in that account. Money that I’d planned to transfer and keep as savings in case of an emergency, while I got a less expensive apartment and figured out what my next steps were… especially if I’m going to keep the baby.

Panic washes over me, making my hands shake as I check my own personal account. There’s less than two hundred dollars in it, and I don’t get paid until this coming Friday.

Shit. I drop my phone into my lap, fighting back tears as I remember that my rent was due today. I’d planned to pay it before I left, but I’d been in a rush to get to the airport.

Which means now, for the first time in my life, I don’t have the money.

My eyes start to well up with tears again, shame mingling with the panic. I should have remembered to pay it. I should have been better with money. I shouldn’t have relied on my father, and been spoiled enough to think that this could never happen…

Every thought is full of recriminations, and I feel like an idiot. Like a naive, spoiled girl who thought that her safety net would always be there. But even though my father was always stern, even though I never knew if I was doing well enough to earn his praise, I never thought this would happen. I thought I was safe in my parents’ love for me, and that they would never try to force me to do something that would make me unhappy.

I never thought my father would give me an ultimatum like this.

I don’t know what I’m going to do. Tears are still streaking my face as the Uber drops me off, and I head up to my apartment. I look around, my chest tightening and a fresh sob spilling out as it hits me that this apartment that I love so much, my first place of my own out of college that I chose and decorated and made my own, won’t be my apartment much longer. That no matter what, I’m going to have to move.

I sink down onto my couch, trying to breathe, to stop crying. I run through solution after solution in my head, but I can’t come up with anything. I know if I asked Dimitri, he would force Alek to help, but I don’t want that. I don’t want anyone to be forced to help me.

The sun is starting to dip below the horizon, flooding the city skyline with a palette of vibrant colors, when I hear a knock at the door. I wasn’t expecting anyone, and I frown, waiting for a moment to see if it’s a mistake and they’ll move on, when the knock comes again, harder this time.

“Who is it?” I yell thickly, getting up to walk towards the door. Whoever it is, I’m prepared to tell them to go away…until I hear a familiar voice from the other side.

“It’s Alek.”