by Amy Brent
“You want to tell me what it is?” I raised my eyebrows at him pointedly. “You were pretty quiet over the phone.”
“I didn’t want to scare you off,” he admitted. “But since you’re here-”
“Since I’m here, you figure that it’s going to be hard to scare me,” I cocked my head at him. “And you’d be right. So come out with it, what’s the big deal?”
“Okay,” He nodded, as though trying to get himself ready for what was going to come out of his mouth. “Okay, so, I’m looking for someone to have my baby.”
I stared back at him for a moment, my mouth hanging open slightly. I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard.
“Like…carry it?” I clarified, and he nodded.
“I live outside of the city and I want someone to come up and stay with me a while so I can take care of them while they’re pregnant – make sure I’m there every step of the way,” he explained. “I know it sounds crazy-”
“Yeah, a little,” I muttered. I refused to believe that a guy like him could possibly have a hard time getting women into bed with him. I mean, look at him – he was a stone-cold hottie, and I couldn’t help but wonder why he was putting ads in papers to find women to mother his children. I would have done it in a heartbeat, for free. Which I guess was lucky, given the circumstances.
“A lot has happened in my life and I’m ready to settle down,” he continued, his voice firm and commanding. Something about it pushed all the snarky comments from my head and forced me to pay attention to him, and only him.
“I don’t want a romantic commitment, to be clear,” he went on, watching me carefully to read my reactions. “I want someone to carry and birth my child, and that’s it. One year. A million dollars. You come live with me in my place outside the city. It’s big, and it’s got plenty of room for you to lead your own life there outside of me if you want to.”
“Holy shit,” I muttered, trying to take all of it in. Part of me was telling that this was so obviously a really dumb idea, that I would have been crazy to give in to what he was suggesting. But the other part of me, louder, was reminding me that if I stayed in this city long enough then Richie was going to catch up with me and I would be in a hell of a lot of trouble here. Stay and get caught for sure, or go with this guy and take him up on his insane offer. I eyed him for a long moment. A baby. I could manage that. Couldn’t I? If I had a million bucks at the end of it and the promise of his protection until then…
“Just how far away is this place of yours?” I asked. “And when will I get the money?”
“Half upfront, half when the year is up,” he replied at once. “And it’s in the forest, in the foothills of one of the mountains of the Castor range. You know where it is?”
“Yeah, I know where it is,” I nodded. That was a good few hours outside the city, and remote, too – not exactly the kind of place that Richie would come looking for me. Suddenly, I was overwhelmed with this urge to get out of this diner, out of this city, out of this place that I’d called home for so long. I was done with all of it. I felt this surge of certainty, even though I knew what he was offering was insane and that I was likely putting myself in a hell of a lot of danger agreeing to just walk out of this place with this man. But for a million, my safety, and getting far away from the city for a while? I would do it.
“Okay,” I nodded, and his eyes widened, as though he had never really expected me to agree to this.
“Okay to what?”
“To all of it,” I replied, feeling that familiar buzz in my chest, the one that came to life when I wasn’t sure whether I was making a good choice or a bad one. “You’ve got the cash to look after me, right? No-one will be able to find us up in that place?”
“No-one,” he promised me firmly. “I can say that for sure.”
“So, what, you turkey-baster me and then I just hang out until-”
“Natural conception,” he cut me off, lowering his voice slightly. My heart stuttered for a moment in my chest.
“That’s part of the deal?” I asked, and he nodded.
“That’s part of the deal,” he replied. “But if that’s too much for you-”
“No, it’s not too much,” I blurted out before I could stop myself. I didn’t know why I was so certain about that all of a sudden; maybe I was just determined not to lose out of this deal this late into the game. Or maybe, just maybe, after all that time holding back with Richie, I was finally ready to just get it over and done with already. Though, eyeing Cormac across the table, I wouldn’t have minded one little bit if this man wanted to take his time with me.
“Good,” Cormac nodded. “I can get the contracts drawn up and we can meet again to discuss-”
“No, I want to go right now,” I cut him off urgently. I knew it was going to look suspicious to him, but I could always fill him in on the details later. As of right now, I just needed to get out of here. I didn’t have time to look over contracts. I would just have to keep my fingers crossed that he wasn’t a serial killer and get the hell out of this place once and for all.
“Really?” He looked shocked. “You don’t want time to say goodbye to your family and friends and all that?”
“I don’t really have any family,” I replied. That was the truth, at least – my parents had both died when I was a kid and I didn’t have any siblings that I knew about. No-one would miss me when I went. Which was both a terrifying and relieving thought. “I just want to get started on this. I think it would make sense to go now, sooner rather than later, huh?”
“If that’s what you want,” he didn’t take his eyes off me, and I could tell that he was trying to figure out what my game was. I didn’t blame him. I was acting crazy, by any normal standards, and I would have had the same doubts if I was him. I stared back at him, biting my lip, hoping that he was desperate enough that he would step up to the plate and take what I was offering. Standing in as his pseudo-wife for a year. I could manage that.
“So when do we leave?” I asked, downing the last of my coffee. I wouldn’t be drinking a lot of that if I was going to be getting pregnant; the realization came down on me like a ton of bricks, and the world fuzzed-out around the edges slightly. I ignore the fear. I had to get out of here. Unless I could come up with a better option that this one in the next twelve hours, I needed to leave with him while the offer was still on the table.
“We can get out of here right now, if you want,” he replied. He still looked a little confused, like he couldn’t believe how well this was going. Well, if he had any idea what I was running away from, it would make perfect sense to him. I should tell him soon, but not before we had gotten out of the city and that contract was signed. If he didn’t ask what I was running from, then I wouldn’t tell him.
“Do you have a car?” I asked. I had my own one, but I had had to leave it behind when I had left Richie. I already felt a pang for it, the crappy little beaten-down Mini that I had saved up all my money for as soon as I was done with high school. But I had to let it go. Not just the car, but all of it – the friends I had made, the comfort I had found in a life that I knew how to navigate. The ground felt like it was shifting from underneath me as I looked at this man, at this man who had offered me a way out of this place.
“Yes, it’s parked outside,” he waved his hand towards the window, and I glanced outside to see a sleek, dark blue Porsche sitting a few feet away from the diner. It looked out of place on the run-down street. Wow. Okay. So this guy had some serious money – but I don’t know why I had thought that he hadn’t, even for a moment. He was offering me a million bucks to carry his child. Of course he was well off. Where had he made that cash from? I would have to get that out of me, one day. We’d have a whole year together to get to know each other, I supposed.
“So can we get out of here right now?” I asked, leaning forward, knocking my coffee and sending the cup jiggling on the table. His hand flashed out and caught it, holding it still. He moved so fast I had hardly had time to regi
ster it.
“Yeah, we can,” He agreed. He didn’t seem to want to question my enthusiasm any more than I did. I was ready. So was he. So let’s do it already.
I got to my feet and he did the same thing, letting go of the coffee cup I didn’t realize he’d still been hanging on to. I grabbed my back and clutched it to my chest, protectively. He waved the waitress over, and pulled a crisp ten dollars from his wallet and handed it to her.
“To cover the drink,” he nodded towards my coffee, and held out his hand for me.
“You sure about this?” He asked one more time, a small furrow appearing in his brow. I tucked my hand into his, feeling a whirr of adventure somewhere deep in my guts, despite everything, despite myself.
“Sure as I’ll ever be,” I responded at last, and he grinned. That seemed to be good enough for him. With that, he turned to the door, pulling me along behind him, and I hurried to keep up.
Chapter Two
I couldn’t for the fucking life of me figure out why she’d agreed to do it.
I’d expected to be looking for weeks to find someone suitable; she had agreed to come up so quickly, barely two minutes after we’d first laid eyes on each other. She slept on the back seat of my car as I’d driven her up to the cabin, soundly, like she hadn’t caught a moment’s rest for days. I watched her in the rearview mirror, stealing glances at her every now and then, committing her to memory. She looked so vulnerable like that. I wanted to keep driving all night, let her get the rest she so clearly needed, but the drive was only a few hours. It had seemed endless of the way there, but on the way back, with her asleep just a few feet away from me, it seemed to speed by.
I had to admit she was cute. I hadn’t given much thought to the natural conception part of the deal apart from the fact that was what I wanted, but now that she was there in front of me, I was looking forward to it. I tried not to let my brain stray in that direction as I drove up to the cabin, but it was difficult; there was something so sweet and vulnerable about seeing her like that, about seeing the way her mouth slightly parted as she breathed in and out slowly. I wondered how someone like her didn’t have a boyfriend already. Maybe she did – maybe that was the reason she was leaving so hastily.
When we arrived, she lifted her head and blinked blearily.
“Are we here?” She asked, voice a little throaty from sleeping so long. I nodded.
“You want me to take you room? You can get some more sleep,” I suggested. I had been watching her so long that I felt as though I needed to take a break. Like I might get addicted if I stared at her much longer.
“Yeah, that sounds great,” she sat up and yawned, raking her fingers through her hair. Her thick, blonde hair fell over one shoulder. The motion sensor-activated lights flicked on in the cabin, and in the light I could see her blue eyes shining. Her make-up was slightly smudged beneath her lashline, and I wondered how many people had had the chance to see her like this, just woken up. It felt oddly intimate.
I got out of the car and pulled the door open for her, and she climbed out; I lowered my gaze so she wouldn’t catch me staring at her, even though I was having a hard time keeping my eyes off of her. She wasn’t dressed in anything fancy, just jeans and a t-shirt, but the way it hugged her figure, showing off the curve of her hips and the inward slide of her waist, made it look as though she had been made to fit in my arms. I offered her my hand and she took it, and for a moment I felt that same zing of pressure that passed from her fingers to mine that I had felt back in the diner.
“You okay?” I asked, and she nodded.
“Just tired,” she replied, letting out another yawn. “Can you show me where I’m sleeping?”
I took her to her room, not bothering to switch on the lights in the cabin, and she made her way to the bedroom. I lingered there for a moment longer, wondering whether I should offer her something to eat or talk about what we had both just agreed to, but I figured we could handle all that later.
“Goodnight,” I nodded, pulling the door shut behind me, as she sat down on the edge of the bed and stretched. The bottom of her shit rode up a little as she moved, and I wondered, for a brief moment, if I should offer to start on that natural conception business sooner rather than later. But we hadn’t even signed the contracts yet, and I didn’t want to lay a finger on her until I had her written consent to do so.
“Goodnight, Cormac,” she called back as the door clicked shut, and I closed my eyes and savoured the sound of my name on her lips. It sounded right. Something about it just…fit.
I headed through to my room, linking my fingers behind my head and wondering what the hell I had just gotten myself into. I couldn’t believe this was really happening; all that time planning, carefully wording the advert, and I had found someone on my first try, someone who seemed to be willing to just go straight through with this. I knew I should have been happy to find someone so willing to carry my child for me, to step in as my pseudo-wife, but there was a churning in my stomach that told me something else entirely was really going on.
But I had promised myself it wouldn’t be like that. If I had wanted to settle down and start a family with someone, I would have gone out and actually started dating again. No. Not after what happened with Julia. I wasn’t going to let myself do it again. I couldn’t risk it. Enough of my life had been spent trying to get over that betrayal, and there was no way I was going to put myself right into the line of fire all over again for a woman I barely knew, the kind of woman who would drop everything when she was offered a million bucks for the craziest job on the planet.
Still. As I climbed in to a shower to wash the worst of the day’s travel off of me, I was having trouble shaking the image of her from my mind. There was just something so…so tempting about her. I would lay the contracts out tomorrow, make sure that we could get started on this conception thing already, because I was having a hard enough time not sliding into bed with her right here and now. It would have been so easy, just heading over to the bedroom, waking her up, reminding her just how keen she had been to take this job and agree to my terms…
The mother of my child. That was what she was going to be. I focused on that as the water poured over me and tried to not to think about what it would be like to fuck her, to take her, to make her mine. It had been a long time since I had felt this kind of desire for someone, and I felt a little drunk on it.
I ran my hands across my face, trying to cool myself off, but it was too late – I was already hard, my cock swelling at the thought of having her. She was only a few rooms away from me, and it was as though I could feel her presence pulsing through the house, like the world was out to remind me how near she was and that I couldn’t have her, not yet, not quite. I slid my hand down and took my cock into my fist, stroking it a few times, finding some relief. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d actually jerked off to the thought of someone in my real life, but that girl, she brought out something in me. Her willingness, that tinge of mystery to her. The fact that I knew we would soon be sharing one of the most important things in my entire life. It was all just so much to take in, especially when all I wanted to do was take her.
What would she be into in bed, I wondered? Would she want to make it businesslike, a transaction, or was she actually into me? The way she had started when I’d walked into that diner suggested the latter. I clenched my teeth and tipped my head back, and suddenly the image of her beneath me, hands bound to the bedframe above her, mouth slightly open as she let out a long cry of pleasure, burned itself into my brain. I moved with more purpose, knowing I had to come to get this shit out of my brain. I needed to think straight, not get caught up in whatever chemistry there was between us…
I wondered what she would taste like. Would she let me go down on her? I had no idea what “natural conception” meant to her, if it just meant the literal act of sex or if she would be amenable to everything else, as well. I sincerely hoped that she would be. I didn’t realize it until I laid eyes on her, but
I had seriously missed eating a woman out, making her squirm with my tongue as I went slow until she was begging for me to let her come. And something about that smart mouth told me that I would enjoy making her plead with me so damn much. My cock twitched in my hand and I realized that I was already getting close, my body tensing and my jaw clenching as I thought about moving into her, about taking her deep, about watching the way her face would contort with pleasure as I fucked her deep and came inside her-
I let out a grunt as I came, and immediately worried that I had woken her. But the water was running loudly enough that even if she had been awake, there was no way she would have heard me. The pleasure coursed through my system and then subsided and with my head clear, I felt a little embarrassed. No-one made me lose control like that, but there was something about her that did. Maybe it was specifically about knowing that I could have her soon, but that I had to wait for the time being. Or maybe it was the way I had felt when I had taken her hand getting out of the car. She was so small compared to me, so delicate, and the thought of her sprawled out in the enormous double guest bed all by herself made me want to crawl into it with her just to keep her company.
But I didn’t. Instead, I finished my shower, scrubbing my hair with the shower gel hard enough that I felt as though I was trying to scrub her out of my memory too. I would get the contracts all sorted for her to sign tomorrow, and then we could get down to it. And frankly, I was already excited.
Chapter Three
“Half a million? Just like that?”
“Just like that,” he agreed, tapping a few more keys on his computer and then looking back up at me, as though he hadn’t just moved more money than I’d made in my entire life in a few strokes of his keyboard. My eyes were wide and my mouth was hanging slightly open.
“You want to check?” He turned the computer towards me, and I reached for it. Even though I trusted him, I wanted to check it for myself. It just couldn’t be that easy. I headed over to my bank, entering my details, and checked my balance. Right enough, there it was.