Chapter 12 Beatrice
BEATRICE
“Ithink I’ve found the answer to your problem,” Sienna states as I join her in the staff room after saying goodbye to my final client of the night.
My feet are throbbing, and my stomach is growling, desperate for food.
As I fall back into the couch, my feet instantly lift onto the coffee table to give them some relief.
Sienna watches me closely, but she’s been doing so all day.
I’ve known she’s needed to say something; I could see it burning in her eyes, but we’ve been too busy, and the others have been in earshot.
Now, though, she has my sole attention.
“Shoot,” I say on a yawn.
She lights up at my interest and rushes over.
“So, I’ve been doing some digging, and I think I’ve found someone who might be willing to connect you with Rett.”
My heart lurches.
My ultrasound is next week; time is running out.
I’ve done plenty of my own research. Along with finding Everett’s teammates and family members, I’ve also discovered his agent.
There’s an email sitting in my draft box just waiting to be sent. But every time I go to do it, something stops me.
I don’t want to tell his agent or even his family before I tell him. It’s just wrong. But I’m at the point that I’m going to have no other option.
“Okay,” I breathe, a little scared about what she’s found.
“Here,” she says, passing her cell over. “Do you recognize her?”
My eyes scan the profile on the screen, my brows pinching as I try to figure out who she is.
Hailee Caldwell.
PR Director for the LA Vipers.
Hailee Caldwell…
It doesn’t ring a bell. Sure, she could have been a client at some point, but it’s not like I remember everyone I’ve treated over the years.
“No, I don’t know who this is.”
“What if I told you that for a short period of time, she went by the name of Hailee Jefferson?”
My heart thumps at the surname.
“Jefferson?” I question. “As in…the Jeffersons?”
“The one and only.”
“Okay,” I muse, nodding my head as all the pieces begin to fall into place.
“From what I can tell, she married Brendan Jefferson.” I continue nodding.
Brendan was one of my oldest brother’s closest friends growing up.
Hell, all the Walshes and the Jeffersons are best friends.
No one gets a choice. Each family on its own is powerful, but together, they’re unstoppable.
It’s exactly how they manage to get whatever the hell they want.
“But after a short marriage, she filed for divorce.”
“Divorce?” I all but shriek. Divorce isn’t a term in the Walsh or Jefferson dictionary. Just like the words “lost” and “failure.”
“Yep. There’s a whole heap of scandal around it, too. But considering her high-profile job in PR, I’m assuming that scandal barely scratches the surface of what really went down.”
“Yeah, shit,” I muse, lost in thoughts of how awful it would be to still be a part of all that, let alone marry into it.
“Caldwell,” I mutter to myself, trying to remember if I’ve heard that name before.
If their daughter married into the Jeffersons, then they must be of a certain social standing in LA.
The Jeffersons don’t allow their sons to marry just anyone.
“Her entire family is in PR, by the looks of it. She started out working for the family firm, but she left about the same time as she filed for divorce.”
“Interesting.”
“I bet she’d talk to you. She’d listen to you. She’d understand you.”
It’s still a stretch.
“It’s got to be worth a try,” Sienna says when nothing but silence fills the air. “She’ll know you’re not a bunny. She’ll take this seriously.”
Would she?
Or would she take one look at my surname, my family connections, and send me on my way?
She might believe I’m not a bunny, but I’m not sure that means she’ll have any time for me.
I let out a heavy sigh.
“You’re running out of time if you want him to know before—”
“I know, Si. I know.” My head drops back, and I close my eyes.
All of this is becoming a little too real.
Sienna’s gaze burns into the side of my face as I let all this new information roll around my head.
“Do you know what I want?” I finally say, dragging my head up. “Pizza. I want pizza and dough balls, and ice cream.”
“Then we’re going for pizza, dough balls, and ice cream,” Sienna says, hopping to her feet enthusiastically.
I, however, move a little slower, showing just how much energy this pregnancy is stealing from me already.
I can only imagine how bad it’ll be by the time I’m also carrying around a watermelon in front of me.
We make quick work of closing the salon down for the night before we walk down the street to one of our favorite pizza places.
The second the scent of garlic and melted cheese hits my nose, my mouth waters, and my stomach growls louder.
Thankfully, the conversation turns to work, and we spend a good hour planning and coming up with ideas. Still, eventually, it inevitably turns back to me and my situation when Sienna asks if I’ve put any thought into my maternity leave.
I don’t want to think about it yet, let alone start putting a date to it or consider finding someone to cover my clients.
I don’t want to be away from my salon. It’s my life.
All too soon, someone else is going to take over my number one spot.
But while I might not be ready for this next chapter in my life, I don’t have a lot of choice.
I just have to hope that as the months go on, things will naturally fall into place.
That's what they say about motherhood, isn’t it?
That once the time comes, you just know what to do as if you were made to do it.
Well, right now, I’m relying on that being the case, because I have no idea.
“I really think you should reach out to Hailee. She’s your best shot,” Sienna encourages.
She’s right. I know she is.
But it means using my family connections to get ahead. Bitterness swirls inside me. I have plenty of relations who have no issues flaunting their name to get whatever they want, but I’m not one of them.
I don’t want to be a Walsh.
I just want to be Bea. An independent woman who can look after herself and doesn’t rely on her family’s money to survive.
I mean, sure, I may have used some of that money to start my business. I hate that I did, but if I wanted to live out my dream, then I needed to. Without it, I’d be working in someone else’s salon, dreaming of what could be.
But I refuse to use a penny more. It would have come in useful recently, but there was no way in hell I was going to ask for a handout. I made my position very clear when I walked away, and I am far too stubborn—proud—to go back on that.
There’s only one pot of money that I might do something with one day. But there are conditions around me getting my hands on that, and I can’t see them happening anytime soon, so I’m better off forgetting that I have a trust fund from my grandparents sitting somewhere with my name on it.
“I’ll think about it,” I mutter before stuffing my mouth with pizza.
I’m full. My stomach bloated with the volume of carbs I’ve devoured since sitting down, but I still want more regardless.
“Bea.” Sienna sighs sympathetically. “What else are you going to do? Your ultrasound is next week.”
I love her. I really do. But I also really want to slam her head in what’s left of my pizza for bringing this up again.
I know.
I know the date is looming, and…and I want to bury my head in the sand and ignore it.
“I’ll think about it,” I promise
It takes three days for me to accept that reaching out to Hailee is my only option.
In all honesty, I’ve probably already left it too late. It’s taken me weeks to get my head around the idea of having a woman press a wand to my belly to reveal a baby growing inside me. He’s only going to have days to come to terms with this, and that’s only if this works.
“What’s the worst that could happen?” I mutter to myself as I hit send on my message to Hailee.
I’ve got her email address as well, but I figured I’d reach out personally first.
Just like my messages to Everett, it shows as delivered, but as two more days pass, it’s never read.
Sienna nags me multiple times a day to try again, to email, to pick up the phone. Hell, she even offers to drive me to the arena and hold my hand as we demand to see her.
I refuse, obviously. But now, I’m starting to wonder if I should have let her.
Tonight is the night of the Stanley Cup Final. Somehow, Sienna managed to score us tickets. Don’t ask me how she managed that; I think I’d rather not know, to be honest. But she did it, and she point-blank refused to give her spare ticket to one of the others.
She told me that tonight was the night, and I fear she’s not talking about the Vipers winning the cup.
I’m a nervous wreck as I get ready. My stomach is a riot of emotions, and I keep having to stop and breathe for fear I’m going to vomit. Sienna says she has a plan, and I don’t know whether I should be relieved or terrified because of it.
I leave my apartment earlier than necessary. There are only so many times I can pace back and forth through my boxed-up living area before I go stir crazy.
My ultrasound isn’t the only deadline that’s approaching.
I’m also about to be homeless.
I keep looking for a place, but I can barely afford a cardboard box right now. I get too depressed every time I look, and I find myself giving up before I’ve even started. But the clock is ticking, and if I don’t do something soon, I’ll be sleeping on the couch in the salon.
I meet Sienna at a sandwich place. I told her I didn’t want to go for a meal, but she demanded I eat something.
I can’t, though. Even the scent of the food makes me nauseous, so we end up getting sandwiches to go, and with time to kill, we walk to the arena in the hope that the fresh air helps settle me.
By the time it comes into view ahead, I feel sicker than ever.
It’s still early, so there aren’t many people loitering around.
“This way,” Sienna says, hooking her arm through mine and leading me toward an entrance that isn’t the one we need for our seats.
Fear stops me from questioning her, though, and instead, I follow silently as she approaches the main entrance.
Despite everything surrounding me, I keep my eyes locked on the floor.
“I’m sorry,” Sienna says when she slows to a stop beside me. “But…one of us had to do something.”
I look up at her, taking in her apologetic expression before she glances at a man sitting behind the customer service desk.
“Hi, we have a meeting with Hailee Caldwell,” Sienna says confidently.
The guy nods before tapping a few buttons on a control panel and speaking into his headset.
“She’ll be right down,” he informs us.
Sienna drags me away so we have some privacy.
“I can’t do this, Si.”
She takes both of my hands in hers.
“You absolutely can do this. You are Beatrice Walsh. You can do anything,” she assures me.
“Does she know why I’m here?”
“No, I didn’t think—”
“Hi, I’m looking for Beatrice Walsh,” a soft female voice says, interrupting Sienna.
We both turn around to find a tiny woman with dark curly hair staring back at us with a smile.
“H-Hi,” I stutter, reaching my hand out to greet her. “That’s me.”
She studies me closely but doesn’t say anything.
“Great. Shall we?” she asks, gesturing toward a door behind her.
But as I move, Sienna doesn’t. I glance back as fear rips through me, but despite my silent pleading, she doesn’t take a step.
‘Good luck,’ she mouths. ‘Call me.’
And with that, my fate is sealed.
I’ve already danced with the devil. Now it’s time to face the consequences.