Page 56 of Baby for My Billionaire Rival

Though her face is still sticky with tears, Caroline laughs darkly. “Wow, great, she’s already telling everyone my business.”

“No, no, she asked me to come after you. To stop you.” My grip softens on her arm. I close the space between us by just a step. “Listen, Caroline, you don’t have to run. I know what happened between us –” I hate that.Past tense. I don’t want Caroline to be past tense. “I was hurt. And I haven’t been kind. You can’t leave because of me. You can’t.”

Caroline shakes her head. “You shouldn’t think so highly of yourself. That you’re so great I can’t even be around you.”

Ouch. I deserved that.

“I just have something to sort out in my personal life. Okay? It’s no one’s business but…” she trails off. She’s not telling the whole truth. I know it. I know her. Not just the few months we dated, but the months before that. I know her as my enemy andthen my friend and then my lover. I can read her because I chose to memorize the book of Caroline. It’s the only thing I ever want to read. “Please let me go,” she says.

“I can’t.”

“Jake,” she begs, her eyes welling with tears again.

I grab her other arm, her biceps now cradled in both my hands. “I can’t let you go, Caroline. Not after I’ve been so stupid.”

Adamantly, she shakes her head. “It’s not about –”

“It wasn’t fair of me to judge you and your family. I was hurt and I couldn’t take the time to understand.” I take one of her hands and press it to my chest. “I only care if you want me. If you want to be with me, Caroline. Fuck what Gram says and fuck what –”

“Jake!”

The urgency in her voice finally shuts me up.

Amber brown eyes cross my face, darting back and forth, searching for some sort of answer. “Jake, I’m pregnant.”

My grip on her loosens. Then the information reaches my brain. “Pregnant…?” I repeat as if I was raised in the jungle and never learned to speak properly.

Caroline slides her hand out from under mine. I’m too slow to grip it harder.

“How long have you known?” I ask, cotton-mouthed.

She purses her lips. “A few days.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You didn’t want anything to do with me,” she says, voice small and tight in her mouth. “You told Greg Pollard nothing had happened between us and sicked him on me like a lame dog. Why would I tell you anything?”

I swallow. My heart throbs in my chest, threatening to break my ribs.

“I was going to tell you eventually. I just wanted to make a decision first.”

Pins prick my skin. “Do you know what you… what you want?”

Caroline shakes her head.

“Because I –” It doesn’t matter what I want. It’s her body. Her life. It’s not my place to demand anything of her, especially after how I’ve treated her. That’s not how a man should treat the mother of his child. However, seeing Caroline in this light affirms for me further how much I adore her. How I want to keep and protect her. To love her. “I would be so happy to have a baby with you,” I say.

Caroline’s eyes widen. “Oh.”

I can tell people are staring as they walk past us. There is a moment playing out right here in the middle of the quad. I couldn’t give less of a shit, though.

“My family would be disappointed in me,” she says, her eyes falling to the ground.

Gram. I hate how she rules with an iron fist, controlling all her family from inside their own head.

“They’ll be disappointed to know that I can’t follow my dreams because I…”

Of course, it’s still not the most honorable thing, a child out of wedlock. “I’ll marry you. If that fixes anything.”

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