A Family For The Ceo

1.

February.

My fiancée had miscarried our child.

I have never liked to find out about things people do behind my back, let alone the betrayal of a woman I thought I loved completely. I was on the balcony, smoking a cigarette when my fiancée came in with one of the dresses I had given her and heels in her hands.

“Where have you been?” I ask Clark, exhaling the smoke, avoiding looking at her because I know she's going to see that I'm annoyed with her and I'm not interested in that right now.

Clark seems happy and excited.

“I was on a photo shoot, I did quite well, I was one of the most beautiful models there.”

“I don't doubt it. “

“Of course you shouldn't doubt it, I'm beautiful and I know that's why you chose me," he says approaching me and running his hands all over my body, when he sees my cold and distant eyes he realises that something is wrong with me. Is there a problem, love?”

“Have you been hiding something from me?”

“No. Why do you say that?” she asks nervously.

“Tell me the truth.”

“I didn't lie to you, Newman.”

“Of course you have," I say with a wry smile. “You've been lying to my fucking face all this time and you've got the balls to come in here and deny it.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

She breaks away from me, distressed and surprised by the tone of voice I have used and the accusation I have made, I know she doesn't know what I am talking about and that she must be imagining something else because that is something she has taken care to hide very well.

“You aborted the baby you would have with me.”

“I've never been pregnant, I don't know what you're talking about or why you think I had a baby in my belly, but I think you're completely wrong.”

“I know you were pregnant because I hired a private investigator to follow you, Clark.”

“This is unbelievable," she snorts, "You sent me to investigate just because you had to, that's not fair Newman, you didn't respect my privacy.”

“Do you have any idea why I did it?" I ask, grabbing her by the arm, dragging her to the edge of the balcony and making her look down to the ground. “Do you see that? We're too high up, high enough for one of us to die if we fall off.”

She looks frightened by my words, but I don't care, she has lied to me and caused my heir to die. That son was the one who would carry on my name and run all the Newman companies.

“You're crazy, let go of me.”

“I'll let you go if you tell me why you did it.”

“That baby wasn't supposed to be born, I tried not to let you know," I sobbed. “I didn't want you to know. Why the fuck did you have to send me to investigate?”

“All you had to do was tell me you were pregnant, ask me what you wanted to do, or at least tell me that the baby would never be born.”

“I don't...”

“What did you have against our son?” I yell at her and she widens her eyes, I let go because I don't want to make a mistake and I sigh trying to calm down, but I don't succeed.

I am very upset with her.

I had talked to Clark about the children I wanted to have and the things I would like to do if I had a successor. I told him about my plans, everything I had been thinking about and the things I dreamed of doing when I had my first child. Clark always told me that she would love to have a child with me, so why did she abort it?

“You don't understand why I did it.”

“I want you to tell me, to be honest with me.”

“That baby wasn't yours, Newman," she says in despair. “I got pregnant because I slept with a Puerto Rican who came to town months ago.”

What the hell is he saying? At what point did that happen?

“You tricked me...”

“Newman, I'm sorry... I'm so sorry you found out that way.”

“I thought you only aborted the child because you didn't feel ready to be a mother and start a family, I might have understood that answer and accepted it because I know how difficult and responsible it is to have a child. I would have understood that, but this... Clark I wanted to marry you.”

She looked at me with her cheeks wet with tears.

“I'm not ready for commitment, I'm terrified of it and I was drunk when I cheated on you, but I love you Newman, we can try, that baby would have been yours anyway.”

“I don't want someone else's child.”

Maybe that's a lie, I'll always say that the son Clark lost was mine, she's not entirely sure I'm not the father or maybe deep down she knows that. Can a mother know that?

“I'm sorry I hurt you, we can work this out, let's talk," he says. Love.

“You'd better go, I want you to get your things.”

“I can't leave, I have nowhere to go, you can't leave me on the street just because of a fight. Couples argue all the time and that doesn't mean you have to leave them.”

“If you think this is a simple fight, you're wrong, you can go and take whatever you want, you'll get nothing more from me.”

“It's crazy.”

I stand silently watching her adopt this cold and indifferent posture, I'm surprised she had the courage to speak to me like that. The anger is still all over my body and I don't care what happens to her anymore.

“Get out of my house, I'm going to eat with my parents when I get back, I don't want to see anything of you here.”

“You can't be serious, you can't leave me on the street, you can't pretend everything is going great and leave me voted homeless. What will people say? What about your fans? They love our relationship," she says desperately looking for any excuse to make me regret my decision and stay, but I have no regrets. I want her to leave today.

“Don't make it harder, Clark.”

“Do you love me?”

“Did you love our baby?”

“Of course.”

“Gather your things.”

“Newman...”

“If you don't pick up your things I'll throw them away and change the lock. If I were you, I'd want to leave with my things, my perfumes and all the designer clothes I own. Listen to me, Clark.”

You know I'm right, you don't want to go and leave me everything just out of pride. He can take whatever he wants, I won't do anything with women's clothes, I won't do anything with clothes that are only going to remind me of the way I lost my son.

She goes to the bedroom to collect all her belongings and I leave the house, when I arrive again I realise that I am alone, alone and all alone in this huge and empty house.

Seeing the house brings back too many memories, memories of everything I lived through and had to go through because of it. I wanted that baby, whether he was mine or not, he was going to carry my surname and I would mould him to my liking, he would be an image of me, I would feel proud and I could have taken him to his football matches, but I have lost him and now I don't know what to do with him.

Clark was an attractive woman with a knockout physique, I knew that most men wanted to have her for themselves, but I never imagined that she would be unfaithful to me, her eyes always sparkled when she talked to me, she seemed happy and told me all the things she did during the day, I loved listening to her because her witticisms always surprised me.

It was always something new with her.

The door to my house rings and I go outside, it's my private investigator, the one who's been giving me information about Clark and the things he's been doing, but she never told me he's been sleeping with another man, I'm sure she must have seen him at some point.

“Good morning, Mr Newman.”

“Good morning, I'm glad you showed up, I wanted to talk to you.”

“I came to inform you that I saw your fiancée getting into a car with another man, I have no idea who it was, but they seemed to be close, she was crying, I can get you more information about the man if you want.”

For a moment I think about saying no but then I reconsider my answer and decide to accept, I want to know who is the Puerto Rican that Clark has been sleeping with and with whom he would have a child.

I knew Clark had miscarried because I walked into the clinic and the investigator asked if she had made an appointment, and on the day of the appointment she came out crying. That's when I knew I had lost the child who would be my heir.

“Do it, I want you to inform me when you have everything and please don't be so obvious, I ask for discretion in the matter.”

“Has there been any inconvenience? He looks down.”

“I feel fine Roberto, don't worry about me and just do the job I asked you to do.”

“I'll take care of it, I heard there was a woman who had a baby girl in her parents' hospital.”

“What's that got to do with me?”

“They say she's a beautiful child, the prettiest child they've ever seen, as if an angel had come down from heaven, but the child's mother is bankrupt.”

“It is an unfortunate event, that child will grow up without ambition.”

“Maybe, Mr Newman.”

Roberto retires and takes off his hat as a sign of respect, I watch him leave and after a few hours I receive a message from him saying that the man Clark has slept with had worked for me a few years ago.

"You can take care of him, just make sure that the body is not visible to the police." That was all I told him and the next morning Puerto Riqueño turned up dead and reported missing in front of the authorities and his family.