Page 63 of The Virgin's Baby
Rolling off me, he yelled, “What the hell, Aspen?” He jumped off the bed, towering over me. “Are you crazy?”
And now he’s gone and called me crazy!
“Am I crazy?” I yanked the blanket up to cover my body; I had never felt so exposed before. “You took my virginity with this purpose behind it.”
“I think anyone who takes a person’s virginity does have a purpose behind it.” He picked his underwear up off the floor and put them back on. “But if you think the purpose was to get you to say yes to my second proposal of marriage, then the answer is no, I didn’t make love to you just to get you to say yes to me.”
“Why’d you do it then?” I asked as I pulled the blanket even tighter around me. Him being covered with his undies left me feeling vulnerable being naked with but a blanket.
“I wanted to!” There his arms went, flying back up into the air again as he looked exasperated with me. “You knew that I wanted you. You knew that I was holding back. And you even knew why I was doing that. So, I didn’t want to hold back anymore. I know who my future lies with now. There are just no more reasons to keep holding back.”
Somewhere in my head, I understood him. But the thing foremost on my mind was that it was grandfather who decided we should be married, not him.
“Tell me, Ransom, do you ever make your own decisions? Will your grandfather make all the important ones for you for the rest of his life? He’s made you have children. And now he’s making you marry a woman that you don’t even love.”
The way he stood there, staring at the floor told me more than any words could. He was weak, shallow, and not the type of man I thought of when I thought of a husband and father.
And the longer that he stood there, saying nothing, the easier it got to make a decision. “For the life of me, I can’t understand why I love you, but I do. And it’s because of that love that I have for you that I’m doing this. I will not marry you. I will never marry a man who lets another rule his entire life. The fact that you’ve taken my virginity and asked me to marry you again, but never told me that you love me, makes me feel sick inside.”
As much as I wanted to put all the blame on Ransom, I had to own my part. I’d agreed to what he wanted. I’d put my life on hold to have his babies. And I’d done that for money too.
Dropping my face into my hands, I cried. And when I looked up again, he was gone.
My bedroom door was closed, and I hadn’t even heard him leave. What’s more, he’d never said a word to me.
I knew of only one thing to do. Get my butt out of that house.
An hour later, I pulled up in front of my old apartment, glad that I’d kept paying my part of the bills to keep my bed open. Shuffling into the small apartment, I looked around as everyone else was at work.
There’s not even room to have my babies in this place.
I had so much to think about. So many actions to take. And so much heartache to try to get over.
With all of Ransom’s faults, the underlying emotion I felt was love. Love for him. Love for our babies. Love for his misguided, sometimes too controlling grandfather.
But I had to love myself too. I couldn’t let these crazy men rule me.
What would life be if Ransom and I jumped each time his grandfather snapped his old fingers?
That man needed to learn his place. And he needed to stop holding his vast fortune over people’s heads. He’d even held it over our unborn babies’ heads for Pete’s sake.
Since Ransom had never discussed his finances with me, I had no idea if that man had any money of his own. But I knew that once I had the babies and six weeks had gone by, I would start sending out my resume and gain employment somewhere using my degree.
I still had around forty-seven thousand in the bank. I could get anywhere I needed to with that along with the car that Ransom cleverly put under my name. His grandfather couldn’t touch my bank account or my car. Ransom and I could do this thing on our own. We didn’t have to have his grandfather’s money.
And then I recalled a small conversation Ransom and I had about him having the same degree as me. So, he could get a job too. We would do what normal people did. Put the kids in daycare while we worked to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table.
He acted like you had to have billions of dollars to live. I knew you didn’t have to have that much money to make it in life.
But would Ransom ever stand up to his grandfather?
That was the real question.
Would he ever tell the man, in no uncertain terms, that he would marry who he wanted to when he wanted to and not a minute sooner?
Margo came in just as I sat on the sofa. “What has you visiting us unannounced, Aspen?”
My mouth opened and out came nothing but sob after sob, and Margo rushed to hug me. “I left Ransom!”
