This Strange Addiction, Julie Steimle [little readers txt] 📗

we did. I should have known I would get her pregnant—”

“How many women have you gotten pregnant?” Audry felt this question was the problem. How did he know he would get someone pregnant? Most people don’t assume that unless it has happened before.

Paling, Hogan nodded. “Fair question. And I deserve it.” Then, through mental pain, he silently added the number up in his head. Watching him struggle through it, Audry stared in near shock. Rick would have said, “One.”—quickly, with severe embarrassment. But Hogan actually had to count. The fact that she thought of Rick in this instance, made her blush as he really wasn’t a factor in her relationship with Hogan. But at the same time, Rick was (in many ways) the standard she was holding Hogan above. How could she compare them now? Finally Hogan shrugged, lifting his hands. “I don’t know. They didn’t always tell me when—”

“How many told you they were pregnant?” Audry bit out, now regretting thinking he was the best. Maybe he really was a player and she just did not see it until then.

He pulled back, cringing. “OK. To be fair—Viviane got pregnant twice. She aborted both times.”

Audry paled. As a vegan purist, she was anti-abortion. A life was a life, whether a cow or a fetus. And though he had described Viviane as the one who had been abusive in their relationship, Audry still wondered if Hogan had persuaded her towards an abortion. Some men did that. And if he had pressured her, that was the end of their relationship—a deal breaker for her. He had to know that as a true vegan, she just could not support such actions.

“Charlene—whom you met—also had an abortion,” he said, frowning. “When I met Cara, I really wanted to settle down. But like I told you, I was chased off.”

Audry glared.

“I know it sounds all wrong,” He said ashamed. “Fake. But…  But I was scared of getting shot. And… well, Cara moved on and set the baby up for adoption.”

“Is that all?” Audry asked stiffly.

He sighed. “I know you hate me for this, but uh, yeah—one other. Her name was Lucy. I called her Diana, and she was a lot like you.”

Audry stared. She didn’t know what to say. Hogan really could not keep his pants on. It was really upsetting.

Drawing in a breath and sighing, Hogan said, “Lucy… she also put the baby up for adoption. She wasn’t into marriage, or so she said, but she was anti-abortion. And, strangely enough she actually got married five years later—to an accountant, I think.”

That didn’t make Audry feel better, though. Hogan was an absentee father. He had two kids walking the world who had no idea who he was. How could he live like that?

“You’re disappointed in me,” he said, staring at the table. He barely lifted his eyes to her face. “I know. I was at complete bastard.”

“I think the word is blackguard,” Audry said stiffly.

He colored, closing his eyes. “OK.”

Silence followed. What could she say? She was still angry. She felt betrayed. And yet… they had promised to forgive one another of their pasts. The problem was, she had thought his past was just of a young idiot messing around. He had been so gentlemanly to her that it had never really occurred to her that maybe he had been a rather bad apple before he had met her.

Yet… just on that thought, she realized that perhaps he did want to change. That he had changed for her. That it was real love between them.

Even still, Audry finally said, “I need more time. I’m not happy about this.”

Hogan nodded sighing. He didn’t say anything.

“Hogan,” she said, meeting his gaze, “Did you never even think about those kids you brought into this world? What they are experiencing right now? Hmm?”

Cringing, he slowly shook his head.

Damn. He was being honest. Unfortunately, as Audry thought about his options, she realized the records on his offspring were most likely sealed. It was only fair to the kid and the adoptive parents.

But this also made her think of how Rick had done the same thing as Hogan—though in his case, only one woman got pregnant. When she had met Rick’s ex right before the Africa trip and found out the truth over the rumors which had flown around for years about him—talk about cultists, a pregnancy, drug addiction, and other things—Audry wondered what was true and what wasn’t. She had never known what to believe. Though she knew Rick was a well-spoken, often well-mannered heir to billions, Rick wasn’t exactly a gentleman in the same way Hogan was. He was a flippant speaker, for starters. And among his childhood friends, in his younger years he was a known hellion. She had learned this from a number of people who had known him as a kid—and Jessica even confirmed it. But at the convention, Daisy MacTire (an Alabama girl connected to one of his father’s factories in the south) confirmed that when he was seventeen or so and interning at his father’s factory when he had gotten her pregnant. And when he came to the booth and saw Daisy there with Audry, the actual grief he displayed when he admitted to getting Daisy pregnant was soul rattling. His worry over how Daisy was doing after she had miscarried—her physical and emotional health—was genuine. And of course his sheer panic over getting sucked into Daisy’s lure once more was also real. He had been seduced after all. Daisy herself had bragged as much to her, and she had intended to seduce him again before Rick’s friends interfered at the conference and chased of the entire mob of Daisy’s posse, who were what Audry had assumed to be freaky moon-worshipping cultists. It seemed the rumor of the drug addiction was the only false story from that summer.

Hogan in comparison didn’t look too good. Had Hogan been seduced by any of those women? Or was he the seducer? She gazed at him, trying to see if he was being sincere about his guilt. His eyes had been watching her, waiting for her to say something. She realized as she stared at him that Vincent was right, she was still attracted to troublemakers. Hogan was no different. It was inescapable. The question was, was he repentant, or was this another play? 

“Please tell me we’re not over yet,” he said in meek voice. “I really do love you.”

“Enough to marry me?” Audry asked, deciding she had to make it plain what she really wanted.

His head lifted up, hope swelling in his posture. “You’d still want to marry me?”

Gazing at him, realizing she still loved him, Audry sighed heavily. “Everybody’s got a past. It’s just…”

His hold on her hand tightened with earnestness. “I know. I screwed things up. But I do love you. And yes I want to marry you.”

Her cheeks colored. It was an almost-proposal.

“Let me make this right,” he said. “Let me make it up to you. The thing is, I have been trying to figure things about between us since we met, because I know you want to finish your PhD, and my work doesn’t always keep me in one place. And I know you want a home with… well… not in the city. My apartment in Queens wouldn’t exactly suit us together.”

Her heart started to pound. He was looking into a home for them?

“I want to do things right by us. I know you are not in for a live-in relationship before marriage,” he said. “And I want to avoid all the mistakes I’ve made in the past, so… please don’t give up on me. I’m sorry if I haven’t been more upfront about things. My life is a mess.”

Audry gripped his hand more tightly. So this is what has been on his mind. She was sorry she had judged him so harshly. She had to make it easier for him. He wanted what she wanted. She could see it. “Ok. Then include me in the details. Let’s stop pussy-footing around. Let’s go house hunting together.”

He brightened more. “Really? You’re up for that?”

Nodding, Audry forgave him. She couldn’t be mad at Hogan for very long. She just couldn’t. She loved him.

“Ok,” he said. “How about this weekend?”

Her heart beating faster, joy swelling up like a balloon in her chest, Audry nodded. “Alright. It’s a date.”

And that was more than an almost proposal. All he really needed now was the ring and bending on one knee.

As Hogan drove Audry home, he asked after a stretch of silence, “I know this is none of my business, but has your roommate Silvia come back from her friend’s place yet?”

Sighing, Audry stared out the window. “No. Yesterday afternoon she left me a note saying she won’t be home for a while. And I found out today why she’s been gone.”

His waiting silence answered her.

“I think I told you once Silvia was into, uh, weird pagan stuff, right?”

He nodded. “Yeah….”

“Well,” Audry did not want to freak him out, but she had to be honest with him. “I guess I never explained the details. Silvia is, uh, an ex-witch.”

His eyes widened. “What?”

“I know, freaky,” Audry said. “But uh, let me elaborate. You see, the town where Silvia comes from, they actually have a coven. And according to Rick and her brother Daniel, it’s a really powerful—”

“Rick? As in H. Richard Deacon the Third?” Hogan asked, a degree of interested jealousy in his voice.

Audry nodded, sighing. Here is comes, the thing she didn’t want to talk about. “Yes. I thought I told you, he grew up in the same town as Silvia. They went to high school together.”

He seemed to choke on either a huff or a chuckle, not sure which to do. “Wait a second. Hold on.” He pulled to the side of the road, finding an empty space at the curb. Putting the car in park but not shutting off the engine, he said to her, “How many people do you know connected to Howard Richard Deacon the Third?”

Coloring, Audry decided to count with her fingers. Hogan knew she was acquainted with him, but she had never really detailed how much she knew Rick.

“I mean, you said he was just a passing acquaintance,” Hogan said. He then met her gaze more squarely. “Come on, Audry. I thought we were going to be honest with one another.”

Groaning, Audry exhaled. “Alright. Rick Deacon and I really are nothing more than passing acquaintances. I’ve never really spent any great length of time with him—but I first met his friends way back when I was working on my Master’s degree. I was doing my research on a few of his family’s animal reserves which I got permission from him at a conference. I very briefly talked with them around New Years at the end of my research. And were only introduced. We didn’t actually talk. I was heading home that day. But I do have a few friends who are friends of his. We share a couple friends, actually.”

Hogan leaned back, listening. There was no criticism in his gaze, but wonder. “When you say passing acquaintance, what exactly do you mean? Ships passing in the night…?”

“No!” Audry laughed. She shook her head, realizing he was teasing a little. “Look, I first met him in Paris.”

His eyes widened.

“I know it sounds on the surface incredibly romantic, but it really wasn’t.” Audry then pulled out her cell phone, drawing out an old picture from her files. In the pic was a group selfie with her two old best friends back during high school, and Rick who looked at the time like a skater punk. She showed him. “I was with my French Club on a summer tour of Paris. My friends spotted him at the Eiffel Tower, and… well, look at the picture. He looks a little harried, doesn’t he? They wanted him to join us, but he had somewhere to go. It was like fifteen minutes at most.”

Hogan stared at it. But