Shopping for a CEO's Baby (Shopping for a Billionaire Series Book 16)

by Julia Kent

  “Excuse me,” I say urgently, moving around the server, who bends her back so she can lift the tray of dirty dishes in the air. Finding an opening, I squeeze around her, walking as fast as I can to the bathroom, where I find–

  A line.

  “Oh, no,” I groan, pressing my palm against my stomach, wondering how I'll make it. My skin tingles, chills overtaking me. Who knew a stomach could change temperature in waves like this?

  “Are you okay?” the woman in front of me asks, gray hair framing a kind, worried face.

  “I'm pregnant, and, and morning sickness, and smells, and–”

  Gray Hair turns into my own personal lead blocker, sweeping aside the women in line like pee wee football players. People move back in waves, backs slamming against the wall as I lurch into a stall and everything comes back up.

  Orange.

  “PREGNANT!” Gray Hair announces.

  “Oh, honey.”

  “Poor thing.”

  “I remember those days!”

  The chorus of sympathetic voices form a wall behind me as my stomach unclenches, the wave over.

  And as I hear them talking among themselves, the shared experience of growing a human being–or two, in my case–with nothing but food and blood, I realize Gray Hair was right.

  All she had to do was shout “PREGNANT!” in a group of women and they instantly banded together in solidarity to help.

  To help me.

  I am a member of a new group now.

  One I didn't really understand even existed.

  Tap tap tap

  “Amanda?”

  I peel my face off the cool toilet seat and turn to see Shannon's navy high heels under the door. She really needs a pedicure, because the chips on those nails are big enough to have been chiseled.

  “Mmmm?”

  “You okay?”

  “Pregnant,” someone in the background mutters.

  Shannon laughs. “Oh, I know. I have a toddler at home.”

  Murmurs of understanding fill the air.

  Shannon's in the club, too. The one I didn't know about. One you only join through trial by fire. And my body decided to enter this new realm with double the impact.

  Damn Andrew and his supersperm. Of all the ways to beat Declan at this whole fatherhood thing, he had to do it with my body?

  “Andrew gets all the glory, and I get all the puking!” I choke out, spitting twice after, disgusted.

  “At least there aren’t any cameras these days,” Shannon commiserates. “The pap are leaving you alone.”

  “Only because Andrew forced James to stop using us to generate PR.”

  “And that article about how Andrew stopped being eligible once you were pregnant.”

  “Pffft. Doesn’t stop plenty of women from hitting on him, still.”

  “Yeah, but it keeps the asshole pap away, and that’s something.”

  She’s right. This would be so much worse if my puking were being documented.

  A hand comes under the door, a box of orange Tic Tacs in Shannon's fingers. “Here.”

  “What's that?”

  “I got them on the way here. Made sure they were orange.”

  Shaking them, she urges me to accept. Slowly, I move a few inches across the floor, the nausea holding back enough to snatch the little box, pop the top, and shake a single orange pellet into my hand.

  Gently, I put it on the center of my tongue, the taste buds on the tip too sensitive to assault quite yet.

  I close my eyes. I cross my legs, not caring that I'm doing this on a disgusting women's room floor.

  I breathe.

  My mouth moistens.

  “Shannon!” I call out. “This is working!”

  Applause comes from the other side. “Yay! I wasn't sure.”

  “She gonna be okay?” someone mumbles from the other side of the door.

  “In the long run? Yes. She's in her second trimester, pregnant with twins.”

  “TWINS?” Gray Hair shouts. “WHY DIDN’T YOU SAY SO, HONEY?”

  Groans of recognition fill the bathroom, an echo chamber of interconnectedness.

  It makes me feel better.

  Like this stupid orange Tic Tac.

  While the floor is nice and safe, I'll pick up a germ if I stay here, so I slide up the stall wall and stand, testing my balance. So far, so good. My palm goes to my stomach.

  “Let Mommy finish lunch with Aunt Shannon, okay, kiddoes?”

  “You say something, Amanda?” Shannon calls out.

  I open the door, plastering on a smile, but a really sad one. “Just talking to the babies.”

  “It'll get better, honey,” Gray Hair says as she washes her hands. “And if it gets really bad, grab a cigarette. Yeah, yeah, I know... my daughter and granddaughter want to tar and feather me, but one here and there to get rid of that sour stomach won't do you any harm.”

  The thought of a cigarette sends me straight back to the bowl.

  “I'll settle the bill,” Shannon says, bending down and calling under the door. “You do what you need to do.”

  And I do.

  Cursing Andrew the entire time.

  3

  Andrew

  Vince grabs my hand before I can touch the forties I'm about to do curls with.

  “What the hell is that?” He points to my orange cuticles.

  “Cheeto stains.”

  “You're eating Cheetos?” He sounds like I just told him I cooked my father's liver and ate it on a buttered croissant. Not sure whether he'd be more outraged at the patricide or the carb count.

  “Not me. My wife.”

  “Yeah, yeah. All my clients blame their partner. You're on a strict program, Andrew. No chemicals, no grains, no–”

  “Flavor,” Declan mutters under his breath as Gerald smirks. We're working out at this shithole gym Vince likes, only this time is different.

  Because I bought the place.

  Declan's not the only McCormick who can go out on his own and buy a company. No one, other than Amanda, knows I did this.

  And don't ask me why I did it.

  Turns out, the guy who created this gym, old Jorg, is one of those under-the-radar types. Quiet, unassuming, scruffy, and curmudgeonly, but street smart.

  Sharp.

  And ancient.

  The guy owns–owned–sixteen gyms across Boston, Lowell, Fitchburg, and Springfield, all of them gritty, intense places where guys like Vince and my old chauffeur/bodyguard, Gerald, like to get wrecked.

  This place isn't trendy. It's not fancy. Nothing about it makes me feel seen or displayed, and Instagram can go screw itself if it thinks any of the customers here give a rat's ass about posting anything.

  Which is why I bought the entire chain from old Jorg.

  Because this is the future of gyms.

  Not for everyone. But for plenty of guys like me. People want authenticity. They want to belong without being smothered. They want to be ignored but also welcomed.

  With a nod. A chin jut.

  Not an upsell or an ad push.

  Starbucks became huge not from selling coffee, but from selling the emotion you could feel when you got coffee there.

  Time to do the same with gyms.

  Only instead of market testing to find the optimal emotional experience for the widest customer base that can deliver massive quarterly profits, I just want to build a bunch of places that appeal to me.

  Why?

  Because I can.

  “Earth to Andrew,” Dec says, grunting through the words as he squats below parallel, staring up. Sweat coats him, from hair follicles to the elastic on the bands of his socks. Drenched and red, he's been busting a nut for the last two hours, clearly working through something more than muscle groups.

  “Huh?”

  “Vince is nagging you again. Pay attention.”

  “No.”

  Vince shrugs. “Fine. Pay me to ignore me. Best gig ever.”

  Dec lifts up, locks the weight bar in p
lace in the cage, and laughs. “You couldn't be paid to sit on your ass and do nothing, Vince. Within thirty minutes, you'd find a rattlesnake to wrestle, or invent cold fusion. You're one of those guys.”

  “Those guys?” Vince crosses his arms over his enormous chest.

  “You can't not work.” He thumbs my way. “Like him.”

  “I can not work,” I argue, Vince folding in half laughing before the sentence is out of my mouth.

  “But,” I continue, “I choose not to. It's like choosing not to have sex.”

  “If you're comparing sex to work, you're doing it wrong.” Declan gives me his patented older-brother eye roll.

  “Both involve being on top.” I smirk.

  “You're a workaholic.”

  “And a sexaholic.”

  “And a hypocrite. I don't work nearly the hours you do. I stopped when Ellie was born. But I don't think you'll stop, baby bro.”

  “Twins, Declan. I'm having twins.”

  Vince looks at my belly. “Where? Out your butthole?”

  “We. We're having twins,” I clarify.

  “One out of your butthole, the other out your wife's–”

  “Both of you can just shut up and let me lift,” I grouse as Vince checks something off a list on a clipboard.

  “Stop eating your pregnant wife's Cheeto stash.”

  “I'm not! If you have to know, my fingernails are stained because I was feeding her.”

  “With your hands?”

  “Yes. Some mornings, she wakes up so sick, it's the only thing that keeps her from puking. Her eyes open and I slowly move a Cheeto into her mouth. She sucks on it for a while, and then she can sit up.”

  “That is the worst beginning to a porno ever,” Dec drawls as he tosses a medicine ball my way, the unexpected hit to my solar plexus making me laugh.

  “I'm sure sex is the last thing on Amanda's mind these days,” Vince says, suddenly serious. He gives me a pitying look. “Hope you enjoyed your last time sleeping with her, because it'll be a while.”

  “Says the man who has no kids.”

  “True, true... but I know hormones. And we know what Declan's described. You shot your wife up with double the trouble, man.”

  I shoot Dec a big old grin. “That's right.”

  “Which means she's going to be twice as sick.”

  My grin freezes.

  “And the glorious second trimester is going to be a blink for you. Not that nice, three-month stretch of horny preggo wife Declan got to enjoy.”

  Are Declan's shoulders shaking with laughter?

  A blast of cool air from the main door makes us all turn to see old Jorg walk in. He's the only person in my life other than Amanda who knows I bought the gyms. Even Vince doesn't know, which is about to change when I offer him a huge raise and a director-level role–with plenty of time on the flagship gym's floor–running my new chain.

  “Speaking of preggo wives, how's Suzanne?” Declan calls out.

  “She's good.” Gerald has a face like a concrete block, with a smushed nose and scars to go along with the look. Head shaved bald, he's intimidating as hell, which is perfect for a bodyguard.

  But he’s a study in contrasts: The guy is also a marshmallow on the inside, teaching sculpting to little kids at a local center for the arts, spoiling his wife's dog, Smoochy, and getting ready for his first kid.

  Like me.

  Except I've got two coming.

  “How many weeks now?” I ask.

  “Fourteen. You know, I'm amazed,” he says in a weirdly reflective tone. Gerald's not one for offering up opinions, insights, or… ugh.

  Feelings.

  “At what?” Vince asks.

  “Suzanne hasn't had even the slighted whiff of morning sickness. She's gained ten pounds. The doctors just told her to stop running five miles a day, so she's fast-walking seven instead. Her caseload at work is the same.”

  “And the sex?” Vince asks, eyes cutting to me.

  One offended eyebrow goes up on Gerald's face, making him look like a villainous Mr. Clean. “’Scuse me?”

  “We were just talking about pregnancy sex.”

  One corner of Gerald's mouth curls up. “Let's just say her caseload has expanded in that area.”

  I drop the forties in my hand and grunt at Vince. “Next.”

  “Ropes. Use the wall anchor. Then tires,” he orders.

  A curt nod is all I have in me. Exhaustion isn't the problem.

  Gerald's words are.

  No way will I admit this to the guys, but we haven't had sex since morning sickness crept in. Amanda cries–a lot–and apologizes profusely. And she offers other, shall we say... activities as compensation.

  But I want her.

  All of her.

  And I want to give.

  Jacking off in the shower (at home, not here, because I'm not depraved) barely takes the edge off.

  So if I'm looking at double the morning sickness, double the nausea–double the negatives–in order to have double the children, while the trade-off is worth it, of course, the terms of this deal suck.

  They're the only thing that's sucking these days, because unfortunately, my dick isn't orange. Amanda would put it in her mouth more often if it were.

  Hmmm. Can you buy dye for that?

  “Andrew!” Jorg barks, making me look up sharply, the curve of a rope looping up damn near shearing off my nose. The guy looks like he's ninety, but I now know he's seventy-eight. How do I know?

  Contracts.

  “What?” I call back to the guy, who seems like he's walking with a lighter step. Is this what the curmudgeon looked like when he was happy?

  “How you liking the place?”

  Vince goes dead still. Damn it. I told Jorg not to blow the secret.

  “Smells like an elephant got drunk and took a piss in here,” I answer as I wipe down a bench.

  “Good. Wouldn't want nothin’ to change.” Then he cackles. Vince looks at him, then me, eyes narrowing.

  Instead of asking what's up, he says, “Your glutes look like something you find in the broken doll bin at a thrift shop.”

  “What's a thrift shop?” I ask, puzzled.

  That must have come out a little too loud, because I can feel everyone's eye roll. Why?

  Vince points to the mat. “Hundred burpees. Now.”

  “What?”

  “Do it.”

  “Why are you punishing me?”

  “One, because I'm your trainer. You pay me to punish you. Two, because you're sheltered.”

  “Sheltered? I'm not–”

  “If you don't know what the hell a thrift shop is, you're sheltered.”

  I look at Dec. “You don't know what one is, do you?”

  “Of course I do. Marie and Shannon used to drag me to those places all the time. It's like an antique store for poor people.”

  “A junk shop?” Now I get it, turning to Vince for vindication.

  “You,” Vince points at Declan, then the mat next to me. “Hundred burpees with him.”

  “Why me?”

  “You billionaires need to feel more pain. Toughens you up.”

  “He's not a billionaire anymore,” I clarify, earning a glare from my big bro.

  “Well, boo hoo,” Vince says, the sole of his shoe going flat on my spine the second I drop, reflexes fast enough to move as I stand. “You'll just have to hug your hundreds of millions and listen to the whispers of all those not-quite-billions as they flatter you.”

  Dec drops to the mat with me, humoring him. “I don't like your tone,” he says. “It's funny when it's pointed at Andrew, but not me.”

  “Are those tears I see? You can wipe them up with hundred-dollar bills. I'm sure Ben Franklin can feel your pain.”

  Dec opens his mouth to argue. I elbow him.

  “Shut up. The more you argue, the more he'll make us suffer.”

  “Since when did that bother me? Have you met our father?”

  Seventeen minutes and half
an ACL tear later, I finish.

  Before Declan, for the record.

  This place is too stripped down for a water cooler. I press my thumb against the ancient water fountain faucet and aim my bottle. The slow gurgle of water arcing in makes me long for touchless water bottle refill machines.

  Definitely installing some of those in here soon.

  “Hey. You bought the gyms?” Vince says to me in a raw voice, astonishment evident in his tone.

  “Shhh. Yes. I was going to tell you, but–”

  “Hey, man, you don't owe me an explanation.”

  “I know I don't owe you one. I want to give you one.”

  “You're moving on. Found a different program. It's cool.”

  His words don't make sense to me.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Cold eyes meet mine. “Jorg told me. I'm sure you're moving on the gentrification plan some bean counter at your company came up with.”

  “Gentrification?”

  Vince gestures towards the door. “This neighborhood was a steaming pile of dog crap when I was a kid. No one wanted to live here. Jorg had this place long before he took me in. And now you're razing it and turning it into some co-working place for doggie daycare, or whatever you real estate developers do.”

  A thousand defensive responses go through my head before I shut the hell up and just cross my arms over my chest, breathing carefully, letting the silence hang between us. Vince is furious. So angry, he won't make eye contact.

  “That's why you think I bought the gyms from Jorg?”

  “Why else would you?”

  “Maybe I like the place.”

  He snorts, using the towel in his hand to wipe imaginary sweat off his shoulder. “You only come here because of Gerald and me.”

  “No. I came here the first time because of that. I kept coming back because I like how I feel when I'm here.”

  “No successful CEO of a Fortune 500 company does business based on how he feels.”

  “Wrong, Vince. So wrong. That's how you get to be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. How something feels is one of the best predictors of success. Plus, this place fills a hole in the market. The combination captures my attention.”

  Now he meets my eyes.

  “And I don't want to change anything. Not even the stench of your wrongness.”

  Vince puffs up. “You seem awfully cocky.”