A Baby for the Billionaire

58

JULIET

I can not anymore. I can't, I can't, I can't. Oh! I've been practically holding it the whole trip, and although the helicopter ride isn't very long, it seems like an eternity due to the dizziness that tortures me!

All the time the alcohol threatens to return to my throat, until I finally feel that it is time to run to a bathroom or some space where I can get it out, however, as soon as this flying monstrosity manages to land on solid ground, everything falls apart. It comes out in the vomit of my life.

I can feel Kerem freaking out at first, but then I hear him patiently saying to me through the earpiece "calm down, stay calm. Better outside than inside, let that poison out of your body as soon as possible."

My digestive system seems to take each of his recommendations to the letter as I let everything come out of me, with disgusting violence. The retching doesn't stop until the nauseating smell fills the entire space, but he doesn't seem to care. He starts up a kind of ventilation and when he finds the heliport, he opens the hatches.

I have stopped vomiting.

He takes a pack of disposable tissues from his pocket and offers me a couple. I accept, I wipe my mouth and then he goes to the booth where he draws water and hands me a bottle of Smartwater which I accept. I also go down the steps, somewhat clumsily, and I see my dirty shoes. I pour some water on my feet and take off my shoes.

He appears from the side "don't worry, they'll wash the helicopter tomorrow anyway, they have to put it through disinfection," he says.

But I try to stop him.

"No Kerem, please! Do not come!
When what I really want to say is "don't watch this".

But it's late, he's here.

"You don't have to worry, it's human that something like this can happen. In fact, it is the best thing that this has not remained in your body."

"But I'm all dirty and I smell horrible!"

"Ugh, yuck, you're right. You smell so bad," he says, making a face similar to the one one would make with their face buried in manure.

With total indignation I reply "Thank you very much, you don't know how I feel now!"

He lets out a little laugh and then moves to one of the agents who is on the spot in custody, to whom he gives some instructions in Italian. I deduce that it must be one of the men who works for Massera and then Kerem returns with some car keys in his hand. I throw away the empty bottle while carefully walking barefoot across the floor.

"Time to go home." He shows me the keys.

"Will you let me stay at my place?"

"And where else do you want us to go?"

"T-thank you. Ouch!" I complain. I have stuck a pebble in my right foot. I take it off, scraping with a fingernail, when before seeing it coming, Kerem's arms cross my legs and my armpits, until he holds me against his chest.

"What are you doing?" I complain, realizing that he has picked me up in his arms.

"Imagine you drive a screw into yourself. You might drop one of your loose ones and we have to take you to the ER."

"You're not making me feel better, you know!"

He chuckles again, which leaves me annoyed in a small part, but in another, deeper version of me, it makes me happy to hear him like that. I admit that since the day I met him, I have never heard him laugh like this or make jokes or try to annoy me. Suddenly, a sense of humor has appeared in Mr. Deniz, who also has an exquisite perfume and a solid chest, as well as a pair of very strong arms that support me on the way to the high-end car that awaits us at the heliport.

He gets me on the passenger side, then takes command and I fasten my seat belt. Once we start driving and I partly recognize something of the place where we are already, a fatigue descends on my body that manages to adjust each part of me to its axis. I look through the tinted window and make out that in the distance the sun warns that it will begin to lighten, with light pink tones that dye a clear sky in the middle of the entire field spread out in front of us before entering the city.

"Can you...drop me off a few blocks earlier?" I ask, somewhat sadly as we approach my neighborhood.

Of course he knows where I live, he took it upon himself to investigate me before I started working for him. For some reason, it doesn't feel romantic to me like it happens when you investigate someone when you meet them, like it happens in the movies or in the toxic romance books that I usually read from my kindle (which I haven't used for a long time).

"Why would I do that?" he asks, looking with evident disapproval at my context where I live. "Even less considering the dangers to which you expose yourself in a place like this."

"Sorry?"

He blinks and tries to retract "It's dangerous for a girl to be alone at this hour."

"I always lived my life alone and I never needed anyone to defend me."

"Until today."

"And I appreciate it, but if you always bring it up in my face, it's not right."

"Only accept the help you need when someone wants to provide it. I will leave you at the door of your house and period."

Oh no. If he thought this about my neighborhood, what will he think about my house?

"Okay, but I don't want complaints later," I warn him.

"Complaints about what?"

"I do not live in a palace nor was I born in a golden cradle like others."

"I don't like where the conversation is going, even less from you who already know me and know how my life has been."

"Then don't be mean to me either."

"Okay, is it this way?" He points to one more block along which we advance until we find the destination in question.

"It's here," I say quietly. The sky is already clearing up more, the general tints are rather orange.

"In these apartments?"

"Y...yes," I muttered with a pained voice.

"My God." He looks through the glass and then tries to take it back. "It's okay, don't worry, nothing bad."

I shoot him a murderous look.

"What?" he asks this time. "I didn't say anything wrong."

"But I didn't ask for your approval of whether it's right or wrong where I live."

"You have a huge future ahead of you, of course you can get much better than this," he says and I don't know whether to take it as an incentive or an insult. He seems to notice that I look at him suspiciously and adds "won't you invite me in to see your house?"

I blink, terrified.

"Wh-what?!"

"Come on, you're not going to expect me to drive back to New York without first letting me rest a bit. I bet you have at least a sofa, if not lend me a blanket and I'll sleep on the carpet..."

"Of course I have a sofa!" I tell him, trying to relieve my dignity.

But what I don't have is a carpet.

"Fabulous, then," he says with a huge smile on his face.

In fact, he has two enormous bruised croissants under his eyes, he is exhausted and it would be inhumane to let him go like this.

I finally sigh in defeat.

He insists "so Judith? What do you say?"

"Judith"?!

"Hahaha." He shrugs and waits for my response.